106 FOREST OUTINGS 



Data for the years 1905 to 1914 are not available for all national-forest 

 regions, but the North Pacific Region in 1909 reported 45,000 recreation 

 visits to its forests and the Rocky Mountain Region reported 115,000 the 

 same year. It is interesting to compare these figures with the 1,507,000 and 

 1,785,000 visits, respectively, made to the same forest areas for recreation 

 in 1938. 



In 1911 Congress passed the Weeks Law which authorized the Secre- 

 tary of Agriculture to purchase lands necessary to protect the watersheds 

 of navigable streams. Shortly after that date, the purchase of lands and 

 the establishment of national-forest areas was initiated in Eastern States 

 Since these purchase units were close to centers of population, they were 

 used for recreation from the first. 



The early use of the forests in all portions of the country by city people 

 required some attention by forest officers. Every visitor increased the fire 

 risk and in areas of concentrated use sanitation soon became a problem. The 

 policies evolved to safeguard the forests from fire and to protect the public 

 health were simple — public use of the forest areas was free with the fewest 

 possible restrictions. Early practices consisted principally of a simple 

 request: Visitors were asked to "leave a clean camp and a dead fire." 



Forest rangers took time to clear inflammable material from around 

 heavily used camp spots and to build crude rock fireplaces. They erected 

 toilets and dug garbage pits whenever materials could be obtained. They 

 developed and fenced sources of water supply for campers. They made and 

 put up signs to guide people and caution them about care with fire. Con- 

 gress made no appropriations for such special needs for many years but 

 ingenious rangers fashioned camp stoves and fireplaces of rock, tin cans, 

 and scrap iron; tables, toilets, and garbage pit covers were made from 

 lumber scraps and wooden boxes; and crude signs were painted and dis- 

 played on rough-hewn shakes. Many of these earlier improvements were 

 raw looking and some of them were clearly out of place in the forest environ- 

 ment, but they filled a real need. 



At first, most of the field force was beyond its depth on questions of recrea- 

 tional planning. They needed help by the time the specialists came along. 

 The demands the field now makes on the specialists' time and energy give 



