STORY OF OUR NATIONAL FOREST 129 



ing their legal object forest conservation instead of 

 merely the preservation of stream sources. 



With this act began a reconstruction which it 

 is the duty of every man and woman to do all possi- 

 ble, however small or local, to advance. The saving 

 and upbuilding of our forest remnant has now prac- 

 tically passed out of the intimate control of Con- 

 gress into the hands of the people individually and 

 in organization. It is a national problem of the first 

 order of importance which must largely be worked 

 out locally and each can find at home his own part, 

 for there is a part for each. Let the United States 

 Forest Service, expert, public-spirited, and willing, 

 become the instructor and the partner of all. 



NATIONAL FORESTS AND THEIR ADMINISTRATORS 



The Forest Service administers to-day one hun- 

 dred and sixty National Forests whose boundaries 

 include areas summing 183,938,106 acres or 287,- 

 403 square miles. Included in this total are many 

 private holdings which aggregate 39,279 square 

 miles, leaving 158,800,424 acres, or 248,126 square 

 miles, net, in public ownership. 



These forests occur in twenty-eight states and 

 two territories. Because suitable forested lands in 

 the East had all passed into private or state owner- 

 ship before National Forests were authorized by 

 Congress, they group largely in eleven far-western 

 states: .Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, 

 Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, 



