The Campaign for Private Forestry 



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would make difficult any centralized control, and the probability of 

 conflicts in jurisdiction between the nation and the individual states. 



The professional foresters of the country are divided in opinion 

 on the relative merits of these two plans. A referendum vote by the 

 Society of American Foresters apparently indicates that a slight ma- 

 jority favors national coercive legislation. The lumbermen have very 

 naturally rallied to the support of the more moderate alternative, 

 some because they heartily believe in its wisdom, and others, per- 

 haps, because they see in it the lesser of two evils. Whatever the 

 reason, they are active in support of the Graves- Greeley plan. 



Both programs will be before the next Congress. The former has 

 already been crystallized into the Capper Bill (Senate Bill 4424), 

 and the latter will be introduced later in the form of definite legisla- 

 tion. So much influence has already been mobilized behind both 

 plans that some action is confidently expected. 



In the meantime, and without waiting for the National Govern- 

 ment to act, considerable progress is being made in California. A 

 notable example is in connection with the so-called "light-burning" 

 controversy. For many years there has been carried on at times a 

 rather acrimonious dispute over the wisdom of the fire-protection 

 plan of the United States Forest Service. Its opponents claimed that 

 it was a mistake to attempt to completely eliminate fires from our 

 forests, since in their absence inflammable "debris" (under which 

 term were often included young trees) would accumulate until at last 

 a holocaust would be inevitable. This the Forest Service denied, 

 and insisted that even a "light" fire caused more damage than was 

 appreciated by the casual observer. The controversy seemed to be 

 resulting in nothing but hard feeling until about a year ago, when a 

 joint committee was formed to study this problem scientifically, com- 

 posed of representatives of the Forest Service, the State Forester's 

 office, the Sierra Lumbermen's Association, the Southern Pacific 

 Railroad (as the largest timberland-owner), and the Division of 

 Forestry of the University of California. This committee has not 

 yet announced any conclusions, but considerable progress has been 

 made, and the question has been removed from the realm of contro- 

 versy into that of harmonious scientific investigation. Since ade- 

 quate fire protection is an essential foundation to any system of 

 forestry, this may be considered valuable progress, and obviously 

 along the lines of the Graves-Greeley plan. 



