preceding section. Up to now there has been 
only one large-scale Federal purchase of old- 
growth timber; most Federal acquisition has been 
by exchange. Exchange of national-forest timber 
for private cut-over land in good condition should 
be continued and expanded. In the long run it 
should result in careful cutting of privately owned 
old-growth timber within the national forests. The 
boundaries of national forests should be extended 
so as to enlarge the working area within which 
properly cut-over private land can be exchanged 
for Federal timber. 
STATE GOVERNMENTS 
An urgent phase of the State forest-land-acquisi- 
tion program is the acquisition by both States of 
timber strips along main highways. This should 
be carried out immediately. Whatever the ulti- 
mate plan for handling tax-forfeited forest lands 
may be, the States should at least insist that such 
county-owned lands as border highways, are 
traversed by good fishing streams, or possess other 
recreational features be transferred from the 
counties to the States. Both States should acquire 
more ocean frontage, not only to reserve more 
beach land for public recreational use but also to 
control development that would destroy present 
vegetative cover and result in serious sand-dune 
encroachment. 
The State of Washington should continue to 
acquire State forests from private owners, by the 
utility-bond method or otherwise. In western 
Washington there are several large areas of cut- 
over land of high site quality, both with and with- 
out second growth, that could advantageously be 
blocked into State forests. The State might adopt 
an exchange system similar to that of the Forest 
Service and trade the timber on some of its scat- 
tered lands for carefully logged land inside the 
boundaries of existing and proposed State forests 
This would involve some changes in existing legis- 
In Oregon 
there does not seem to be much chance that any 
lation governing disposal of State land. 
considerable amount of State money will be allotted 
for direct forest-land acquisition in the near future. 
The prompt setting up, if only on paper, of sev- 
eral State forest acquisition units in both States is 
strongly urged. In many places large areas of 
138 
forest land have reverted to county ownership and 
additional large areas are almost sure to do so. 
Most of this land is obviously unsuited to private 
ownership and use. Scattered among the reverted 
areas are numerous small parcels of private land 
that cannot be operated independently on a sus- 
tained-yield basis. These parcels are held by 
persons interested not in managing the land for 
continuous forest production but in liquidating 
the forest capital; they include forest operators 
winding up their affairs in these localities and 
individuals gainfully employed in nonforest in- 
dustries. Tentative boundaries could be set up 
now around groups of such holdings, each group 
composing an area sufficiently large for an eco- 
nomic administrative unit, say about 100,000 
acres. The boundaries need not be extended to 
include all parcels of land that may soon come 
into State ownership. Such action would impress 
upon the people that the State was planning to 
give these lands a definite management status as 
soon as finances would permit it, thus stimulating 
transfer to the State of county lands within such 
units. 
COUNTIES AND MUNICIPALITIES 
No sound reason appears for recommending any 
county forest-acquisition program other than for 
Coun- 
ties have not evidenced the consistent policy or the 
financial ability that would justify such a recom- 
mendation. ‘The frequent changes in local officers 
and policies and the constant struggle to finance 
existing local public services, owing to dependence 
small parks needed by rural communities. 
upon general-property taxes exclusively, prevent 
the counties from following a long-term, consistent 
program of management such as is required for 
proper forest administration and from undertaking 
the expense of such administration. In this region 
natural operating units overlap county boundaries, 
making it impractical for counties to undertake to 
protect or manage forests. Administration, par- 
ticularly protection, is more economical if spread 
over large areas. In view of these considerations, 
the counties would be better off in the long run if 
they conveyed their tax-forfeited forest lands to the 
State and the State made contributions to the 
counties in lieu of taxes on lands of this category 
