TTLTd U:"CLE SiLM'S MURALTSTS ; R'.LEASE Friday.' May 23. 1950.. 



AirjO'XrCSl^lT: we've caouitTht our YUlds, Man againJ — Between tri^s to the 

 woods and visits with Uncle Sam's ratnralists, he is pretty tusy these out- 

 door dr.-s. But he is not too "busy to ; et back to us every two weeks to talk 

 about "he forest and the things in it. Today he says he is jToing to tell us 

 about those wild folk known as motorists, and hikers, and calipers, and pick- 

 nickers, 



Mr, L. F. Kneipp, in charge of the lands branch of the IT. • S. Forest 

 Service, tells me his work recently took him on horseback into one of the 

 most renote, inaccessible wild areas in any part of this country. It 'v^.s in 

 the nrirnaeval depths of the Olympia ITational Forest "where highways never roja." 

 But who should he meet but Boy Scouts hiking throT:;gh those backwoods. And 

 he passed not one group — but four or five different groups. 



That is typical of what is going on in many of our ITational Forests* 

 The hardy, more daring campers are making a more or less systematic invasion 

 of the back-woods areas. And when you get nearer in to the more easily-reached 

 sections of the woods the n-umbers of Nature lovers become thicker and thicker. 

 Swarms of himters, fishermen, campers, hikers and motorists, head for our vast 

 ITationaJ. Forests scattered through twenty-nine States. 



Mr. Kneipp says that last year there were nearly two million campers 

 in our Forests. In addition, there were nearly one million eight hundred 

 thousand guests, stopping at the hotels and resorts in or just outside the 

 Forest boundries, while suimer home permittees and their guests numbered three 

 hundred and seventy seven thousand. More than three million people oicknicked 

 in our ITational woods, and over twenty-four million :-aotorists wore recorded 

 as "just ;iassing through." 



To take care of tho crowds, the Forest Service has prepared 1,500 -'ublic 

 camp {^rounds each able to accomodate from twenty-five to several hundred cars 

 of people. At tho Eagle Creek Camp Ground in the Columbia Gorge fifty .-.liles 

 east of Portland, Oregon, in the Mr. Hood ITational Forest, there were one 

 hundred thous.?jid people last year. 



That is just the largest. Hardly any center of population Sast or Test 

 but has a National Forest within comparatively easy rea.ch, and camp £;rounds 

 have become so popular that on many of them the stay of campers is limited to 

 give tl-!e other fellow a chance to enjoy the fishing, and hunting, and wading, 

 and sv/Lnr.iing , and commxaing with Nature generally on her 07.71 home site. 



And speaking of home-sites, the Forest Service has issued more than ten 

 thousand special -nermits for s"ummer homes in the woods, and over one thousand 



