on small private holdings makes it plain that such 
landowners should receive more attention than 
they have been getting. Public agencies and the 
tree-farm movement have so far made small gains 
in this field. 
It has been said that when good forestry is 
profitable for the private owner he will practice 
good forestry. While this statement greatly over- 
simplifies the case, it has a large element of truth 
in it. Certainly, the primary stimulus to private 
endeavor is the opportunity for profit. The recent 
forestry progress among large private owners is 
largely due to the improved economic outlook 
for long-term forestry enterprises in the State. Not- 
withstanding, one of the handicaps that the people 
of Montana must face is that the margin for profit- 
able operation is and perhaps always will be much 
narrower here than in most other timber-produc- 
ing areas of the United States. That handicap 
makes it difficult for private owners to do all they 
should in a forestry way. Therefore, while private 
forest owners have an obligation to handle their 
lands properly, they need public help. 
Public effort to engourage private. forestry and 
make it profitable has been piecemeal and inade- 
quate. There are several ways the public can help 
private owners to increase timber yields, and thus 
employment and income: (1) Provide education 
and technical on-the-ground guidance. (2) Provide 
other assistance such as credits. (3) Relieve burden- 
some conditions, such as discriminatory taxes. (4) 
Prevent owners from abusing their properties. (5) 
Manage public lands in such a way as to favor 
and facilitate proper management of private lands. 
Improving the Ownership Pattern 
To say that the ownership pattern of forest land 
grew in a haphazard fashion is an understatement. 
The net effect of the various alienations and with- 
drawals from the public domain was in places a 
scrambled ownership situation which greatly com- 
plicates forest management. 
A map plotted with the original grants of land 
to Montana for schools and other institutions 
would have the appearance of being peppered by 
a shotgun. The organic Act of the Territory of 
Montana, for example, gave the State sections 16 
and 36 in every township for the support of the 
common schools. The State was able to consolidate 
a few blocks when the original selections were made 
and there was some consolidation later through 
exchanges of land with the national forests. How- 
ever, only one-third of the State timberland, 222,000 
acres, is concentrated in seven fairly large units 
which have been set up as State forests. 
Area of State-owned land 
within State forests 
State forest: fore 
(acres) 
Goal = Greek, ae eee eee eee 20,000 
Stillwater!02.2 hac ssos eee ee ene 90,000 
Swans ooeriesos aaa ole oe eee 42,000 
Thompson River sre. Woe ee ee 30,000 
Glearwatenss. Saha. en ee eee 18.000 
| 6 0 (oK0) ba bese Sewer emer nis Se cua oD G 8,000 
SUlas 25a es ans SEL eee 14,000 
Vota reste oe ea 222.000 
The rest is scattered throughout the State in small 
tracts, usually of 640 acres and less. Even within 
the State forests, State lands are far from being in 
solid blocks. The Forest Lands Advisory Commis- 
sion points out (/2): “Since, however, most of the 
timber and land within the boundaries of the 
majority of these State forests are privately owned, 
the State forest idea is little more than a name.” 
The Northern Pacific Railway was given alter- 
nate sections on a strip 40 miles wide, paralleling its 
railroad tracks through Montana.“ One result was 
a checkerboard ownership pattern that still exists 
in some localities (fig. 40) , and creates innumerable 
problems of development, management, and utiliza- 
tion. Because a large part of the railroad Jand was 
sold to other private owners at the beginning of 
the century, the problem of intermeshed ownership 
affects more than the Forest Service and the North- 
ern Pacific Railway. 
Homesteaders could go wherever they wished on 
the public domain when it was opened to settle- 
ment. Many of them staked their claims in timber 
areas where the economic odds have been against 
them and where, in some cases, their holdings have 
impaired the administration of surrounding lands. 
After the various selections, grants, and with- 
drawals had been made from the public domain, 
the Bureau of Land Management of the Depart- 
ment of the Interior was given the responsibility for 
administering the remainder. This land is widely 
scattered over the State. Ownership data for western 
Montana, collected the middle 1930's, 
showed that there were 201,000 acres of unap- 
propriated lands in that part of the State in 799 
separate tracts. The average tract was 252 acres. 
during 
* When the alternate sections given to the railroad were 
already occupied it had the privilege of selecting an equal 
area of land outside the strip. 
52 Forest Resource Report No. 5 U. S. Department of Agriculture 
