4 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



Besides the General Land Office which controls the 

 Public Domain or Public Lands as defined above, 

 others administer National Forests, Reclamation 

 Projects, National Parks, National Military Parks, 

 National Monuments, Indian Reservations, Light- 

 house Reservations, and Federal Game Preserves. 

 And, besides these conspicuous land classes, other 

 classes less distinctive are administered by the War, 

 Navy, Post Office, Commerce and Treasury Depart- 

 ments. Then there are Water Power, Oil and Min- 

 eral Withdrawals; that is, lands reserved tempo- 

 rarily from other uses until these special uses can be 

 realized. 



There is no generic name for federal lands as 

 a whole because the United States government has 

 not, for many decades, considered its lands as a 

 whole. No administration bureau controlling any 

 one class of lands officially knows the extent of any 

 other class of lands, or much about the problems, 

 methods and policies concerned in administration 

 of other land classes. Of course special problems 

 frequently involve two or more bureaus in some 

 common activity. But, until the private organiza- 

 tions of the country concerned in outdoor recreation 

 effected national organization in May, 1924, and 

 called on the national government for co-operation, 

 no common objective had for many years united all 

 land administrations. There is no government 

 agency to correlate the groups. 



.With organization of out-door recreation, how- 



