their authority, but for 

 the general program 

 these accusations do 

 not apply. 



The President's allotments 

 for acquisition were the 

 direct result of his desire to 

 establish meaningful work 

 for his newly formed Civilian 

 Conservation Corps. The 

 Corps was Roosevelt's 

 solution to two national 

 problems: high 

 unemployment among 

 young men aged 1 5 to 24 

 (the so-called "teenaged 

 tramps of America"), and 

 the Nation's dwindling 

 natural resources. With 

 shovels and picks, his Tree 

 Army would wage war 

 against erosion, wildfire, 

 and depletion of America's 

 forests. 



According to the 1 933 report 

 of the National Forest 

 Reservation Commission, 

 the Corps could be most 

 effectively employed on 

 national forests; but in the 

 East, 



the incomplete 

 condition of the national 

 forests, with thousands 

 of privately owned 

 properties intermingled 

 among the Federal 

 holdings, militated 

 against the most 

 complete and 

 economical use of the 

 Corps. As an alternative 

 to transportation of 



many thousands of 

 men to States remote 

 from their points of 

 origin, the prompt 

 purchase of remaining 

 private lands within the 

 national forests was a 

 logical course (U.S. 

 Congress, Senate 

 1933). 



With the prospect of new 

 lands to administer and 

 labor to develop it, the 

 Forest Service divided its 

 Region 7 to form the 

 Southern Region (R-8) on 

 July 1, 1934. The new 

 region's 1 1 national forests 

 totaled only about 4.3 million 

 acres in 1 1 States: Alabama, 

 Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, 

 Louisiana, Mississippi, North 

 Carolina, Oklahoma, South 

 Carolina, Tennessee, and 

 Texas. (Puerto Rico was 

 added to the Southern 

 Region the following year.) 



The Southern Region's 

 original forests were the 

 Alabama, Cherokee, 

 Choctawhatchee, Kisatchie, 

 Nantahala, Ocala, Ouachita, 

 Osceola, Ozark, Pisgah, 

 and Unaka. 



Two years later, in 1 936, 

 the Southern Region 

 experienced its greatest 

 year of expansion: 15 new 

 national forests were 

 proclaimed within its 

 boundaries. They were the 

 Conecuh and Talladega in 



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