OWNERSHIP OF FOREST LAND AND TIMBER 



H. R. Josephson 

 John R. McGuire 



INTRODUCTION 



The condition of forest lands and prospective 

 timber growth depend to a great extent upon 

 the decisions of several million individuals, cor- 

 porations, and public owners of forest lands. 

 Ownership thus represents one of the key factors 

 affecting the Nation's timber supply. As primary 

 dependence is placed upon the growing of new 

 timber crops, the attitudes of forest owners, their 

 capacity for management, and their response to 

 forestry programs become of increasing importance 

 in developing forest policies and action programs. 



Field surveys show that forest productivity, 

 planting, fire protection, and other management 

 practices are dii'ectly related to type of ownership 

 and size of forest holdings. They are related to 

 owners' financial capacity and interests in timber 

 growing. Programs for American forestry, if 

 they are to be successful, must reach a great 

 variety of owners, particularly the vast number of 

 private owners who control the bulk of the 

 Nation's forest land. 



THE INFLUENCE OF PUBLIC 

 LAND POLICIES 



Current problems of forest ownership to a large 

 degree have their roots in ownership patterns and 

 land policies followed at various stages of the 

 Nation's history. 



Origin of the Public Domain 



In the original 13 States and Texas, a land area 

 of about 460 million acres was held in private and 

 State grants. But with the subsequent growth 

 of the United States, the Federal Government 

 acquired title to unoccupied or public domain 

 lands totaling 1 ,442 million acres in the continental 

 United States alone. This vast area was obtained 

 from the original 13 States during the period 

 1781-1802, from France in 1803, from Spain in 

 1819, from Mexico in 1848 and 1853, from Texas 

 in 1850, from Indian tribes through various treaties 



and purchases, and by occupation of the Oregon 

 territory. Acquisition of Alaska from Russia in 

 1867 added an additional 365 million acres of land to 

 the Federal public domain. A portion of the 

 public domain in the United States was transferred 

 to individuals or States to satisfy prior claims, 

 but most of it was made subject to disposal under 

 a wide variety of public land laws. 



Lands Transferred to Private 

 AND State Ownership 



The historical policy of the United States with 

 respect to the public domain provided that the 

 Federal Government act as trustee, with lands 

 to be transferred to private ownership as rapidly 

 as practicable. This policy was designed to aid 

 in the development of agriculture, education, 

 transportation, and communications, to foster 

 economic growth in the new western territories, 

 and to strengthen the national economy. 



In carrying out this policy, the Federal Govern- 

 ment has disposed of more than 1 billion acres of 

 public domain in the United States, or 70 percent 

 of the area once held there. This has been achieved 

 primarily through public and private land sales; 

 homestead grants and sales; grants to States for 

 schools, internal improvements, and various insti- 

 tutions; grants to railroad corporations; grants to 

 veterans; mineral entries; and sales under the 

 Timber and Stone, Timber Culture, and desert 

 land laws. 



The Federal Government largely succeeded in 

 its objective of fostering the settlement and rapid 

 development of a vast wilderness. In general, the 

 most productive and accessible timberlands were 

 disposed of to a variety of individual, railroad and 

 other corporate, and State ownerships. As a 

 result of the procedures followed, many areas of 

 timber and other land in the West were disposed 

 of in tracts that were too small for efficient man- 

 agement, and much forest land was transferred to 

 speculators and other owners through fraud and 

 lenient public land laws. 



289 



