8 CIR. 211, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
had never been any public domain. The poor lands 
remaining in Federal control were inadequate to meet 
public needs. The purchase of additional lands val- 
uable for the protection of the headwaters of nay- 
igable streams or for timber production and their 
reorganization ‘as national forests were therefore 
authorized by Congress, first by the act of March 1, 
1911, called the Weeks law, and later by the amenda- 
F-237472 
FIGURE 2.—Pure hemlock in Heart’s Content area, Alle- 
gheny National Forest, Pa., one of the land areas pur- 
chased by the Government. for national-forest purposes 
in the Hast 
tory act of June 7, 1924, known as the Clarke-McNary 
law. (Fig. 2.) For the conduct of this purchase 
work the Weeks law established the National Forest 
Reservation Commission, which consists of the Secre- 
tary of War, the Secretary of the Interior, the Secre- 
tary of Agriculture, two Members of the Senate, and 
two Members of the House of Representatives. At 
the close of the fiscal year 1930 the commission had 
authorized the establishment of 39 separate purchase 
units situated in 20 of the States east of the Great 
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