A Mountain Park Where Nature Is the Only Landscape Architect, 
Unfrequented Except by Big Game 
Forests for Recreation 
By Julius Ansgar Larsen 
It is my wish to say a few words to the readers of the Review about 
the wonderful National Forests of the Pacific Northwest, where it has 
been my good fortune to be engaged as a forester for the last ten years. 
An appreciation of the general economic value of our forests may 
be gained by considering that we are now as a nation spending $175,- 
000,000 annually for transportation of forest products, mainly from 
the West and South, really as a forfeit because we did not have a forest 
policy when the great forest regions of the eastern states and the Lake 
states yielded to the axe. Three-fifths of the original forests of the 
United States have already disappeared; over sixty per cent of the 
standing timber is west of the Great Plains and one half is within 
three states of the Pacific coast. 
Yet these vast forests of the West have perhaps an even greater 
value as recreation grounds where the nation may rest and gain strength 
for the nation’s business. Man looks instinctively to the forests for 
rest and recuperation, physically and spiritually. There is a soothing, 
sheltering friendliness in the pines which stretch out their century-old 
arms; there is soft music in the wind as it plays through the evergreen 
foliage; there is sweet fragrance of moss, fern, and flower which grow 
