GOVERNMENT FOREST WORK 25 
though of the greatest importance to the people ard 
industries of the country, does not yield the Govern- 
ment a return in dollars and cents. In the case of 
almost every forest, moreover, a great deal of money 
must be spent for roads, trails, bridges, and telephone 
lines before the resources can be used. 
The law requires that of the total net receipts of 
the national forests, 25 per cent be turned over each 
year to the States to be apportioned for road and 
school purposes to the counties in which the national 
forests are located. An additional 10 per cent is 
used for road building on the national forests, so that 
35 per cent in all of the receipts returns directly to 
the benefit of the local national-forest communities, 
while many of the expenditures by the Forest Service 
for national-forest protection and improvements also 
aid in local development. To June 30, 1929, the con- 
struction of 16,730 miles of roads and 47,175 miles of 
trails had been made possible from direct forest road 
appropriations and other Federal and cooperative 
funds apportioned to States. About $100,000,000 has 
been spent on this work in the history of the Forest 
Service. | 
NATIONAL-FOREST IMPROVEMENTS 
To make the national forests fully useful to the 
public, and also to facilitate their administration and 
protection as Government properties, it is necessary 
to equip them with various classes of improvements. 
Some of these are primarily for official use, as, for 
example, fire lookout stations, ranger stations, and 
telephone lines. (Fig. 13.) Incidentally, many of 
the improvements of this class are of material service 
to the public. Other improvements are purely for the 
benefit of specific forms of public use, as, for example, 
drift fences, stock-watering places, and public camp 
grounds. Still others are put in both to facilitate the 
task of administering and protecting the forests and 
to promote use and serve the interests of the public 
generally. 
