36 GOVERNMENT FOREST WORK. 



We have used up our forests without growing new 

 ones. At the bottom of the whole problem is idle 

 forest land. The United States contains 326.000,000 

 acres of cut-over or denuded forests containing no 

 saw timber ; 81,000.000 acres of this amount has been 

 completely devastated by forest fires and methods of 

 cutting which destroy or prevent new timber growth. 

 The area of idle or largely idle land is being in- 

 creased by from 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 acres annually, 

 as the cutting and burning of forests continue. We 

 are short of growing forests. 



The situation necessitates a broad policy of forestry 

 for the whole Nation which will include both an en- 

 larged program of public acquisition of forests by the 

 Federal Government, the several States, and munici- 

 palities, and the protection and perpetuation of forest 

 growths on all privately owned lands which may not 

 better be used for agriculture and settlement. For 

 the latter there must be (1) an organized system of 

 public protection of all forest lands, including cut- 

 over lands, against fire, with a division of the cost 

 of maintaining protection between the public and 

 timberland owners, and (2) public prescription and 

 enforcement of methods of woods practice necessary 

 to prevent devastation. 



Cooperation with States. 

 Fire Control. 



Forest fires, which covered a total of 56,488,307 

 acres of land in 45 States, caused damage amounting 

 to $85,715,747 during the five years 1916 to 1920, in- 

 clusive. A total of 160,318 forest fires occurred dur- 

 ing this period in the United States, with the State 

 of Minnesota as the chief sufferer from fires, its loss 

 being $30,895,868. 



