The National Forests

The drawing at the top of this page shows the entrance to a national forest.

THE PEOPLE'S PROPERTY

C. M. GRANGER.

THE PEOPLE of the United States own 180 million acres in national forests. A third of the Nation's commercial timber, a sixth of its commercial timberland, a large part of the summer ranges for western livestock, and 70 percent of the big game of the West are on that land and nearly all the important sources of western water and most of the recreation areas.

There are national forests in 38 States, Alaska, and Puerto Rico; there are purchase units the seeds of national forests in two other States. Within the outer boundaries of the forests are nearly 230 million acres, of which the Nation owns 180 million.

The national forests are administered by the Forest Service under the general direction of the Secretary of Agriculture. Other bureaus in the Department of Agriculture and elsewhere in the Government furnish technical advice on special problems, such as the control of insects and tree diseases and forecasting of fire weather.

Most of the national forest areas and resources are in the West, but the forests east of the Great Plains have great local and regional importance because of their resources and their value as demonstration areas for working out the solution to forest problems.

The national forests came into being in 1891 when the people of the United States decided to stop giving away the Nation's timberland as fast as they could and keep some of it permanently as the people's forests, and Congress adopted an act that empowered the President to set aside forest reserves for the purpose of "securing favorable conditions of waterflows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens of the United States."

Beginning with Benjamin Harrison, the various Presidents have established national forests by proclamation under the act, but most of the national forests were proclaimed by three Presidents Harrison, Cleveland, and Theodore Roosevelt.

The only large areas of public land left in 1891 were in the West. But the value of permanent Federal forests was recognized in the East, so in 1911 the Weeks Law was enacted to authorize purchase by the Federal Government of lands necessary to the protection of the flow of navigable streams. The Clarke-McNary Act of 1924 enlarged the policy of the Weeks Law to include the purchase of lands on the watersheds of navigable streams for timber production. Under those acts, most of the national forests east of the Mississippi have been established.

The national forests are truly national in both purpose and value. Many States do not produce enough timber or the right kind for their own needs, and the national forests help to supply them. Water for irrigation, power, and domestic purposes in many cases is supplied by streams that rise far away in national forests in other States. The lamb chop served in Chicago may have come from Wyoming's high ranges in the national forests. Many people from the Midwestern Plains spend their vacations in the cool national forests in the West. Twenty-five percent of the gross revenues from the sale of national forest timber and other commercial uses is paid to the States for distribution to the counties in which the national forests lie, to be used for roads and schools. The fund is a large part of the revenue of many counties. Another 10 percent is made available to the Forest Service to pay part of the cost of building and maintaining roads and trails in the national forests.

The forests yield a sizable income. For the fiscal year that ended in June 1948, it was more than 25 million dollars. The sum reflects the greater demand for timber from the national forests; in 1940 the income was $5,860,000. In that year, income was 48 percent of the fund appropriated for the protection and management of the national forests; in 1948 it was almost 100 percent.

The national forests are forests in the larger sense. They are not just areas covered with trees; they are a composite of trees, brush, grass, water, wildlife, scenery. Each of these elements has its own value; together they give the forest a value much greater than that of a producer of wood.

By direction of the Secretary of Agriculture, when the national forests were placed under his administration in 1905, "All land is to be devoted to its most productive use for the permanent good of the whole people, and not for the temporary benefit of individuals or companies . . . and where conflicting interests must be reconciled the question will always be decided from the standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run."

The national forests are managed on the principle of multiple use, a simple enough concept that often is hard to apply because of the impact of one use on another and the striving of groups interested in one use to get priority for that one use. The essence of multiple-use management is to make each area yield the maximum number of benefits and to fit each use to the other. Exclusive right-of-way is given to one use only when that use is clearly dominant.

Thus, timber-cutting practices may have to be varied from those designed solely for wood production in order to increase water yield or stabilize water flows. Similar variations occur where recreation or scenic values are important. Some openings must be left or made in forests and forest plantations to benefit the wildlife. Grazing in the South may be fostered without hurting timber production by proper management. Grazing and wildlife use must here and there be adjusted to each other. And so on.

Public understanding and support of the multiple-use plan of management has grown in late years. When some stockmen proposed that lands used for grazing in the national forests be sold to the holders of grazing permits, many people protested and gave vigorous endorsement of the multiple value of the national forests.

No user of the national forest gets any vested right in the property. Each use has a limited duration. Privileges to use are just that privileges, and not rights above those of all the people, who own the forests.

The national forests, exclusive of those in Alaska and Puerto Rico, contain 518,417 million board feet of timber, which is 32 percent of the Nation's total. The timber is managed on the basis of sustained yield the cut is restricted to the sustained productive capacity of the management unit. The system gives stability of supply of forest products, employment, and tax base, or its equivalent.

The timber is sold to help supply the local, regional, and national needs. About 25,000 sales are made each year. They range from a few dollars' worth to large sales that involve 100 million board feet or more and are valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars. Timber for domestic use is granted free in small quantities to certain classes of local users, including farmers. Many farmers make an off-season business of buying and cutting stumpage and selling the products.

Timber cutting is now proceeding at the rate of nearly 4 billion feet a year, an increase from about 1 1/4 billion in 1939. The national forests now supply 10 percent or more of the national lumber cut, plus large quantities of poles, posts, mining timbers, railroad ties, pulpwood, fuel wood, and Christmas trees.

With the sharp reduction in private stumpage, the demand for national forest timber is steadily increasing. The policy is to make it available just as fast possible, subject to sustained-yield limitations. Needed are an expanded system of access roads, better timber inventories, management plans to insure orderly sustained-yield marketing. That achieved, it is estimated that the annual cut could be increased to about 6 billion board feet. As forest management becomes more intensive, including reforestation of about 3V4 million acres of burned areas and blank spots, the annual cut can be further increased.

Of great potential importance is the national forest timber in southeastern Alaska-78 billion board feet, mostly hemlock and spruce, which is particularly suited to pulp and paper manufacture. It will support a cut of about a billion board feet a year, which, if converted into newsprint, would supply about one-fourth of the Nation's needs. Encouraging indications are at hand that large-scale pulp operations in Alaska may soon be initiated under favorable long-term contracts. A preliminary award of one such contract has already been made.

Puerto Rico has a small national forest. In that wood-hungry country, every tree in the national forest has great value, especially for charcoal, the universal fuel.

The Sustained-Yield Unit Act of March 29, 1944, which provides for cooperative sustained-yield units, affords a means of combining the management of private and public timber under certain conditions so as to insure good forestry and sustained-yield practice on areas of private forests where short-term liquidation or inadequate supply for sustained yield would otherwise jeopardize community stability. We are giving effect to this law as fast as practicable. One large unit has already been established under a 100-year cooperative agreement. About 100 applications, formal and informal, were on file for processing in 1948.