2 BULLETIN 364, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
the annual cut has already reached the high point. If pine is to 
continue to play an important part in commerce and industry in the 
South, steps will have to be taken now to protect cut-over areas from 
fire and unrestricted grazing, and to manage them in a way to insure 
continuous production. 
Investigations have shown that the removal of the forest roel 
cover by repeated fires has increased the amount of soil washed into 
such streams as the James, Roanoke, Wateree, Savannah, Alabama, 
Pearl, Red, Arkansas, Trinity, Brazos, and Colorado (of Texas). 
Great sums of money are spent annually in dredging work to remove 
sand bars from the rivers of this region. Bare ground from which 
rain runs off as quickly as it falls also increases the danger from 
floods; and floods in the Southern States have in the past caused 
millions of dollars damage to property and the loss of many lives. 
Watershed protection will not of itself prevent floods, but it will 
lessen their frequency and seriousness; and it will oS excessive 
erosion over the whole area covered. 
The solution of such problems as these is necessary to the future 
welfare of the whole community, and experience has demonstrated 
beyond question that they can be solved satisfactorily only through 
public action. Adequate forest legislation would involve in each 
State: 
(1) A nonpartisan department of forestry. 
(2) A technically trained forester as State forester. 
(3) A forest fire protective system. 
(4) Cooperation with private owners and towns in preparing 
plans for the management of timberlands and woodlots and for 
commercial and shade tree planting. 
(5) State-owned forests by gift or purchase. 
(6) An adequate appropriation of funds. 
Besides the steps just outlined, each State might well make an 
examination of its own lands (if it possesses any), and withdraw 
from sale those chiefly valuable for timber production, setting them 
aside as State forests. Measures might also be taken to restrict the 
running at large of live stock. 
The Anan: pine States he in a region especially favorable to 
the rapid growth of desirable tree species and offer an exceptional 
opportunity for the practice of forestry. Virginia, North Carolina, 
and Texas already have adopted forest policies, but their combined 
yearly appropriations for putting them into effect amount to less 
than $20,000. 
At the request of each of the States in the southern pine region, 
except Georgia, and in cooperation with them, the Forest Service 
