GOVERNMENT FOREST WORK 7 
in creating the reserves. Timber cutting must pro- 
vide for the growing of a new timber crop. Un- 
restricted grazing had seriously injured the range; it 
was necessary to devise methods for increasing the 
forage crop. Both timber use and grazing use must 
be so managed that water supplies would be main- 
tained and bettered. All the resources of the forests 
needed to be given careful consideration and plans 
devised for their best development. Without such 
plans little of the value of the forests to the public 
could be secured. ‘Technical problems were involved 
which the officials of the Interior Department felt. to 
be outside their province. They therefore at first 
requested the aid of the experts of the Department of 
Agriculture as advisers and soon recommended the 
transfer of administration of the reserves to the latter 
department. 
This transfer took place in 1805. In 1907 the name 
“forest reserves’’ was changed to ‘ national forests,” 
by act of Congress, to indicate that their resources 
are not locked up as “reserves” for a distant future. 
National forests are under Government management 
for the purpose of securing sound economic and in- 
dustrial development of large areas of timberland in 
the best interests of all, which experience has shown 
can not be equally attained under private ownership. 
In administering the national forests, therefore, the 
first aim of the Forest Service has been to protect 
their resources so that they will always be there to 
use, and at the same time to see to it that the greatest 
number of people have an equal chance to use them. 
PURCHASE OF EASTERN NATIONAL — 
FORESTS 
By the time the national-forest movement began 
virtually all except some inferior remnants of the 
public domain within the States east of the Great 
Plains had passed to State or private ownership. 
Indeed, in some of the thirteen original States there 
49240° 
