community forests can supply numerous services to the public, includ- 

 ing facilities for outdoor recreation, habitat for wildlife, watershed pro- 

 tection, a reservoir of work for local unemployed, and income to the 

 community from forest products. Often the rehabilitation of a tract 

 of cut-over or burned-over land can be undertaken as a community 

 enterprise. Local public forests as living memorials to war dead have 

 been proposed in some communities. 



A number of schools maintain forests which not only serve as out- 

 door classrooms for the teaching of elementary forestry, conservation, 

 and natural history, but provide an income to the schools from the 

 growing and selling of forest products. The United States Forest Serv- 

 ice is encouraging and cooperating in the establishment of community 

 forests as part of a broad program of public forest development. 



The proper management of community forest properties naturally 

 requires the services of trained foresters. At present, most of the com- 

 munity forest enterprises that are being given technical forestry advice 

 or direction obtain such service from State foresters or Federal forestry 

 agencies. There is a growing tendency, however, toward the direct 

 employment of trained foresters as community-forest managers. In 

 1944, some 15 community forests employed full-time foresters. 



OPPORTUNITIES IN PRIVATE FORESTRY 



Though Federal and State agencies, educational institutions, and 

 semipublic associations will doubtless continue to lead in research and 

 extension, the great field for professional foresters in the long run will 

 be in private work. Nearly three-fifths of the merchantable timber in 

 the 48 States, and almost four-fifths of the good timber-producing land, 

 is in private ownership, and this fact alone clearly indicates a large and 

 fruitful field for the trained forester. 



Private owners may be classified in a general way as industrial, in- 

 cluding lumber, pulp and paper manufacturing companies, and other 

 large manufacturers of wood products; public-service corporations, such 

 as railroads and water companies; recreation and hunting clubs; min- 

 ing companies; owners of large private estates; and farmers and other 

 small woodland owners. 



Private owners provided some of the earliest examples of profes- 

 sional forest management in the United States, and some have handled 

 their timberlands carefully for many years. Generally, however, pri- 

 vate owners have been slow in adojDting measures for continuous tim- 

 ber production. The Forest Service has set up as a permanent activity 

 a project to work with the States, lumbermen's associations, and tim- 

 berland owners to the end that improved woods practices may be 

 extended. Lumbermen's and pulp and paper manufacturers' associa- 

 tions are also encouraging good forestry practice on industrial forest 

 lands instead of the old "cut-out-and-get-out" methods. In the last few 

 years, several million acres of industrial holdings have been included 

 in a "tree farm" program sponsored by industry associations. Recent 

 State regulatory laws in several States look to increased attention to 

 good forestry practice on private timberlands. A proposal for Nation- 

 wide public regulation of timber cutting and related practices has been 

 widely discussed. This would set up basic standards of forest prac- 

 tice sufficient to prevent destructive methods of cutting and keep all 

 forest lands in reasonably productive condition. 



