26 Recreation Uses on 



magazine; we can ride out to the park and back; or we can get 

 10 cents' worth of fishhooks and go fishing. Our choice is still 

 much restricted. 



If we seek a comparison with forms of recreation more nearly 

 like those offered by the Forests, our results are less precise but 

 no less convincing. A few men are able to maintain private hunt- 

 ing and fishing clubs in the Adirondacks, in Maine, or on the 

 Restigouche. The time they pass at these resorts costs them 

 anywhere from $i to $10 an hour. To take a vacation at any 

 public seaside or mountain resort costs from $2 to $10 a day. 



These figures, though somewhat sketchy, are a statement of 

 plain facts. In view of them the following generalizations are 

 self-evident : 



1. The minimum market cost to the consumer of wholesome 

 recreation privately provided is 10 cents an hour. 



2. The average cost of commercial recreation is much higher, 

 probably lying somewhere between 25 cents and $1 an hour. 



It ought to be self-evident, further, that the great bulk of such 

 recreation is worth all it costs. If it isn't, the large majority of 

 our whole population are being daily robbed in their recreation 

 bills. One more premise hardly needs an argument, viz, that the 

 average recreation on the National Forests is as valuable in all 

 human ways as the average of commercial recreations. 



Now if we take even the minimum of these estimates and apply 

 the figures to the problem in hand the results are fairly sober- 

 ing. For 75,000,000 recreation hours annually yielded by the 

 National Forests (and these figures will be quickly and widely ex- 

 ceeded in years to come), valued at the minimum of 10 cents an 

 hour, amounts to $7,500,000 — a pretty penny. 



Stated in general terms it appears that the recreation use of the 

 National Forests has a very substantial commercial -value, and that 

 recreation stands clearly as one of the major Forest utilities. 



