8 THE BOOK OF FORESTRY 
town and city dwellers the forests owned by the nation 
as a whole are open to the freest possible use. 
Future of Forestry.—This splendid national storehouse 
of timber, however, constitutes but one-fifth of the total 
stand of the United States, therefore will have relatively 
little influence in preventing any timber famines when 
the privately owned forests have been exhausted. More 
forest land should be acquired by the National Govern- 
ment and already under the Weeks law over 1,000,000 
acres have been purchased upon the headwaters of navi- 
gable streams in the Appalachians and White Mountains. 
The States should be encouraged to extend their hold- 
ings of timber reserves, which now comprise only about 
3,500,000 acres. Private landowners, especially paper 
manufacturers and water companies—organizations 
with continuous existence—should be shown the value 
of forever keeping their wild forest lands producing 
crop after crop of timber. 
One phase of timber production worth trying in this 
country is the raising of forests by cities and towns. 
Thirteen States have already made a small beginning, 
Massachusetts leading with a total of fifty-six communal 
forests. In Europe many such forests are operated by 
the villages, serving as a recreation ground and revenue 
producer at the same time. 
The city of Zurich, Switzerland, possesses a forest 
of nearly 10,000 acres, which yields a net revenue of 
$7.50 per acre per year. Numerous other villages in 
Germany and Switzerland may be found where the 
revenue from the city forest pays a large share of the 
running expenses of the city. 
Thus we see that in spite of the fact that forestry 
had its humble beginning forty years ago and did not 
begin to establish national forests on a large scale until 
