138 FOREST OUTINGS 



all our country east of the Mississippi River. But the Forest Service figures 

 that nearly 1 acre in 4 — 168 million out of 630 million acres — is useless 

 as commercial timberland. Thrown together, this 168 million acres 

 would more than blanket all of Maine plus all of New Hampshire, Vermont, 

 Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New 

 Jersey, Maryland, West Virginia, and Ohio. 



Yet often this noncommercial forest land, of which more than 4 acres out 

 of every 10 is in public ownership, if sensibly handled can serve most use- 

 fully in protected watersheds to reduce damage by floods and erosion, to 

 clear up muddy streams, to restore depleted and impaired water resources, 

 to conserve and multiply remaining wildlife, and to afford recreation. 



Hunters go wherever the game can be legally shot. They tramp across 

 cut-over lands as freely as through unlogged forests, across reforested fields 

 as readily as over native mountain meadows. Fishermen try their luck in 

 almost every sizeable stream which has any fish and in all but a few of 

 the most remote lakes. They, too, generally concentrate especially near 

 roads and population centers, so that the streams in these vicinities are often 

 completely fished out. Nevertheless, a-fishing they go wherever there is 

 water enough to wet their lines. 



And so it is, in a measure, with motorists, picnickers, and campers. 

 The country 'round about may be skinned bare and unattractive. The 

 forest scene may present no sylvan aspect whatsoever — only denuded 

 mountainsides and fish-depleted streams left after a recent heavy burn, or 

 dense dry brush fields, or the clear-cut pulpwood operations of New England, 

 or the dredged-up wastes in the lower reaches of streams on the Tahoe 

 and Eldorado National Forests in California. But fishermen come to enjoy 

 the poor fishing on streams in some of the ugly burns. Energetic walkers 

 sometimes include the brush fields in cross-country hikes. Hunters look for deer 

 in the cut-over New England pulp lands, and curious tourists drive the rough 

 roads by the Tahoe tailings to see how gold is gathered from the leavings. 

 Such use is welcomed for whatever pleasure it can bring, but it will not 

 materially affect the land planning of stricken areas now included in the 

 national forests. 



Where there is no timber, recreational use and forest industries naturally 



