later, when even-aged 

 management (and the 

 associated clearcutting) on 

 national forests became a 

 critical public issue. 



By 1923, the Commission 

 felt comfortable in 

 strengthening earlier 

 evaluations of the national 

 forests' value as 

 demonstration areas. In the 

 report of that year, the 

 Commission asserts: 



It is believed that one 

 of the most substantial 

 contributions which the 

 eastern national forests 

 are at present making 

 and will continue to 

 make toward assuring 

 a future timber supply 

 is their value as 

 demonstration forests 

 in directing the effects 

 of private owners of 

 forest land. Owners of . 

 . . privately owned lands 

 within the purchase 

 units are now protecting 

 their lands and holding 

 them with the object of 

 securing future cuttings 

 of timber from the 

 second growth. 

 Undoubtedly owners of 

 much additional land 

 located outside the 

 boundaries of the 

 purchase units are 

 doing likewise, thus 



following in a general 

 way the practices of 

 the Government in the 

 management of the 

 National Forests. 



The adoption of this 

 policy on the part of 

 private owners, all of 

 whom hold their lands 

 as sources of timber for 

 the supply of mills, is 

 an eloquent tribute to 

 the methods which are 

 being employed by the 

 Government and which 

 they have at least in 

 part adopted. 



As the decade of the 1 920's 

 drew to a close, 1 1 national 

 forests had been 

 established within the 

 boundaries of what is now 

 the Southern Region. At 

 the end of 1930, national 

 forest lands covered 

 3,359,806 acres, and the 

 annual timber harvest had 

 risen to nearly 85 million 

 board feet. The area 

 annually burned had been 

 reduced to 1 percent of the 

 net national forest acreage. 

 These were exciting 

 resource management 

 accomplishments, and the 

 greatest period of national 

 forest establishment in the 

 South was at hand. 



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