Forestry Notes 



117 



and promptly, and, with one or two exceptions, the same is true of the 

 towns; but the public which enjoys the mountain has responded lament- 

 ably. Not only is the membership list ridiculously small; more unfortu- 

 nate still is the fact that one-third of the members lack sufficient inter- 

 est in the work to pay their dues. 



Incidentally, one-quarter of the Association's income is contributed by 

 Mr. William Kent. 



Frederick E. Olmsted, 



Consulting Forester 



Development of the Recreation Use of the National Forests 

 A Circular Letter to Forest Officers 

 Forest Supervisors and District Rangers, District 5; 



What is the present status of the recreation use on your Forest? Not 

 that I want a collection of dry figures on the number of travelers that 

 annually go into the mountains. I want you to think about it. A few 

 hundred or a few thousand auto- or wagon-campers wind up your roads 

 in summer, or pack or hike over the trails in your back country. You 

 know in a general way who they are and where they come from; but 

 have you ever seriously studied them from the point of view of develop- 

 ing and promoting this use to the fullest possible extent? 



What are the possibilities in this line? With no figures at all, simply 

 from our general knowledge and common sense, we know that they are 

 enormous. Every man or woman or child who gets out of a town or a 

 hot valley and puts in ten days in the mountains in summer is a health- 

 ier, happier and better citizen for it. Do you begin to see the possibilities 

 opening before us for contributing to the public welfare ? Suppose we de- 

 fine the object we want to accomplish as increasing the recreation use 

 tenfold in five years on every ranger district in every National Forest in 

 California. Let's see how we ought to go about it. 



The man who is going on a summer vacation will be looking for 

 hunting or fishing grounds ; for chances to live and sleep in the open — to 

 camp; for impressive or beautiful scenery; for opportunities for swim- 

 ming or boating, or for regions where he can explore unknown country 

 or regions of scientific interest. Our job is to facilitate the accomplish- 

 ment of these objects by the prospective vacationist. The most obvious 

 road to it is publicity. 



What is wanted is to tell as many prospective visitors as possible all 

 they would want to know about a trip into the mountains. A map is 

 probably the most effective and useful means of conveying this informa- 

 tion. Suppose each Forest starts systematically to work this winter pre- 

 paring the very best "Recreation Map" possible. The information is all 

 collected — it is either in the files or in the heads of one or more officers. 

 It remains only to get it into usable shape. 



Take the camper map as a base, and put all the recreation data on it 



