GOVERNMENT FOREST WORK 9 
Plains, and within 29 of these units, situated in 16 
States, had authorized purchases to the extent of 
4,133,483 acres, at an average cost of $4.63 per acre, 
or a total cost of $19,143,129.79. These same units 
also contain 2,338,354 acres reserved from the public 
domain; the total area under administration by the 
Forest Service, therefore, is 6,471,887 acres, or 1.8 
per cent of the estimated area of forest land east of 
the Great Plains. 
As the Government obtains title the forests are put 
under systematic management with the object of im- 
proving their regulative effect upon stream flow and 
of increasing the supply of forest products. The tim- 
ber alone on the eastern national forests has a present 
value greater than the entire cost to the Government 
of acquiring theSe lands, although much of the land 
had been depleted by lumbering and fires while in 
private ownership. Under the practice of forestry the 
stands of timber are increasing at the same time that 
the protective value of the cover as a regulator of 
stream flow is materially improved. From an indus- 
trial standpoint these eastern national forests will 
play an important part as permanent Sources of sup- 
ply of material, particularly hardwoods for local 
establishments, and will appreciably lessen the acute- 
ness of the timber shortage in the East as the supplies 
of virgin timber approach the vanishing point and 
before the general practice of forestry on private lands 
has been under way long enough to supply timber of 
commercial size. 
THE NATIONAL FORESTS FOR USE 
The policy under which the national forests are 
administered by the Department of Agriculture 
through the Forest Service was laid down by the 
Secretary of Agriculture in a letter to the Forester, 
dated February 1, 1905, in which he said: 
In the administration of the forest reServes it must be 
clearly borne in mind that all land is to be devoted to its 
most productive use for the permanent good of the whole 
people and not for the temporary benefit of individuals or 
