GOVERNMENT FOREST WORK 3. 
The timber, water, grazing, recreational opportuni- 
ties, and other resources of the national forests are 
for the use of the people. The national forests con- 
tribute largely to industrial enterprises through their 
yearly cut of over a billion and a half board feet of 
timber ; they protect watersheds of about one-third of 
the water-power resources of the country and help to 
insure pure and abundant water supplies to hundreds 
of towns and cities; they furnish pasturage for about 
13,800,000 head of livestock of all ages; and they 
afford playgrounds for millions of recreation seekers, 
to whom these vacation places are made accessible by 
the building of roads and trails. 
This circular tells in a general way how these 
resources are handled in carrying on the manifold 
work involved in making them of fullest use to the 
public. It tells also something of other activities of 
the Forest Service in bringing about better use of our 
forests and forest products generally. More detailed 
information concerning the use of the national forests 
and their resources may be obtained by applying to 
any forest officer or to the Forest Service, United 
States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. 
BEGINNING OF GOVERNMENT 
FOREST WORK 
Though the national forests represent the greatest 
single activity of the Government in forestry, Gov- 
ernment forest work had its real beginning as far 
back as 1876, with the appointment by the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture of a special agent to study gen- 
eral forest conditions in the United States. In 1881 
a division of forestry was created in the department, 
but for a long time it received an annual appropria- 
tion of less than $30,000, and could be little more 
than a bureau of information and advice. From this 
small beginning, as its field of work expanded, the 
division grew (1901) into the Bureau of Forestry, 
and finally (1905) into the Forest Service, with an 
appropriation for the fiscal year 1931 of slightly over 
