tered by a Nation-wide organization, such as the Farm- 

 Credit Administration. 



8. Assistance to farmers and other small forest owners 

 in the formation and operation of forest cooperatives for 

 the marketing and, in some cases, manufacture of forest 

 products. Aid should presumably consist of publicly em- 

 ployed personnel to give advice on management of timber- 

 lands, manufacturing, marketing, and on credit facilities 

 for establishing small manufacturing plants or the purchase 

 of cooperative equipment. These services can be provided 

 through measures already recommended. More local 

 foresters provided as already explained, would supply the 

 needed personnel, and credit would be available under the 

 provisions of the proposed forest credit item. A limited 

 amount of credit for developing forest cooperatives is 

 also now available to farmers through the Farm Security 

 Administration. Forest cooperatives would be particu- 

 larly beneficial in the piedmont, where a high proportion of 

 the forest is in farm woodlands. 



9. Expansion of forest research in order to tackle new 

 investigations and intensify work on problems now treated 

 inadequately. Most of this expansion can be undertaken 

 efficiently at the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station. 

 The additional research work on projects of direct benefit 

 to this State and to other States in the station's territory 

 would cost at least $100,000 annually. 



10. Increased support of local communities and indus- 

 tries by the national forests. There is opportunity, particu- 

 larly in the mountains, for the development of cooperative 

 agreements between the Forest Service and several of the 

 larger lumber companies, whereby the companies would 

 obtain their annual requirement of saw timber from the 

 national forests without competitive bidding, at a fair 

 price fixed periodically by the Forest Service. Additional 

 legislation to authorize this would be required. This 

 would help to establish permanent industries and would 

 be contingent upon good forest practice on lands owned 

 by the lumber companies. 



11. Development of a better method of reimbursing 

 counties in lieu of taxes where national forests occupy a 

 large part of the county area. At present 25 percent of 

 the receipts from national-forest timber sales, special-use 

 permits, and other miscellaneous sources, is contributed to 

 the support of local schools and roads. This money is first 

 paid to the State, and the sum from each national forest 



is then distributed to the counties in which located in 

 proportion to the national forest area they contain In 

 the fiscal year 1942, the national forests returned $27,469 

 to the counties, about 3 cents for each acre of national 

 forest. Taxes on similar land in private ownership were 

 in general substantially higher in these counties. 



The disparity between Federal contributions and local 

 tax losses will decrease as the national forests are built up 

 and larger volumes of timber become available tor sale, j 

 In the meantime, however, the contributions on this 

 25-percent basis may be found inadequate in some local- 

 ities. One suggestion for remedying this temporary diffi- 

 culty which deserves serious consideration is that the 

 Federal Government make a minimum annual contri- 

 bution equal to a stated percentage of the purchase price 

 of national-forest lands. It has been suggested that this 

 percentage contribution be three-fourths of 1 percent, 

 which is only a little less than the average tax levy on farm 

 real estate in North Carolina, as reported by the Bureau of 

 Agricultural Economics, which was 0.87 of 1 percent of 

 full value in 1941. A reduction of this order would be 

 offset in many counties by the decreased need for services 

 of local government on account of Federal construction 

 and maintenance of certain roads and other features of 

 national-forest administration. Such a minimum would 

 be superseded by the 25-percent basis for contributions to 

 local governments as soon as receipts were sufficiently 

 large. Based on acquisition to June 30, 1941, such a mini- 

 mum Federal contribution in Macon county, which has 

 the largest area of national forest, would be $6,927, or 4.8 

 cents per acre. On the same basis, the minimum for the 

 entire State would be $36,361, or 3.9 cents per acre, which 

 would equal about one-third of the national-forest receipts 

 in the fiscal year ended June 30, 1942. 



12. Acquisition, as feasible, of more land for national 

 forests. Many tracts of land within the forest boundaries 

 of the Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests should be 

 purchased to reduce administrative expense, fire hazard, 

 and trespass. Also a rather large area on the east side of 

 the Blue Ridge Mountains, lying chiefly in Wilkes County, 

 could be added to the Pisgah National Forest to afford 

 more protection to the watershed of the Yadkin River, a 

 very important source of hydroelectric energy. The 

 Uwharrie Ranger District in the piedmont should also be 

 expanded to include more land now subject to serious 

 erosion. 



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