These often furnish sufficient income to pay forest admin- 

 istrative costs plus a good return on the capital investment 

 and thus leave the income from the forest resource as a 

 net gain. In such cases, the landowners should be alert to 

 possibilities of increasing forest returns through proper 

 care and use of their timber. 



5. Forest-land owners, particularly those with small 

 holdings, should consider the advantages of organizing 

 themselves into cooperative associations. Such organi- 

 zations should employ technicians to advise and assist 

 woodland owners in applying sound forest practices to 

 their land, should develop more favorable marketing oppor- 

 tunities for forest products, and make more effective the 

 influence of their members in public affairs. Coopera- 

 tives of this kind could also assist Federal and State agen- 

 cies in administrative and research work such as the organi- 

 zation of fire-protection associations and economic studies 

 of timber growing and manufacture. 



What the State Can Do To Assist 



1. A foremost forestry objective ot the State should be 

 to provide fire protection for all forest lands. Since the 

 public, in one way or another, is directly or indirectly 

 responsible for a large proportion of the forest fires, the 

 State should assume a large share of the responsibility of 

 fire prevention and suppression. Adequate State funds 

 should be granted to supplement Federal funds under the 

 Chirke-McNary Act and a sufficiently large and fully 

 trained protection organization should be maintained. 

 Through an educational campaign the public should be 

 made aware of the character and magnitude of forest losses 

 through uncontrolled fires. 



2. The State in cooperation with the Federal Govern- 

 ment should give particular attention to increasing extension 

 activities which carry to forest-land owners the principles 

 of forestry, including both silviculture and utilization. 

 This assistance can be expanded by enlargement of the 

 State division of forestry, through employment of more 

 extension foresters by the Agricultural Extension Service, 

 and through additional instructions in forestry in the pub- 

 lic schools. The recently established State system of dem- 

 onstration forests should be extended to serve the largest 

 possible number of smaller forest-land owners. Fores- 

 try extension is needed particularly in the Mississippi River 

 Delta, where scientific forestry has not yet made as much 

 progress as in other parts of the State. 



3. The general industrial planning program, which is 

 making impressive headway in the State, should weave 

 the forest industries into the industrial pattern of each 

 section of the State. As a part of such a program, some 

 State agency should give intensive study to the forest 



situation in order to determine the location and distri- 

 bution of forest industrial plants that will develop maxi- 

 mum benefits from the forest resource. Until smaller 

 areas are defined, the five Forest Survey units used in this 

 report might serve as regional areas to be studied. 



4. State nursery facilities should be enlarged to furnish 

 forest planting stock to landowners at low cost. Sufficient 

 funds also should be made available to the State division 

 of forestry to provide expert supervision of planting opera- 

 tions, particularly in southwest Louisiana. 



5. Tax laws and practices should be reviewed for the 

 purpose of bringing to light any unnecessary obstacles to 

 timber growing and the establishment of stable forest 

 communities. It may be that the exising special forest 

 tax law should be superseded or revised in such a manner 

 that more forest lands will be directly benefited. In any 

 case, the question of tax administration is an important 

 one and much is to be gained, whether or not there is new 

 legislation, by convincing parish officials of the long-run 

 benefits to their communities in a sympathetic approach to 

 taxation of lands under forest management. 



6. Because normal cutting is depleting the saw-timber 

 volume on private lands in the State, thus threatening the 

 future of the forest industries and the jobs they provide, 

 attention should be given to public control measures in 

 order to maintain and build up the forest stand. Of a 

 total of 16 million acres of forest land, less that 2 million 

 acres are handled under a system of management where 

 the forest capital is being maintained or increased. 



7. The State should enforce better observance of the 

 property rights of private forest-land owners, in order to 

 reduce timber thefts, incendiarism, and other forms of 

 trespass and damage. 



What the Federal Government Can 

 To Assist 



Do 



What the Federal Government could do to assist is 

 clearly indicated in the recommendations of the Joint 

 Congressional Committee on Forestry, submitted to the 

 76th Congress, March 24, 1941. The following recom- 

 mendations for the State of Louisiana are adapted from 

 the summary of that report: 



1. Increase its appropriations for cooperative fire protec- 

 tion under the Clarke-McNary Act. At present Federal 

 funds are not sufficient to match the State and private 

 funds offered for cooperative fire-protection effort. Local 

 interest and contributions can definitely be stimulated by 

 greater Federal participation. 



2. Support an adequate educational program in coopera- 

 tion with the State to assist the owners of forest land in 



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