Figure 7. — The McSweeney-McNary Act established the Forest Survey Unit. Here a forest in- 

 ventory crew measures tree diameter on the Kootenai National Forest in 1965. 



creasing costs of maintaining the comprehen- 

 sive resurvey work. The emphasis of the sur- 

 vey has consistently been on timber as the pri- 

 mary forest product, even though the legisla- 

 tion calls for a much broader scope and orien- 

 tation. Section 1.4 of the Forest Survey Man- 

 ual issued in 1952 repeats the wording of the 

 1949 Forest Survey Manual in its interpreta- 

 tion of legislative objectives: "By the terms of 

 the legislation the Survey has a responsibility 

 for 'other forest products' i.e., for gathering 

 and interpreting data on forest products other 

 than timber. This phase of the Survey is not 

 covered in this manual." When the original, 

 separately issued Survey Manual was incorpo- 

 rated into the more comprehensive Forest 

 Service Manual as section 4813.1, in March, 

 1967, no mention at all was made of these 

 "other forest products." 



The only reference uncovered in this study 



to the broader responsibilities of the Forest 

 Survey is found in a letter written by former 

 Secretary of Agriculture Orville L. Freeman. 

 With reference to a bill amending section 9 of 

 the McSweeney-McNary Act to provide addi- 

 tional funding for the Survey, Freeman states, 



Increasing emphasis on the use of forest land 

 for purposes other than for growing timber has 

 produced a need for basic natural resources in- 

 ventory data. This additional information is re- 

 quired for meaningful analysis of the total tim- 

 ber resource situation. Before these data can be 

 obtained, research on kinds of information 

 needed for making decisions on management of 

 non-timber resources is required. Additional 

 research is also needed to develop efficient pro- 

 cedures, techniques, and methods for surveying 

 the forest land non-timber resources. 37 



Letter to Hon. Hubert H. Humphrey, February 

 20, 1967. 



25 



