Figure 1. An observation point for finding forest fires. Vigilance is the watchword on the National Forests. During 1916 forest officers extinguished 5,655 forest fires. Photo by the author

OUR
NATIONAL FORESTS

A SHORT POPULAR ACCOUNT OF THE
WORK OF THE UNITED STATES FOREST
SERVICE ON THE NATIONAL FORESTS

BY
RICHARD H. DOUAI BOERKER, M.S.F., Ph.D.
Arboriculturist, Department of Parks, City of New York.
With the United States Forest Service from 1910 to 1917.

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1918
All rights reserved

Copyright, 1918
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published, September, 1918

WHOM should this humble volume
seek to honor but the father and
mother whose unselfish devotion made
possible both my education and my
profession?

The highest type of scientific writing is that which sets forth useful scientific facts in language which is interesting and easily understood by the millions who read.

L. A. Mann.

[PREFACE]

Forestry is a vast subject. It has to do with farm and forest, soil and climate, man and beast. It affects hill and valley, mountain and plain. It influences the life of cities, states, and nations. It deals not only with the manifold problems of growing timber and forest by-products, such as forage, naval stores, tanbark, and maple sugar, but it is intimately related to the navigability of rivers and harbors, the flow of streams, the erosion of hillsides, the destruction of fertile farm lands, the devastation wrought by floods, the game and birds of the forest, the public health, and national prosperity.

The practice of forestry has, therefore, become an important part in the household economy of civilized nations. Every nation has learned, through the misuse of its forest resources, that forest destruction is followed by timber famines, floods, and erosion. Mills and factories depending upon a regular stream flow must close down, or use other means for securing their power, which usually are more expensive. Floods, besides doing enormous damage, cover fertile bottom-lands with gravel, bowlders, and débris, which ruins these lands beyond redemption. The birds, fish, and game, which dwell in the forests, disappear with them. Springs dry up and a luxurious, well-watered country becomes a veritable desert. In short, the disappearance of the forests means the disappearance of everything in civilization that is worth while.

These are the lessons that some of the world's greatest nations have learned, in some cases through sad experience. The French people, after neglecting their forests, following the French Revolution, paid the penalty. France, through her reckless cutting in the mountain forests, has suffered and is still suffering from devastating floods on the Seine and other streams. Over one million acres were cut over in the mountains, and the slash and young growth that was left was destroyed by fire. As a result of this forest destruction the fertility of over 8,000,000 acres of tillable land was destroyed and the population of eighteen departments was impoverished or driven out. Now, although over $40,000,000 has been expended, only a very small part of the damage has been repaired.

Our own country has learned from its own experiences and from the experiences of nations like France. On a small scale we have endured the same devastating floods. Forest fires in the United States have caused an average annual loss of seventy human lives and from $25,000,000 to $50,000,000 worth of timber. The indirect losses run close to a half a billion a year. Like other nations, we have come to the conclusion that forest conservation can be assured only through the public ownership of forest resources. Other nations have bought or otherwise acquired national, state, and municipal forests, to assure the people a never-failing supply of timber. For this reason, mainly, our own National Forests have been created and maintained.

The ever-increasing importance of the forestry movement in this country, which brings with it an ever-increasing desire for information along forestry lines, has led me to prepare this volume dealing with our National Forests. To a large extent I write from my own experience, having come in contact with the federal forestry movement for more than ten years. My connection with the United States Forest Service in various parts of the West has given me ample opportunity to study every phase of the problem. I am attempting to chronicle a wonderful accomplishment by a wonderful organization of altruistic Americans,—an accomplishment of which every American has reason to feel proud.

Few people realize that the bringing under administration and protection of these vast forests is one of the greatest achievements in the history of forest conservation. To place 155,000,000 acres of inaccessible, mountainous, forest land, scattered through our great western mountain ranges and in eighteen Western States, under administration, to manage these forests according to scientific forestry principles, to make them yield a revenue of almost $3,500,000 annually, and to protect them from the ravages of forest fires and reducing the huge annual loss to but a small fraction of what it was before—these are some of the things that have been accomplished by the United States Forest Service within the last twenty years.

Not only is this a great achievement in itself, but few people realize what the solution of the National Forest problem has meant to the millions of people who live near them; what it has meant to bring civilization to the great forested empire of Uncle Sam; what it has meant to change from a condition of unrestricted, unregulated misuse with respect to the public domain, to a policy of wise, regulated use, based upon the principle of the greatest good to the greatest number in the long run. In the early days before the Forest Service organization became established, the people were said to have "shot-gun titles" to timber or grazing lands on the public domain, and "might made right" in the truest sense of the word. This crude condition of affairs gave way to wise, conservative use under government control. Just as the farmer each year sets aside a certain amount of his seed for next year's planting, just so the stockman saves his calves and cows and lambs for greater growth and each year sees a part of his herd maturing for market, and just so the forester, under the new system, cuts only the mature trees and allows the young timber to remain for greater growth and greater value in the future, or, in the absence of young trees, plants small trees to replace those removed.

The people of the West are convinced that a great work has been done well and wisely. The people of the Eastern States will soon realize that a similar forest policy, already inaugurated in the Appalachian and White Mountains, will mean every bit as much to them.

If I succeed only in a small degree to make my reader appreciate the great significance of the National Forest movement to our national economy, I will feel amply repaid for the time spent in preparing this brief statement. I am indebted to the Forest Service for many valuable illustrations used with the text, and for data and other valuable assistance. To all those who have aided in the preparation of this volume, by reading the manuscript or otherwise, I extend my sincere thanks. I am especially grateful to Mr. Herbert A. Smith and others of the Washington office of the Forest Service for having critically read the manuscript and for having offered valuable suggestions.

Richard H. Douai Boerker.

New York, N. Y.,
July 7, 1918.

[INTRODUCTION]

FORESTRY AS A NATIONAL PROBLEM

The forest problem is, both locally and nationally, of vital internal importance. Not only is wood—the chief product of the forest—indispensable to our daily life, but the forest plays an important rôle in regulating stream flow, thereby reducing the severity of floods and preventing erosion. For these reasons the preservation of forests ceases to be a problem of private or individual concern, but forthwith becomes a governmental problem, or, at best, an enterprise which should be jointly controlled by the National Government and the individual States.

Our Consumption of Wood. It is often said that wood enters into our daily life from the time we are born until we die—from the cradle to the coffin. It is difficult to imagine a civilization without wood. In our country in a single year we use 90,000,000 cords of firewood, nearly 40,000,000,000 feet of lumber, 150,000,000 railroad ties, nearly 1,700,000,000 barrel staves, 445,000,000 board feet of veneer, over 135,000,000 sets of barrel headings, over 350,000,000 barrel hoops, over 3,300,000 cords of native pulp wood, 170,000,000 cubic feet of round mine timbers, nearly 1,500,000 cords of wood for distillation, over 140,000 cords for excelsior, and nearly 3,500,000 telephone and telegraph poles. In short, we take from our forests yearly, including waste in logging and manufacture, more than twenty-two billion cubic feet of wood valued at about $1,375,000,000. This is enough lumber to construct seven board walks twenty-five feet wide from the earth to the moon, a distance of about 240,000 miles, or a board walk one-third of a mile wide completely around the earth at the equator. These figures give a little idea of the enormous annual drainage upon the forests of the United States and immediately suggest an important reason that led to the establishment of our National Forests.

The Lumber Industry. Measured by the number of persons employed, lumbering is the country's largest manufacturing industry. In its 48,000 saw mills it employs more than 600,000 men. Its investment in these plants is over $1,000,000,000, and the investment in standing timber is $1,500,000,000 more. This industry furnishes the railroads a traffic income of over $200,000,000 annually. If we include in these statistics also the derived wood products, we find that over 1,000,000 wage earners are employed, and that the products and derived products are valued at over $2,000,000,000 annually. Most certainly we are dealing with a very large business enterprise.

Our Future Lumber Supply. You may ask, "What effect have the great annual consumption of wood and these large business interests upon the future supply of wood?" The most reliable statistics show that out of 5,200 billion feet of merchantable timber which we once possessed, only 2,900 billion feet are left. In other words, almost half of our original supply of timber has been used. Besides, the present rate of cutting for all purposes exceeds the annual growth of the forests. Even the annual growth is considered by many experts of unknown quantity and quality, to some extent offset by decay in virgin forests. The only logical conclusion to draw from this condition of affairs, if the present rate of consumption continues, is a timber shortage in so far as our most valuable woods are concerned. In view of this it is fortunate that the National Government began to control the lumber and forest situation by the creation of National Forests and the institution of scientific forestry practice.

Forests and Stream Flow. But the forests not only supply us with wood. For other reasons they deserve governmental consideration. The forests in the mountains control our streams, vitally affect the industries depending upon water power, reduce the severity of floods and erosion, and in this way are intimately wrapped up with our great agricultural interests. For this reason forestry is by nature less suited for private enterprise. In agriculture and horticulture the influence of the farm or the fruit crop rarely extends beyond the owner's fence. What I plant in my field does not affect my neighbors; they share neither in my success or failure. If by the use of poor methods I ruin the fertility of my farm, this fact does not influence the fertility of my neighbor's fields. But in forestry it is different. Unfortunately, just as the sins of the fathers are visited upon their children, so the sins of the mountains are visited upon the valleys.

Map showing the National Forest areas in the West, the location of the proposed National Forests in the East, and the area which the present National Forests would occupy if they were all consolidated into one body in some of the well-known Eastern States.

The mountainous slopes of the Appalachian ranges and the steep, broken, granite ridges of the Rockies, the Sierras, and the Cascades are the sites most suited in our country for forestry purposes. The Appalachian ranges have been affected most by the reckless cutting of forests. When these mountains were clothed with forests, the rivers ran bank full, ships came to the harbors at low tide with ease, and factories and cotton-mills ran steadily all year long. Since the destruction of these forests the surrounding country has suffered from alternate floods and droughts; great manufacturing centers have lost their steady supply of water; harbors are filled with silt from the mountain sides; and fields, once fertile, are covered with sand, gravel, and débris, deposited by the ungovernable stream. These forests belonged to private individuals who disposed of the timber and pocketed all the profits, while the community below suffered all the loss. In other words, private ownership is inadequate since private interest and private responsibility are not sufficiently far-reaching and far-sighted.

Forests and Erosion. Erosion is one of the most serious dangers that threaten our farms both by transporting fertile soil and by covering the bottom-lands with sand, gravel, and débris. Since we are largely an agricultural people, the importance of this problem will be readily appreciated. Over 50 per cent. of our population is rural, and the annual production of farm crops has a value of over $5,500,000,000. Farm uplands are washed away or eroded by high water, and high water is largely caused by the destruction of the forests on the mountain slopes. With the forest cover removed, there is nothing to obstruct the flow of water down the mountain sides. Raindrops beating on the bare soil make it hard and compact so that most of the water runs off instead of being absorbed by the subsoil, with the result that a heavy rain storm rushes down through the valleys in a few days instead of a few weeks, tears out the river banks, floods the lowlands, and deposits upon them the rocks and gravel carried down from the mountains. The most effective means for preventing the erosion and destruction of our farmlands is by the wise use of the forests at the headwaters of the rivers.

Figure 2. A typical National Forest landscape in the high mountains. Potosi Peak, 13,763 feet, from Yankee Boy Basin, Uncampahgre National Forest, Ouray County, Colorado.

Forestry a Public Enterprise. From what has been said it will be seen that forestry is a national business rather than an individual's. Moreover, it is of such a protracted nature, reaching continuously into such long periods of time, demanding so many years of time and patience to see the expected and promised results, that an individual would not live to see the success of his labors. The individual becomes easily discouraged and is especially affected by financial conditions. The Government, on the other hand, having unlimited resources at its command can more readily afford to wait for results. In fact every consideration of national welfare urges the Government to carry it on; it is a sure source of revenue, there is none less fluctuating, and it is closely connected with the manifold industries of life. Its chief product is wood, without which the human race, so far, has not succeeded in managing its affairs, and which will therefore always have a sale value.

THE EXTENT AND CHARACTER OF OUR NATIONAL FORESTS

How the Government Obtained the National Forest Lands. Probably the first question that will occur to my reader concerning the National Forests is, How did the Government acquire them? To answer this question we have but to turn back the pages of history to the close of the Revolutionary War. Following this war, our country started on its career of continental conquest. This conquest was largely a peaceful one because most of the western country was acquired by treaty or purchase, thus: Louisiana Territory was purchased from France in 1803; Texas applied for admission into the Union in 1845; Oregon Territory was acquired by treaty from Great Britain in 1846; the present states of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona were ceded to us as a result of the Mexican War in 1848; and the Gadsden Purchase was obtained from Mexico in 1853 and added to the territory of New Mexico. Then also Alaska was finally purchased from Russia in 1867. These large acquisitions, comprising together the western two thirds of the United States, were gradually divided into territories. Later they became States, and were opened up to settlement and development by means of various land and mining laws and large railroad grants. The National Forests are composed of the land most valuable for growing timber, that has not been acquired in some way by private individuals, in the western part of the United States.

The Romance of the National Forest Region. This vast expanse west of the Mississippi River boasts of some of the wildest and most romantic scenery on the North American continent, and it is in the heart of this picturesque country that the National Forests are located. This is the country in which Owen Wister, Harold Bell Wright, Stewart Edward White, Jack London, Theodore Roosevelt, and other authors have gotten their inspirations and laid their plots. To one who knows "The Virginian," or "When a Man's a Man," or "The Winning of Barbara Worth," or "The Valley of the Moon," nothing more need be said. To others I might say that my pen picture of that country is a very poor and very inadequate method of description. It is the land of the cow-puncher, the sheep-herder, and the lumber-jack; a land of crude customs and manners, but, withal, generous hospitality. It is the country of the elk and the mule-tail deer, the mountain lion and the rattlesnake. Its grandeur makes you love it; its vastness makes you fear it; yet there is an irresistible charm, a magic lure, an indescribable something that stamps an indelible impression upon the mind and that makes you want to go back there after you have sworn an oath never to return.

This National Forest empire presents a great variety of scenery, of forest, and of topography. The beautiful white pine forests of Idaho and Montana, the steep pine- and spruce-clad granite slopes of the Colorado Rockies, and the sun-parched mesas of the Southwest, with their open park-like forests of yellow pine, all have their individual charm. And after crossing the well-watered Cascades and Sierra Nevadas we find forest scenery entirely different. The dense, luxuriant, giant-forests of the coast region of Oregon and Washington, bathed in an almost continual fog and rain, are without doubt the most wonderful forests in the world. And lastly, California, so far as variety of forest scenery is concerned, has absolutely no rival. The open oak groves of the great valleys, the arid pine- and oak-covered foothills, the valuable sugar pine and "big-tree" groves of the moist mountain slopes, and the dwarfed pine and hemlock forests near the serrated crest of the Sierras, all occur within a comparatively short distance of each other, and, in fact, may be seen in less than a day on any one of the many National Forests in these mountains.

Famous Scenic Wonders Near the Forests. Many of the beautiful National Parks that have been created by Congress are either entirely or partly surrounded by one or more of the National Forests. These parks are a Mecca to which hundreds of thousands of our people make their annual pilgrimage. Most of these parks are already famous for their scenery, and, in consequence, the National Forests surrounding them have received greater patronage and fame. The Glacier National Park in Montana, the Yellowstone in Wyoming, the Rocky Mountain in Colorado, the Mount Rainier in Washington, the Crater Lake in Oregon, the Wind Cave in South Dakota, and the Lassen Peak Volcanic Park, the Yosemite, General Grant, and Sequoia parks in California, are all situated in the heart of the National Forest region.

The highest and best-known mountain peaks in the United States are either located within or situated near the National Forests, as, for example, Rainier and Olympus in Washington; Hood, Baker, St. Helens, Jefferson, and Adams in Oregon; Shasta, Lassen, and Whitney in California; and Pikes Peak in Colorado.

Then there are the National Monuments, of which there are eleven, all situated within one or more of the National Forests. These were created under an act of Congress for the preservation of objects of historic or scientific interest. The largest monument, and no doubt the most famous, is the Grand Canyon National Monument located in the Tusayan and Kaibab National Forests in Arizona, comprising over 800,000 acres. The next largest is the Mount Olympus Monument on the Olympic National Forest in Washington, comprising almost 300,000 acres. Other well-known monuments are the Cinder Cone and the Lassen Peak Monuments on the Lassen National Forest in California, and the Cliff Dwellings on the Gila National Forest in New Mexico.

The Size and Extent of the National Forests. With this brief introduction of the nature of the country in which the National Forests are located, the reader will be interested to know something of the size of the Forests and their total area. The total area varies slightly from time to time, due to the addition of lands that have been found to have value for forestry purposes, or to the elimination of lands found to be chiefly valuable for agricultural use. On June 30, 1917, there were 147 National Forests with a total of 155,166,619 acres. Thus the average National Forest comprises about one million acres of government lands. The many private holdings scattered through the Forests make the average gross area of each Forest much greater. These Forests are located in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Porto Rico, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. Besides these Forests there have been acquired or approved for purchase under the Weeks Law over 1,500,000 acres in the States of Georgia, Maine, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. These lands are now under protection and will gradually be consolidated into National Forests. More lands are constantly being acquired in the Eastern States in accordance with the Weeks Law.

Few people have any conception of what a gigantic empire the National Forest domain is. If consolidated into one large compact area, the 155 million acres of National Forests would cover an area larger than the combined areas of thirteen well-known Eastern States, viz.: Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and West Virginia (see map). This area is also one fifth larger than the entire area of France. We marvel sometimes at the ability of a ruler to rule a country as large as France or Germany; why should we Americans not marvel at the ability of the man who practically rules over our National Forests, who keeps in perfect working order the great organization which protects and administrates the Forests?

The Topography and Climate of the National Forest Region. The difficulty of the work of this organization is at once apparent when we find that these Forests are located in wild, rugged, mountainous country, in most cases many miles from the railroad and human habitations, such as towns and cities. This country is usually far above sea level—the average being between 3,000 and 8,000 feet in altitude. But there are large areas in the National Forests of Colorado that lie above 10,000 feet elevation. Such country as this has a very severe climate. The climate is usually too cold and the growing seasons too short for the production of crops such as wheat, corn, oats, potatoes, etc. Therefore, practically all of this land is what the forester calls "absolute forest land," that is, it is better adapted for growing timber crops than any other. Another important fact about the National Forests is that they are located, for the most part, on steep mountain slopes and at the headwaters of mountain streams. This makes them of vital importance in regulating the stream flow of our western rivers. In fact it is no exaggeration to say that all our large western rivers have their origin on National Forest land.

WHY THE NATIONAL FORESTS WERE CREATED

Aside from the great economic reasons why a nation should possess National Forests, there are local reasons which pertain to the welfare of the home builder and home industries which are often of paramount importance. The timber, the water, the pasture, the minerals, and all other resources on the government lands in the West are for the use of all the people. And only by a well-regulated policy of sale or rental can these resources be disposed so as to give all individuals an equal opportunity to enjoy them. These vast resources have been estimated to have a value of over $2,000,000,000. But their value to the local communities can hardly be overestimated. The welfare of every community is dependent upon a cheap and plentiful supply of timber. If lumber, fence posts, mine props, telephone poles, firewood, etc., must be brought in from distant markets, the prices are usually very much higher. The regulation of the cut on each National Forest assures a never-failing supply of timber to the home builder and to home industries. Then also the permanence of the great live stock industry is dependent upon a conservative use of vast areas of government range. Local residents are protected from unfair competition. Lastly, the protection by the Forest Service of the forest cover in the western mountains assures a regular stream flow which is of vital importance for power, irrigation, and domestic purposes.

Figure 3. The climate of most of the National Forests is severe. This view was taken in the early summer and shows the high mountains still covered with snow. Most of the National Forest lands are therefore of small value for agriculture. Photo by Abbey.

Figure 4. On many high mountains on the National Forests snow banks persist throughout the summer. This view was taken in the latter part of August. Lassen National Forest, California. Photo by the author.

Perhaps the most comprehensive statement upon the purposes of the National Forests and the methods and general policy of administering them is to be found in a letter by the Secretary of Agriculture to the Forester, dated February 1, 1905, when the Forests were turned over to the Department of Agriculture:

"In the administration of the forest reserves it must be clearly borne in mind that 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. All the resources of the forest reserves are for use, and this use must be brought about in a thoroughly prompt and businesslike manner, under such restrictions only as will insure the permanence of these resources. The vital importance of forest reserves to the great industries of the Western States will be largely increased in the near future by the continued steady advance in settlement and development. The permanence of the resources of the reserves is therefore indispensable to continued prosperity, and the policy of this Department for their protection and use will invariably be guided by this fact, bearing in mind that the conservative use of these resources in no way conflicts with their permanent value.

"You will see to it that the water, wood, and forage of the reserves are conserved and wisely used for the benefit of the home builder first of all, upon whom depends the best permanent use of lands and resources alike. The continued prosperity of the agricultural, lumbering, mining, and live-stock interests is directly dependent upon a permanent and accessible supply of water, wood, and forage, as well as upon the present and future use of these resources under businesslike regulations, enforced with promptness, effectiveness, and common sense. In the management of each reserve local questions will be decided upon local grounds; the dominant industry will be considered first, but with as little restriction to minor industries as may be possible; sudden changes in industrial conditions will be avoided by gradual adjustment after due notice, 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."

HOW THE NATIONAL FOREST POLICY HAS BENEFITED THE PEOPLE

This general policy, which was laid down by the Secretary of Agriculture, has been followed out, with the result that a great many benefits have been derived by the nation as a whole, by the individual States in which the National Forests are located, and, lastly, by the local communities and users of the Forests.

The Remaining Timber Resources Were Saved. First of all the timber, the forage, and the water-power on the public domain has been reserved for the whole people and not for a privileged few. Before the Forest Reserve policy went into effect, the most valuable timber was being withdrawn from government ownership by the misuse of the public land laws, whose purpose and intent were fraudulently evaded. Many claims were initiated apparently for the purpose of establishing a homestead but in reality for the purposes of securing the timber on the land and later to dispose of it to some large timber holder. Every citizen is allowed to exercise his homestead right. Big timber operators would secure the services of many dummy locators, pay the expenses of locating, improving, and perfecting the patent, and then buy the claim from these dummies for small sums. A large timber holder in California secured his hundreds of thousands of acres of timber land in this way. By instructing these men where to locate their claims he was able to secure more or less solid blocks of timber made up originally of 160 acre patches. These patches, which originally were bought by the lumber barons for from $500 to $800 a claim, now have a value of from $8,000 to as high as $20,000. The people of the United States have lost the difference.

It is difficult to say where or how this wholesale misuse of the public land laws would have ended if it had not been for the inauguration of the National Forest policy. Since the Government has taken full charge of its forest domain, this misuse has stopped. In fact many of the fraudulent claims located years ago are being investigated, and if they are found to have been initiated with intent to defraud the Government, the land and the timber is returned to the National Forest in which it is located. To-day the National Forests contain about one fifth of the standing timber in the United States, an amount which will undoubtedly have a great effect upon the supply of timber available for future generations, especially since under present lumbering methods the privately owned timber lands are being practically destroyed, while the National Forests are actually being improved by scientific management. Four fifths of the standing timber is privately owned, and this is usually of much higher quality than the publicly owned timber.

Figure 5. The Big Trees. "Mother of the Forest" in the background. North Calaveras Grove, California.

The Use of Forage and Water Resources Was Regulated. The forage and water resources of the public domain have been subject to similar abuse. Before the National Forest policy was put into effect the large ranges of the West were used indiscriminately by all. The range was subject to considerable abuse because it was used very early in the spring before the forage was mature, or too late in the fall, which prevented the forage from ripening its seed and reproducing for the next season. Not the small, local stockmen, however, but the large sheep and cattle companies, many controlled by foreign capital, benefited by this condition of affairs. These "big men," as they were called, illegally fenced and monopolized large areas, varying in size from townships to entire counties. What chance would a local rancher with fifty or sixty cattle have against a million-dollar outfit with perhaps 40,000 to 50,000 cattle? He was merely swallowed up, so to speak, and had no chance whatever to get his small share. "Might made right" in those days, and it is said that if a man held any title or equity on the range it was a "shotgun" title. Also, the sheep and cattle men had innumerable disputes about the use of the range which in many cases resulted in bloodshed. If a sheep man arrived first on the range in the spring with his large bands of sheep, he simply took the feed. The Government owned the land and the forage but it had no organization in the field to regulate the use of it. It was indeed a chaotic condition of affairs and ended only after the inauguration of the present policy of leasing the lands under the permit system. These permits are issued and charged for upon a per capita basis.

The conservative and regulated use of the grazing lands under Forest Service supervision has resulted in better growth and better weights on stock and more actual profit. There are ample data that show that the National Forests produce some of the best lambs that are put upon the market. Data secured from the Modoc National Forest, California, in 1910, show that lambs brought 50 cents per head more and weighed an average of 10 pounds more than lambs produced outside the Forest. Weights taken of 10,000 head showed an average of 72 pounds for National Forest lambs, while outside the Forest average weights on 3,000 lambs showed only 62 pounds. The regulation of the length of the grazing season, the introduction of better methods of handling sheep, and the prevention of over-grazing are some of the Forest Service methods that produce better lambs.

Then also under the old system the valuable water-power sites were being rapidly eliminated from government ownership by large corporations who secured valuable property for a song. The National Forests, however, still contain about one-third of the potential water-power resources of the United States and over 40 per cent. of the estimated power resources of the Western States. And this vast wealth will not pass from the ownership of the United States but will be leased under long-term leases from which the Government will receive yearly a fair rental.

The Forests Were Protected from Fire and Trespass. But not only have these large timber, forage, and power resources been put under administration for the use of the people. The protection of the National Forests, which goes hand in hand with their administration, means a great deal to the local communities, the States, and the nation as a whole. Until about twenty years ago the forests upon our public lands—the timber of the Rocky Mountains from Montana to New Mexico and of the Pacific Coast ranges from northern Washington to southern California—seemed destined to be destroyed by fire and reckless, illegal cutting. Nothing whatever was being done to protect them from fire or trespass. They were simply left to burn. When the people living near the public domain wanted any house logs, fence posts, or firewood, they went into the public domain and took them. The best trees were usually taken first. In California, especially, there was a common practice of cutting down the finest sugar pine trees and cutting and splitting them into shakes to make a roof covering. Then, too, much government timber was stolen by lumber companies operating in the vicinity of valuable government timber. After the land had been stripped of everything of value a fire was started in the slashing, which among other things burned the stumps and thus practically obliterated all evidence of trespass. Had this destruction continued there would to-day have been little timber left in the West, and the development of the country which demands timber all the time, and not only at certain intervals, would have been retarded, if not stopped altogether.

Figure 6. A scene on one of the famous National Parks. Upper Lake, Glacier National Park, Northern Rockies, Montana.

How terrible the forest fires were in this western country is well illustrated by what an old California settler once told me, and what I have heard repeatedly in many Western States. He said: "In the years before the Forest Service took over the care and protection of the forests around here, the mountains within view of my ranch were not visible for many months at a time, being almost continually enveloped in smoke from the big forest fires that were raging in the forests all summer without ever being under control. They started in the spring as soon as it became dry and were not suppressed until the late fall rains and snows put them out." But he added with great enthusiasm, "Since the Service has taken charge the sky around here is as clear as crystal all summer. I never see any forest fires, not even smoke, because the Rangers seem to get to them before they get to be of any size." Such testimony as this speaks volumes for the efficiency of the present system of protecting the Forests from fire.

The Watershed Cover Was Preserved. The destruction of the forest cover on the watersheds feeding thousands of streams which rise in the western mountains would have had its bad effect on stream flow—low water during the long dry periods, and destructive floods after heavy rains. This condition of affairs would have meant disaster to the systems of irrigation by which most of the western farmers raise their crops. It would also have seriously impeded and in many cases prevented electric power development, to say nothing of affecting the domestic water of many of our large western cities whose drinking water comes from the streams rising in the National Forests. The protection of these valuable watersheds by the Forest Service from fire and destructive lumbering is of such vital importance to the welfare of the nation that it has been made one of the main reasons for establishing National Forests.

Civilization Brought to the Mountains. What the National Forest movement has done for settling and building up the Western States can hardly be overestimated. It has brought civilization into the wilderness. Roads, trails, telephone lines, and other modern conveniences have been brought to remote corners of the mountains. It has encouraged the settlement of the country by calling attention to the agricultural lands within the National Forests. More important than that, it has assured the West permanent towns, permanent civilization, and not a temporary, careless, shiftless civilization which vanishes with the exploitation of resources, as it did under the old régime.

The improvements on the National Forests have benefited not only the Forest officers for the administration of the Forests. They have helped immensely the local population. The pleasure resorts as well as the business of the Forests have been made more accessible. New trails have opened up new and hitherto inaccessible country, where fishing, hunting, and trapping are ideal. All the old and new roads and trails have been well marked with sign boards giving the tourist detailed information about distances between the various points of interest. Roads have opened up new regions to automobiles and to the horse and wagon. In 1916 it was estimated that more than 2,000,000 people visited the National Forests for recreation and pleasure. They came in automobiles, in horse and wagon, on horseback, on mules, on burros, and in all sorts of made-to-order contrivances, and the writer has even seen those that could not afford anything better, pack their camp outfits in a wheelbarrow and push it before them in their effort to leave the hot, dusty valleys below, and go to the refreshing and invigorating Forests of Uncle Sam. In addition to the large numbers of tourists that visit the National Forests every year, over 100,000 persons or companies use the National Forests. Of these a little more than half are paid users, who are charged a fair fee for timber, grazing, or other privileges and a little less than half enjoy free use privileges.

Agricultural Lands Opened to Settlement. The settlement of the agricultural lands in the National Forests is a matter that has received special attention at the hands of the Forest Service in late years. Land more valuable for agriculture than for timber growing was excluded from the National Forests before the boundaries were drawn, so far as this was possible. Small tracts of agricultural land within the Forests which could not be excluded are opened to settlement under the Forest Homestead Act of June 11, 1906. The amount of land, however, that is more valuable for agriculture than for timber is trifling, because the greater part of the valuable land was already settled before the Forests were created. The few small patches that are left inside of the National Forest boundaries are rapidly being classified and opened to entry for homesteads. Much of the land apparently adapted for agricultural purposes has a severe climate because it lies at high altitudes and it is often remote from roads, schools, villages, and markets. Therefore the chance offered the prospective settler in the immediate vicinity of the Forests is far better than in the Forests themselves. The Forest Service is doing everything it can to encourage homesteaders on the National Forests; it wants them because they help to report fires, help to fight fires, and in many other ways assist the Forest officers.

Permanent and Not Temporary Civilization Resulted. Only those people who have been brought up near a large lumbering center can appreciate what it means when a town vanishes; when all that is left of a thriving town of 5,000 or more souls is empty streets, empty houses, and heaps of tin cans. In the days of the Golden Age of lumbering in Michigan many towns flourished in the midst of the forests. These towns had thrifty, busy people, with schools, churches, banks, and other conveniences. These people were engaged in exploiting the forests. The beautiful white pine forests were converted into boards at the rate of thousands of feet every day. When these magnificent forests were laid low, the lumbermen left to seek virgin timber elsewhere. They left behind them empty towns and barren lands; only a few charred stumps remained to show where the forests once stood. But this is not an incident peculiar to the Golden Age of lumbering in Michigan. Even to-day this very thing is happening. The town of Crossfork, Potter County, Pennsylvania, had a population of over 2,500 souls in 1909. When the nearby timber was exhausted, practically the whole town was abandoned. In 1913 it had a population of 50.

In direct contrast to this short-sighted policy of the State of Michigan (and many others also) is the National Forest policy, which provides for a future supply of forest products as well as a present supply; which provides for work and homes and schools and churches for future generations as well as for the present; which provides for a permanent industry and not one that vanishes with the exploitation of the resources of a region as snow vanishes under the warm rays of a spring day. Lumbering even to-day is merely the removal of every vestige of timber that has any sale value. But forestry, which is practiced on the National Forests, removes only the mature trees, leaving the young growth to be cut at some future time. Lumbering has been and is to-day forest destruction; forestry is forest conservation under a system of wise use. Lumbering is followed usually by fire, and often by an entire impoverishment of the region in which it is carried on because it destroys both the mature tree and the young growth; under a system of forestry, cutting is followed by young, green forests which are protected from fire for the benefit of future generations. Such a system leaves the region and the industry in a permanent, good condition. The county under the old system receives no more taxes after its wealth is gone; but each county will receive taxes or money in lieu of taxes every year as long as the National Forests shall endure.

Figure 7. The remains of the old boiler house. The town once had a sawmill, planning mill, lath mill, besides modern conveniences. All these are now gone after the forests have been cut. Lemiston, Montmorency County, Michigan.

Figure 8. Deserted houses, abandoned after the sawmill left. These are the remains of what was once a prosperous town. Lemiston, Montmorency County, Michigan.

Financial Returns. All the benefits of which I have spoken are without doubt great assets to the local community, to the State, and to the nation as a whole. They are great contributions to the welfare of our country even though they cannot be measured in dollars and cents. This brings us then to the financial aspect of the National Forest movement. Even though the fundamental purpose of the National Forests was in no sense a financial one, it is interesting to look into the finances of this great forestry enterprise.

The total regular appropriation for salaries, general expenses, and improvements for the fiscal year 1918 is $5,712,275. For 1917 it was slightly less than this: $5,574,735. The receipts from the sale or rental of National Forest resources in the fiscal year 1917 reached $3,457,028.41. From these figures it will be seen that the expenditures exceed the receipts by between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000 a year, depending partly on the severity of the fire season and partly on the activity of the general lumber market. When we consider that this is really a newly established business scarcely twenty years old; that large expenditure have been made and must necessarily be made every year for equipment and improvements before the resources could even be used; and that an efficient organization had to be built up to handle the business, we must confess that the receipts are really a wonderful showing.

When the Forest Reserves were taken over by the Government it could not be expected that they would yield a revenue at the very outset, nor could it be expected that even in the long space of twenty-five years they could be made self-supporting. The reasons for this are many. They are located for the most part in rugged, inaccessible mountains. In the case of almost every Forest a great deal of money had to be expended for roads, trails, telephone lines, fences, bridges, ranger stations and other cabins, lookout structures, fire lines, and many other improvements before the resources could even be used. Many of the resources were practically locked up; there were no roads by which to get them out of the wilderness. During the fiscal year 1916 alone there were built 227 miles of roads, 1,975 miles of trails, 2,124 miles of telephone lines, 89 miles of fire lines, 81 lookout structures, 40 bridges, 222 miles of fences, 545 dwellings, barns, and other structures, and many other improvements. Up to date there have been constructed over 3,000 miles of roads, over 25,000 miles of trails, about 23,000 miles of telephone lines, 860 miles of firebreaks, about 360 forest fire lookout cabins and towers, and many other improvements. Their total value is estimated at $7,000,000. And these vast improvements are but a small percentage of the improvements which will be necessary to be able to put these Forests to their highest use.

Not only must enormous sums be spent for improvements. The huge sums which are spent for the protection of the great resources bring no tangible return in dollars and cents; yet the fire protection system prevents the destruction of millions of dollars' worth of timber every year. Then again, when government timber lands are cut over, only the mature trees are taken; the smaller trees, although they have a commercial value, are left on the ground to mature because they will have a still greater value in from forty to fifty years. This is merely foregoing a small present revenue for a larger future one. Also many National Forests have on them large areas of steep mountain slopes where not a stick of timber is allowed to be cut. These areas are maintained intact for watershed protection. In fact many of the Forests of southern California are maintained solely for this purpose. These Forests are covered almost entirely by a low bush-like growth called "chaparral," which has no value either as timber or as browse, but which has great value to preserve an equable stream flow for domestic use, irrigation, and water power.

But there are still other reasons why the cash receipts from the National Forests are not as large as they might be. In addition to the cash receipts the equivalent of a large revenue is foregone every year through the various forms of free use and the sale of timber to settlers at cost instead of at its actual cash value. During the fiscal year 1917 approximately $150,000 worth of timber was given to settlers free of cost. About 40,000 people were served under this policy. Also much timber is sold at cost to settlers for domestic use. In this way over 4,400 persons received many millions of feet of timber whose cost value was about $20,000, but whose sale value was much greater. The privilege of grazing a small number of stock free of charge is granted to settlers living on or near the Forests. The stock thus grazed amounts to about 125,000 animals every year. The Forests are also put to many special uses for which no charge is made although their administration involves some expense. Strict accounting should credit the fair value of such uses to the receipts from the National Forests, for it is in effect income which instead of being put into the treasury is made available for the benefit of the people.

From what has been said it will be seen that a large part of the benefits derived from the systematic administration of the National Forests cannot be measured in dollars and cents. These benefits are in effect privileges extended to the people who in return assist in the protection of the Forests from fire and thus more than repay the Government for what they receive. Even under the rather unfavorable revenue producing conditions mentioned above, it is interesting to note that in 1917 the receipts of thirty-two National Forests exceeded their total expenditures. On fifteen others the receipts exceeded the cost of protection and administration. In other words, one-third of the National Forests are practically self-supporting.

The New Eastern National Forests. The great success with which the National Forest policy was launched in the Western States was largely responsible for the inauguration of a similar policy in the Appalachian and White Mountains. The main purpose for which these forests are to be acquired is to preserve a steady stream flow for water-power navigation and domestic use, and to lessen the damage caused by floods and erosion. These forests are of vital influence in controlling the flow of the Merrimac, Connecticut, Androscoggin, Potomac, James, Santee, Savannah, Tennessee, and Monongahela rivers. Some years ago the Merrimac drove mills worth over $100,000,000, which employed over 80,000 people. Upon these, it is said, 350,000 were dependent for support. In the Carolinas and Georgia alone the cotton mills operated by water-power turn out an annual product valued at almost $100,000,000. In these mills 60,000 people are employed, upon whom 250,000 are dependent for support. These mills utilize 106,000 horsepower. The forests which control these waters are therefore of great pecuniary value.

The Act of March 1, 1911, commonly known as the Weeks Law, made the acquisition of forest lands in the Appalachian and White Mountains possible. Up to June 30, 1917, over 1,500,000 acres have been approved for purchase by the National Forest Reservation Commission. The Forest Service has been designated as the bureau to examine and value such lands as may be offered for purchase. The original appropriation was $2,000,000 per year for five and one-half years, beginning the last half of the fiscal year 1911. The Agricultural Appropriation Bill for the fiscal year 1913 made the appropriation for 1912 and subsequent years available until expended. A further appropriation of $3,000,000 was provided later for the same purpose, to be expended during the fiscal years 1917 and 1918. Under Section 2 of the same law coöperative fire protection with the States was provided for. This section of the law provided that the Forest Service should maintain a coöperative system of forest fire protection with those States which have a law providing for a system of fire protection for state and private forest lands upon the watersheds of navigable streams. In no case was the amount to be expended by the Forest Service to exceed the amount appropriated by the State for the same purpose in any given fiscal year. The original appropriation was $200,000 and subsequent appropriations have been for $100,000 annually. Twenty-one States are coöperating with the Forest Service in this way.

By the passage of the Weeks Bill, Congress has voiced the sentiment that the forest fire problem, even on private land, is not only no longer a private problem, is not even exclusively a state problem, but a joint problem and duty to be borne by the State and nation. Forest fires are now rightfully looked upon as a public enemy rather than a private menace. This is a big step in the right direction, and it is hoped that this same principle will be applied in the not too distant future to all other matters dealing with private timber lands. If the protection of these private timber lands is a public and not a private problem, then certainly their management for continuity is a public problem. A timber owner should not be allowed to cut his timber without the consent of the Government, and the Government should see to it that he leaves the young growth as a basis for a future crop or provides a new growth of timber by planting young trees.

[TABLE OF CONTENTS]

[ILLUSTRATIONS]

[OUR NATIONAL FORESTS]

[CHAPTER I]
THE CREATION AND ORGANIZATION OF THE NATIONAL FORESTS

ECONOMIC CONDITIONS WHICH LED TO FOREST CONSERVATION

In order that the reader may fully appreciate the gigantic task that has been accomplished in bringing the National Forest administration and organization to its present state of development, it is necessary to briefly sketch the conditions that led up to the inauguration of the Federal Forest Policy before we stop to consider that policy and the establishment and organization of National Forests.

Prodigality Leads Finally to Conservation. Every great movement, which has for its object the betterment of the lot of mankind, lags far behind the times. There must be an actual economic need before a new movement can be expected to take root and flourish. Forest conservation had no place in the household economy of nations that had forests in superabundance. Their forests were used with prodigality. It seems to be a great human failing to use natural resources lavishly when the supply is apparently unlimited, and to practice frugality only when the end of a resource is in sight. Thus we find in the pages of forestry history that all nations have begun to husband their forest resources only after having felt the pinch of want. In our country history repeats itself and our federal policy of forest conservation properly begins at the time that the national conscience was awakened to the realization that if we did not practice economy with our forest resources we would some day be without an adequate supply of timber and forage, and be confronted with other dangers and calamities that follow the destruction of forests.

The March of Forest Destruction. When the London Company settled at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607 it found that unlimited pine and hardwood forests confronted it on every side. Nor did these early settlers ever find a way out of this forested wilderness except by clearings made with the ax. When the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Cape Cod in 1620 they found similar forests stretching in all directions from their town-site. After the Atlantic seaboard became pretty well settled the home-builders began moving westward through New York, Pennsylvania, and what is now Ohio. Still nothing but unbroken, virgin forests were encountered. Westward to the Mississippi civilization advanced and still forests reigned supreme. Then the Middle West, the Rocky Mountain region, and finally the Pacific Coast regions were settled. During 140 years civilization has spread from coast to coast and of that vast wilderness of forest there is left only a remnant here and there. The giant pines that sheltered De Soto and his thousand followers on their ill-fated expedition in 1541 to the Mississippi River have long since disappeared. Along the Allegheny and Appalachian ranges the vast forests that once harbored the hostile Narragansetts and Iroquois are now but a memory. The giant oak, ash, and cypress forests of the Mississippi Valley are rapidly being decimated by the big sawmills that work night and day to outdo each other. In the north the dense and magnificent forests of white pine that greeted Father Marquette, when he planted his missionary station at Sault Ste. Marie in 1668, have been laid low. Unproductive wastes, sandy barrens, and useless underbrush now greet the eye. In fact the pine forests which covered the greater part of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota have been leveled by the woodman's ax. The army of lumbermen has moved now to the Coast to again turn virgin timberlands into unproductive wastes.

Thus forest destruction has followed civilization. Statistics show very vividly how gradually one large lumbering center after another has become exhausted, often leaving behind desolation and business depression. In these large centers thriving towns sprang up only to disappear again after the removal of the forest wealth. In 1850 about 55 per cent, of the annual cut of lumber came from the New England States; even as late as 1865 New York furnished more lumber than any State in the Union. By 1890 Michigan had reached the zenith of its production and in that year the Lake States furnished 36 per cent. of the lumber cut. By 1909 the Southern States had increased their cut to over 50 per cent. of the total of the country. In 1913 the cut of the State of Washington was the largest ever recorded for that State or for any other State, even outdoing Michigan during its Golden Age. In 1915 about 20 per cent. of the cut came from the Coast but the South still furnished almost 50 per cent.

Our Lumber and Water Supply Imperiled. In our prodigal use of our forest resources we have become the most lavish users of wood in the world. While the annual consumption per capita for France is about 25 cubic feet, and that of Germany about 40 cubic feet, our per capita consumption is in the neighborhood of 250 cubic feet. And the most terrible thing about our reckless methods has been that we have wasted by crude lumbering methods and we have let great forest fires consume many times as much lumber as we have used. There have been vast public and private losses through unnecessary forest fires which not only consumed millions of dollars' worth of timber every year, but which also cost the lives of thousands of settlers. Then, as every one knows, by being grossly negligent with our forests, our rivers have visited their wrath upon the unfortunate people in the valleys. Many streams have become raging torrents in the spring and only chains of stagnant pools in the summer, thus destroying their value for water power and irrigation. Cotton mills, which formerly used water power all the year round, now must depend upon more expensive steam power generated by coal to keep their mills running in times of water shortage, while during high water there is the great danger that the entire factory might be swept away.

THE FIRST STEPS IN FEDERAL FOREST CONSERVATION.

Gradually the national conscience became awakened to the need of a more rational use of our forest resources. But it was not until after the Civil War that the first steps were taken. As was to be expected, the States in which forest destruction had reached its worst stages were the first to attempt to mend their ways, thus leading the way along which the Federal Government was soon to follow.

The Upbuilding of the West. The decade following the Civil War is marked by the construction of some of our great trans-continental railroads and the consequent development of the great western country. In fact between 1865 and 1875 the railroad mileage of the United States doubled. The first trans-continental railroad, the Union Pacific, was completed in 1869. Others soon followed. To encourage construction and settlement vast tracts of land were granted to the railroad companies by the Government, and with the land much valuable timber passed from government ownership. After the construction of the railroads towns and villages sprang up like mushrooms. As was to be expected with this increased development the destruction of our forests received an added impetus. The Lake States, then the center of the lumber industry, began to take alarm at the rapidity with which their hillsides were being denuded. Destructive lumbering, usually followed by devastating forest fires, was fast decimating the virgin pine forests. The young growth that had escaped the lumberman's ax fell a prey to forest fires which soon took the form of annual conflagrations. As the population increased the new sections of the country were settled, and as manufacturing operations were extended timber was getting higher in price.

The Lake States First to Act. The first attempt to remedy the situation was made by the State of Wisconsin. In 1867 the Wisconsin legislature suggested a committee who should report upon the destruction of Wisconsin's forests. The next year Michigan took a similar step and in 1869 the Maine legislature began to look into their waning supply by appointing a committee to estimate the standing timber of the State. As early as this observations and calculations upon the rate of consumption of lumber pointed to a not far distant wood famine.

The First Federal Steps. The first step taken by the federal authorities was at the urgent request of the Statistician of the Department of Agriculture in 1870. At that time lands were recognized as being either "improved" or "unimproved" farm lands. He recommended that the category of "unimproved farm lands" be subdivided into "woodlands" and "other unimproved lands." By thus dividing off woodlands from other unimproved farm lands more attention was concentrated upon the former. This attention was manifested in the investigations that followed shortly in which it was estimated that 39 per cent. of the area of the country was in woodland. This was the first and most logical step toward taking an inventory of our forest resources.

Another early attempt to assist in forest conservation was an attempt to reforest the treeless plains of our Western States. On March 3, 1873, the Timber Culture Act was passed by Congress by which the planting to timber of 40 acres of land in the treeless territories conferred the title to 160 acres of public domain. At first this act seemed to work out as intended but it did not take very many years before it proved a dismal failure. Settlers had no knowledge of planting trees; the restrictions of the act could not be enforced, and the act was open to other abuses. The act was finally repealed in 1891. Many similar laws for encouraging the planting of timber were passed by the legislatures of some of the Middle Western States, but all met with little success. In 1874 Nebraska inaugurated Arbor Day. By this act of the legislature the second Wednesday in April of each year was set aside for planting trees. Other States have followed the example of Nebraska, so that to-day almost every State provides one day in the year for planting trees. Thus Arbor Day has become practically a national institution.

The Act of August 16, 1876. The first constructive piece of legislation enacted by the Congress of the United States was the Act of August 16, 1876. This was the first of a series of Acts passed by Congress which, although occurring many years apart in some cases, put forest conservation upon a firm basis. Under the first act the Commissioner of Agriculture was directed:

"To appoint some man of approved attainments who is practically well acquainted with methods of statistical inquiry and who has evinced an intimate acquaintance with questions relating to the national wants in regard to timber, to prosecute investigations and inquiries with the view of ascertaining the annual amount of consumption, importation, and exportation of timber and other forest products; the probable supply for future wants; the means best adapted to their preservation and renewal; the influence of forests upon climate and the means that have been successfully applied in foreign countries, or that may be deemed applicable in this country for the preservation and restoration or planting of forests, and to report upon the same to the Commissioner of Agriculture, to be by him in a separate report transmitted to Congress."

Dr. Franklin B. Hough, an active, untiring, and intelligent scholar, was the first man to be appointed by this act. As Commissioner of Forestry he prepared the first report and submitted it to Congress. The next year, in 1877, Congress granted its first appropriation of $6,000, "for the purpose of obtaining other facts and information preparatory to establishing a Division of Forestry."

Further Work Under the Act. The office of Commissioner of Forestry gradually enlarged the scope of its duties and functions. Five years later, due to the ever-increasing importance of the subject, a distinct division, the Division of Forestry, was established in the Department of Agriculture. The duties and powers of this Division were "to devote itself exclusively to such investigations of the subject as would tend to the fullest development of the resources of the country in that respect, to discover the best methods of managing and preserving our waning forests and to maintain in all its bearings the universal interest involved in that industry."

In 1881 an agent of the Department was sent to Europe to study the work of forestry there. In 1882 the American Forestry Congress was organized. This organization had for its object the discussion and dissemination of the important facts of forestry, and while strictly a private body, had a considerable influence in later years in educating the people to the needs of forestry and in helping to establish a rational forest policy in the United States. Its first meeting took place in Cincinnati. At a second meeting held the same year in Montreal the name was changed to the American Forestry Association and since then has been the center of all private efforts to advance the forestry movement. In 1898 this association began the publication of a propagandist journal which is now called American Forestry. In 1884 the duty of making experiments with timber was added to the functions of the Division. The next year the collecting and distribution of valuable economic tree seeds was begun. In 1886 the study of the biology of some of our important timber trees was taken up, while in the following year silvicultural problems first engaged the attention of the Division.

THE FIRST FOREST RESERVES ESTABLISHED MARCH 30, 1891

The Situation Before 1891. Before 1891 the Division of Forestry was simply a bureau of information. In general the information supplied was of a twofold nature. It was technical in so far as it related to the management of private woodlands and statistical in so far as the knowledge of the conditions of our forest resources induced the application of forestry principles. Up to that date Congress had neither appropriated enough money for efficient outdoor work nor did she attempt to put any government woodlands under the control of the Division. Therefore there had been no management because there were no forests to manage. This one-sided development of the forestry work of the Division was greatly impeding a rational development of the forest conservation movement.

The Need of a Forest Policy. The need for a well-defined forest policy with respect to the government forest lands now began to be felt. Railroad land grants, the Homestead Act, Preëmption claims, and the Timber and Stone Act were taking much valuable timberland out of government ownership. People secured claims under these acts merely for the timber that was on them. The purposes of the laws and acts of Congress were being fraudulently evaded. Also the Government had restrictive and protective laws in regard to its lands, but it could not enforce them on account of lack of appropriations with which to maintain an administrative and protective organization. The time was now ripe for an executive policy to manage the woodlands that still remained in the possession of the Government before it was too late to save what was left.

The Act of March 3, 1891. The Division of Forestry was designed by the nature of its duties to be more than a bureau of information. The existence of a governmental department to promulgate forestry principles while the Government itself had made no provision to apply such principles to its own permanent timberlands was an incongruity that suggested further legislative action. This was in part supplied by the law of March 3, 1891, which conferred upon the President the power to establish Forest Reservations. The first exercise of power under this act was the presidential proclamation creating the Yellowstone Park Timber Land Reserve under President Harrison on March 30, 1891. This was probably the wisest step yet taken in the development of a National Forest policy; but, unfortunately, the act left the Division simply a bureau of information as it was before.

AN ANOMALOUS CONDITION—FOREST RESERVES WITHOUT FOREST ADMINISTRATION

The Need of Administration on the Reserves. At first thought it will be seen that this piece of legislation must necessarily remain inoperative unless it were followed by the establishment of a proper administration of the Reserves based upon sound forestry principles. Furthermore, the law withdrew from public use all such lands that might be acquired under it. It was now easy for the Government to acquire lands; the question that next presented itself was how to protect and regulate the use of these new acquisitions. Forest protection cannot be secured without forest rangers and forest guards; nor forest management without technical foresters. The very reasons for establishing the Reserves would point to the absolute need of a system of managing them. These reasons were briefly:

"to prevent annual conflagrations; to prevent useless destruction of life and property by fires, etc.; to provide benefit and revenue from the sale of forest products, fuels, and timbers; to administer this resource for future benefit; to increase the stock of game; to promote the development of the country; to give regular employment to a professional staff; to secure continuous supplies of wood and to get the maximum amount of good from each acre."

Such arguments as these assume the presence of a force of men to protect and administrate these Reserves.

More Reserves Created. In spite of this serious fault in the Act of March 3, 1891, more Forest Reservations were created. By 1894 Presidents Harrison and Cleveland had created about 17,500,000 acres and on a single day, February 22, 1897, President Cleveland proclaimed over 20,000,000 acres. By the close of 1897 a total of almost 40,000,000 acres of Forest Reserves had been established.

During the six years following the law giving the President power to establish Reserves, the Reserves were under the jurisdiction of the General Land Office. The appropriations of Congress were small, amounting to less than $30,000 annually. Such appropriations were used mainly for testing timber strength and the conditions affecting quality.

THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE RESERVES UNDER THE GENERAL LAND OFFICE

The Act of June 4, 1897. The Secretary of the Interior in 1896 requested the National Academy of Sciences, the legally constituted advisor of the Government in scientific matters, to investigate, report upon, and recommend a National Forest policy. This resulted in the Act of June 4, 1897, under which, with subsequent amendments, the National Forests are now being administered. Under this act the Reserves remained in the hands of the General Land Office, Department of the Interior. It charged this office with the administration and protection of the Forest Reservations. Later the Geological Survey was charged with surveying and mapping them, and the Division of Forestry was asked to give technical advice. It is very evident that the Division of Forestry containing all the trained scientific staff had no relation to the government forestry work except as the offices of the Department of the Interior might apply for assistance or advice. It is true that an important step had been taken, but the complete separation of the administration by the General Land Office and the force of trained men in the Division of Forestry was a serious defect.

The Act of June 4 might be called the Magna Charta of national forestry. The U. S. Geological Survey undertook the task of surveying, classifying, and describing the Forest Reservations. At a cost of about one and one-half million dollars over 70,000,000 acres of Forest Reserves were mapped and described. The General Land Office undertook the administration and Forest Superintendents and Rangers were appointed to take charge of the Reservations. The rules and regulations for administering the Reserves were formulated by the Commissioner of the General Land Office.

The Division of Forestry in 1898. On July 1, 1898, the Division of Forestry employed 11 persons, 6 clerical and 5 scientific. There were also some collaborators and student assistants. There was no field equipment and no field work. But in the fall of 1898 an important step was taken. From that time on the Division of Forestry offered practical assistance to forest owners and thus it shifted its field of activity from the desk to the woods. The lumbermen were met on their own grounds and actual forest management for purely commercial ends was undertaken by well known lumbermen. From that time dates the solution of specific problems of forest management and the development of efficient methods of attacking them. The work of the Division at this time, therefore, consisted of activities along 4 distinct lines: (1) that of working plans, (2) that of economic tree planting, (3) that of special investigations, and (4) that of office work. Thus it will be seen, even at this late date the Division had practically nothing to say about the scientific forestry methods which should be used on the Reservations.

The Bureau of Forestry. In 1901 the Division of Forestry was raised to the rank of a Bureau, but this was a change in name only and carried with it no change in the handling of the Government's vast forest resources.

THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE FORESTRY WORK IN THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE IN 1905

The Act of February 1, 1905. The necessity of consolidating the various branches of government forest work became apparent and was urged upon Congress by President Roosevelt and by the executive officers concerned. This was finally accomplished by the act of February 1, 1905, by which entire jurisdiction over the Forest Reserves was transferred to the Secretary of Agriculture. Matters of surveying and passage of title, however, were still kept under the jurisdiction of the General Land Office. By this act the Division of Forestry for the first time in its career became an administrative organization. On July 1 of the same year the Bureau of Forestry became the Forest Service and in 1907 the change of name from "Forest Reserves" to "National Forests" was made to correct the impression that the forests were like reserves which had been withdrawn from use.

Early Forestry Education and Literature. The Act of February 1, 1905, was the final step which established the federal policy with regard to our National Forests. At this stage it will be interesting to note briefly the status of the science of American Forestry and of forestry education. As late as the spring of 1898 there was no science or literature on American Forestry, nor could education in the subject be procured in the country. But soon thereafter several forestry schools were established, namely, Cornell Forestry School in 1898, Yale School of Forestry and Biltmore Forest School in 1899, and the University of Michigan Forestry School in 1903. The beginning of the twentieth century saw the first professional foresters graduated and taking upon themselves the task of applying scientific forestry methods to the National Forests. Further evidence of the growth of the profession of forestry was the organization of the Society of American Foresters in 1900. The first professional journal was started in 1902 as the Forestry Quarterly, and other scientific forestry literature was issued by the Government. The scientific knowledge gathered in the field work since 1898 has taken the form of a rapidly growing literature on the subject which has formed the basis of the science of American Forestry.

Changes in the Forest Service Personnel. By 1905 the work of the Forest Service had increased to such an extent that the number of employees was increased to 821. With the opening of the forestry schools, professional foresters became available and the National Forests then began to be put into the hands of expert scientific men. Gradually the old type of untrained, non-scientific woodsman is being replaced by the trained forester. In addition, the entire force was made a part of the classified Civil Service and the plan of political appointees was banished forever.

More National Forests Created. While the administration of the National Forests was being adjusted the area of National Forests was constantly being increased. To the 40,000,000 acres of Reserves set aside by Presidents Harrison and Cleveland before 1897, President McKinley added over 7,000,000 acres until 1901. When Roosevelt became President the National Forest policy received an added impetus and vigor. Being a great lover of the out-of-door-life and being especially well acquainted, on account of his extensive travels, with the great western country, President Roosevelt threw his powerful influence into the balance. With the close coöperation of Mr. Gifford Pinchot, his warm personal friend, and at that time the Chief Forester, Mr. Roosevelt set aside between 1901 and 1909 over 148,000,000 acres of National Forests, more than three times as much as had been set aside by all his predecessors together. Since 1909 a careful adjustment of the boundaries has been going on, both Presidents Taft and Wilson adding small areas here and there, which were found valuable for forestry purposes, or eliminating small areas found to have no value. Acts of Congress passed since 1907 prohibit the addition by the President to the National Forests already established in Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. Additions can be made in these States only by special act of Congress. A number of such acts have been passed; some of them upon petitions of the people in these States.

The Growth of the Forest Service. The growth of the Forest Service between 1897 and 1917 is little short of marvelous. The number of its employees has increased from 61 in 1898 to 3,544 on June 30, 1917. The annual appropriations have increased from less than $30,000 in 1897 to $5,712,275 for the fiscal year 1918. But besides this appropriation for 1918 the Weeks Law calls for an expenditure of $2,100,000 and the Federal Aid Road Act for $1,000,000 more. The receipts of the National Forests have also increased by leaps and bounds. In 1897 the receipts were practically negligible in amount but by 1906 they had reached approximately $800,000. In the fiscal year 1917 they were more than $3,457,000.

Recent Modifications in the Organization. Further slight modifications in the organization, as established in 1905, were made since that date. Before 1908 all the work of the Forests was supervised from the main office in Washington and this arrangement caused much delay and inconvenience in carrying on the business of the Forests. In the fall of 1908 six administrative districts were established, to which another was added in 1914. By this arrangement the National Forests are divided into 7 groups and each group has a district headquarters in a large city or town centrally located in the group. The District Office acts as sort of clearing house for all National Forest business. All matters in the administration and protection of the National Forests that cannot be settled on the Forest or appear to be of general importance to the district are taken to the District Office, which is in charge of a District Forester and several assistants. Beginning in 1909 Forest Experiment Stations were established in each district and in 1910 the Forest Products Laboratory, the first one of its kind in the world, was formally opened at Madison, Wisconsin. The Weeks Law, passed on March 1, 1911, provides for the acquisition of forest lands on the watersheds of navigable streams in the Appalachian and White Mountains. Up to June 30, 1917, over 1,500,000 acres have been approved for purchase in these mountains. The Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina was recently organized from purchased lands.

THE PRESENT ORGANIZATION OF THE FOREST SERVICE

The Administrative Districts. The administration of the National Forests and the conduct of all matters relating to forestry which have been placed upon the Department of Agriculture are in charge of the Forester whose office is in Washington, D. C. To facilitate the administration of the Forests 7 districts have been established with headquarters in the following places:

District. 1. (Montana, northeastern Washington, northern Idaho, and northwestern South Dakota) Missoula, Montana.

District. 2. (Colorado, Wyoming, the remainder of South Dakota, Nebraska, northern Michigan, and northern Minnesota) Denver, Colorado.

District. 3. (Most of Arizona and New Mexico) Albuquerque, New Mexico.

District. 4. (Utah, southern Idaho, western Wyoming, eastern and central Nevada, and northwestern Arizona) Ogden, Utah.

District. 5. (California and western Nevada) San Francisco, California.

District. 6. (Washington, Oregon, and Alaska) Portland, Oregon.

District. 7. (Arkansas, Florida, Oklahoma, and the newly purchased areas in South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Maine, and Alabama,) Washington, D. C.

Each administrative district embraces a number of National Forests and is in charge of a Forest officer known as the District Forester who is responsible to the Forester for all administrative and technical work performed within the district. Each District Forester is aided by several assistants and by specialists in various lines of work. Each National Forest is in charge of a Forest Supervisor who may have a Deputy and a Forest Assistant or Forest Examiner to assist him if the amount of business on a National Forest warrants it. Each National Forest is subdivided into Ranger districts for the purpose of facilitating the protection work. Each Ranger district is in charge of a Ranger who may be assisted by other Rangers or Forest Guards.

The Washington Office. The work of the Forest Service in Washington is organized under the Office of Forester and the Branches of Operation, Lands, Silviculture, Research, Grazing, Engineering, and Acquisition of lands under the Weeks Law. The Office of Forester includes the Associate Forester, the Editor, the Dendrologist, the Chief of Accounts, besides Inspectors and Lumbermen. The Branch of Operation administers and supervises the business organization of the Forest Service and has general supervision of the personnel, quarters, equipment, and supplies of the Service and all the fire protection and permanent improvement work on the National Forests. The Branch of Lands examines and classifies lands in the Forests to determine their value for forest purposes, conducts the work in connection with claims on the Forests prior to proceedings before United States registers and receivers, and assists the Chief Engineer of the Service in handling matters in connection with the occupation and use of the National Forest lands for hydro-electric power purposes. The Branch of Silviculture supervises the sale and cutting of timber on the National Forests and coöperates with States in protecting forest lands under Section 2 of the Weeks Law. The Branch of Research has supervision over the investigative work of the Service, including silvicultural studies, studies of state forest conditions, investigations of the lumber and wood-using industries and lumber prices, and the investigative work carried on at the Forest Products Laboratory and the Forest Experiment Stations. The Branch of Grazing supervises the grazing of live stock upon the National Forests, allotting grazing privileges and dividing the ranges between different owners and classes of stock. It is also charged with the work of improving depleted grazing lands and of coöperating with the Federal and state authorities in the enforcement of stock quarantine regulations. The Branch of Engineering has to do with the proper designing and planning of roads, trails, and bridges; with the engineering problems involved in granting permits to hydro-electric plants in the Forests; and with the making of forest maps, surveys, improving the forest atlas, and other drafting work. The Branch of Acquisition of Lands under the Weeks Law has charge of examining and evaluating such lands which are offered for purchase and recommending suitable lands for purchase under the act.

The District Offices. Each District Office (of which there are 7) is organized in the main along the same lines as the Washington office. Each Branch in the Washington office is represented in the District Office by an Assistant District Forester or some similar official. The Office of the District Forester has in addition the Office of Solicitor (Forest Service Branch), which is in charge of an assistant to the Solicitor of the Department of Agriculture. He is the advisor to the District Forester in all matters of law which arise in the administration of the National Forests. His opinions are usually binding except that, in urgent cases, appeal may be taken to the Solicitor of the Department at Washington through the Forester. Many cases of law arise on the National Forests such as cases of timber, fire, and grazing trespass. All these are handled in the Office of the District Forester. The Office of Accounts in the districts is in charge of the District Fiscal Agent who is an assistant to the Chief of Accounts in the Washington Office. Three of the districts have a Branch of Products. The Experiment Stations in the districts are under the supervision of the District Forester and the men in charge of them bear the same relation to the District Office as the Supervisor of a National Forest. Most of the districts also have in the Office of Silviculture a Consulting Pathologist who has charge of all problems relating to tree diseases.

The following scheme will illustrate in a general way the organization of the Forest Service and show how the National Forests are administered at the present time:

[CHAPTER II]
THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE NATIONAL FORESTS

Under the head of administration we must necessarily understand those factors which are essential to carry on the business of the National Forests. First of all we must consider the personnel, that is, the men that make up the organization by means of which the work on the Forests is done. Next we must learn how the money for this large enterprise is appropriated each year to carry on the work, and how it is divided up so that each National Forest gets an amount each year in proportion to its needs. Then again men and money are of little avail without tools, equipment, and supplies. The proper distribution of these to the 147 National Forests is no small business organization in itself. Lastly we must learn of the many permanent improvements which are made on the National Forests which are absolutely necessary for their proper administration, protection and use. No large constructive forestry enterprise is complete without these. They consist of the construction of means of transportation, means of communication, and living quarters for the personnel; of extensive planting of young trees to reëstablish forests which have been destroyed by fires; the carrying on of research and experiments to aid in the development of the best methods of forestry; and the classification and segregation of agricultural lands and the establishment of permanent boundaries. All these matters must necessarily be considered before we attempt to learn about the protection and the utilization of the National Forests.

PERSONNEL

Duties of Forest Officers. Forest officers are the servants of the people and they are expected to assist in every way possible those who wish to use the resources of the Forests. Their first duty is to enforce the regulations under which all permits, leases, sales, and rentals are made. These regulations cover every phase of National Forest activity and in conducting business under them they must not let personal or other interests weigh against the good of the Forests. For the good of the Forest Service their conduct must be prompt and courteous and their business methods sensible and effective. They make it their business to prevent misunderstandings and violations of forest regulations rather than to correct mistakes after they have been made.

On the National Forests there are permanent employees and temporary employees. Under the former heading come the Forest Supervisor, the Deputy Supervisor, the Forest Assistant, the Forest Ranger, Lumbermen, Sealers, Planting Assistants, and Forest Clerks. Under the latter category come the Forest Guards, the Field Assistants, and the Temporary Laborers. All permanent positions are in the classified Civil Service. Vacancies are filled from a certified list of those who have passed a Civil Service examination or by promotion from the lower ranks.

Figure 9. Forest officers in front of the Forest Supervisor's summer headquarters. Note the many telephone wires that lead from the office. This is 50 miles from the railroad. Lassen National Forest, California.

Figure 10. Scene in front of the Forest Supervisor's headquarters. Sheep leaving the National Forest summer range in the fall to go to winter range in the valley. Lassen National Forest, California.

The Forest Supervisor. A Forest Supervisor is in charge of each National Forest and he plans the work of the Forest and supervises its execution. He works, of course, under direct instruction from the District Forester and is responsible to him. When the amount of business on the Forest warrants it he is assisted by a Deputy Supervisor. Both these positions are filled by the promotion of experienced men in the classified Civil Service. The Forest Supervisor's headquarters are located in towns conveniently situated with regard to the most important points in his Forest. The town is usually located on a railroad and centrally located with regard to the various Ranger districts of his Forest. His headquarters are usually the center of the system of roads and trails which covers his entire Forest. From his office also the telephone system radiates in all directions to his various District Rangers. In short, the Forest Supervisor's office is so situated that he has at all times full knowledge of all the activities of his Forest; he is therefore in a position to give advice and directions by telephone to his Rangers and other subordinates almost at any time of the day or night. Such intimate communication is of especial importance during the fire season.

Some Forests have two headquarters, one that is occupied in the winter and the other that is occupied in the summer. The summer quarters is usually most advantageously situated as far as the business of the Forest is concerned, but owing to deep snow, which seriously interferes with mail and telephone connections, a more accessible winter quarters is occupied from October to May.

The force of men the Forest Supervisor has working under him varies of course with the amount of work to be performed. The permanent force is usually from 10 to 15 men, which during the fire season may be increased to from 25 to 40 and in cases of great fire emergency sometimes to several hundred men, by the addition of temporary employees.

The Forest Assistant. The other permanent men on a National Forest are the Forest Assistant or Forest Examiner, Forest Rangers, and a Forest clerk with his assistant, the Stenographer and Typewriter. The Forest Assistant or Examiner ranks next to the Deputy and his work is directed by the Forest Supervisor, to whom he makes his reports. The Forest Assistant is the technical man of the Forest force, who upon making good is promoted to Forest Examiner. He is employed upon such technical lines of work as the examination and mapping of forest areas; reports on applications for the purchase of timber; marking, scaling, and managing timber sales; the survey of boundaries; and nursery and planting work.

Not only is a Forest Assistant called upon to perform these various lines of technical work. The very nature of the country he is in indicates that he must be an all-round practical man. He must be able to ride, pack, and drive. He must often live alone and therefore must do his own cooking, washing, and take care of other personal needs. He must be strong and healthy and capable of undergoing hardships, at least be able to stand long days of walking, climbing, and horseback riding. His various duties and the different situations that arise often call for knowledge and practical ability as a carpenter, a mechanic, a plumber, an engineer, a surveyor, and many other lines of work. Perhaps more important than his education and ability are his personal qualifications. His temperament must be such that he must feel satisfied and contented under the most trying conditions. He must be able to do without most of the comforts of modern civilization for most of the time. For these reasons the country-bred western youths are more liable to make a success of the work than the city-bred easterner.

The Forest Ranger. The Forest Ranger's position is one of the most important and at the same time the most difficult positions on our National Forests.

The Forest Ranger's headquarters are usually at the nearest business center to his district and if that is not practicable permanent headquarters are provided on the Forest. In any case his station is located as near to the center of the business activity of his district as possible. If his headquarters are centrally located in his district, trails, roads, and telephone lines lead out from his cabin to all parts of his district. His station is built and maintained at government expense and usually has, besides his living quarters, a barn, tool-house, pasture, corral, and other necessary improvements.

The Forest Ranger performs such routine work as the supervision of timber sales, grazing, free use, special use, and other contracts and permits, the carrying out of the protection and improvement plans for his district, and other administrative duties. The average Forest Ranger has a territory of from 75,000 to 150,000 acres to take care of. On June 30, 1917, there were about 1,100 Forest Rangers employed on the National Forests who were assisted by over 900 Assistant Forest Rangers and Forest Guards. The protective force was therefore about one man for every 77,800 acres or about 121 square miles.

The Forest Ranger must be a man who is physically sound and capable of enduring great hardships. He is often required to do heavy manual labor in fighting fire under the most trying conditions. For this reason he must have great endurance. They are usually men who have been brought up in timber work, on ranches or farms, or with the stock business. They are therefore thoroughly familiar with the region in which they are to be employed and especially acquainted with the rough, semi-primitive life which is characteristic of remote places in the West.

He must be able to take care of himself and his horses in regions remote from settlement and supplies. He must be able to build trails, roads and cabins; he must be able to ride, pack, and drive and deal tactfully with all classes of people. He must know something about land surveying, estimating, and scaling timber; of logging, mining laws, and the live stock business. His duties include patrol to prevent fire and trespass; estimating, surveying, and marking timber; the supervision of cutting and similar work. He is authorized to issue permits, build cabins and trails, oversee grazing business, investigate mining and agricultural claims, report upon applications, and report upon and arrest for the violation of Forest laws and regulations.

The Forest Clerk. The Forest Clerk performs the clerical work and the book-keeping in the Forest Supervisor's office. He sometimes has a Stenographer and Typewriter to assist him and to do the mechanical work of correspondence. Lumbermen are specialists who are thoroughly well versed in all that pertains to logging, milling, scaling, and cruising timber. They are assigned temporarily to Forests where need for their work arises. Scalers are men thoroughly familiar with the art of scaling or measuring logs, ties, poles, cord wood and other forest products. Planting Assistants are specialists in nursery and planting work. Their duties include the preparation of seed beds, seed sowing, transplanting and care of seedlings, and field planting. They are assigned to the Forest Service nurseries.

The Work of Forest Officers in the Winter

Figure 11. Forest officers and lumberjacks burning the slash resulting from a timber sale. The snow on the ground makes the burning less dangerous. Washakie National Forest, Wyoming. Photo by the author.

Figure 12. Forest officers at a winter timber-cruising camp repairing snow shoes. Besides cruising the timber, these men make a logging map of the government lands, to show how the timber can best be taken out. Lassen National Forest, California. Photo by the author.

Temporary Laborers, Forest Guards, and Field Assistants are employed during the field season when additional work on the National Forests warrants it. Forest Guards perform temporary protection, administrative, and improvement work; Field Assistants, usually students of forestry serving their apprenticeships, are usually employed at minor technical work and timber cruising; Temporary Laborers are employed by the day or month at any kind of improvement or maintenance work.

Forest Service Meetings. A general meeting of the Forest force is usually held annually to give the Forest officers the benefit of each other's experience, to keep in touch with the entire work of the Forest, and to promote "esprit-de-corps." The time and place of the meeting depends upon circumstances, but it is usually held at a time of the year when there is least danger from fire. Often joint meetings are held with the forces of adjacent Forests. This annual meeting idea is carried through the entire Forest Service. The Forest Supervisors in each administrative district usually meet at the district headquarters once a year and the District Foresters of all the districts together with representative officers from the Washington office usually meet annually at some centrally located district office such as the one at Ogden, Utah. These meetings assist greatly in keeping all the work in the various branches of the Service up to the same standard of efficiency, in avoiding mistakes by learning the experience of others, and in correlating and summarizing work done on similar problems in widely different regions.

HOW THE FOREST SERVICE APPROPRIATION IS ALLOTTED TO THE NATIONAL FORESTS

It is, indeed, a great task to distribute the money that is each year appropriated by Congress for the Forest Service so that the Washington Office, the District Offices, and the 147 National Forests each get their just share and so that each dollar buys the greatest amount of good for the whole people without extravagance or waste. To do this a large organization has been built up composed of business men who have absolutely no selfish interest at heart and among whom graft or favoritism is unknown and unheard of. It may be said without exaggeration that the business of the National Forests is on a thoroughly sound and efficient basis.

Forest Service Expenses. While for reasons already spoken of, the cash receipts are considerably below the expenses for running the Forests, the rapidly increasing system of roads, trails and telephone lines points not only to a constantly increasing use and service to the public but also as a consequence to increased financial returns.

The expenses of the Forest Service on the National Forests are of a two-fold character. There are costs of administration and protection on the one hand which might be called ordinary running expenses, and the costs of improvements, reforestation, and forest investigations on the other. The latter are really in the nature of investments, and do not properly fall into the category of operating costs. Yet they are absolutely necessary to the welfare of the Forests. They comprise expenditures for roads, trails, telephone lines, and similar improvements, the establishment of forests by the planting of young trees which have been destroyed by past fires, the carrying on of research and experiments to aid in the development of the best methods of forestry, and expenses connected with the classification and segregation of agricultural lands in the Forests. The establishment of permanent boundaries and the cost of making homestead and other surveys are also in the nature of investments. Such expenditures may be looked upon as money deposited in the bank to bear interest; they will not bring direct financial returns now but will produce great revenue many years hence.

The Agricultural Appropriation Bill. The fiscal year in the Forest Service extends from July 1 of one year to June 30 of the next. Every year, in the Agricultural Appropriation Bill that comes before Congress, there is an appropriation for the Forest Service for its work. This appropriation is not in a lump sum but by allotments or funds. There is the fund for Fire Fighting, one for General Expenses, another for Statutory Salaries, another for Improvements, another for Emergency Fire conditions, and usually there are special appropriations for various purposes. For the fiscal year 1918 (extending from July 1, 1917, to June 30, 1918) there are special appropriations for Land Classification, for purchasing land under the Weeks Law, for coöperative fire protection under the Weeks Law, and for the Federal Aid Road Act.

The Ranger's Protection and Improvement Plans. Long before this bill reaches Congress every Forest Ranger on every National Forest, every Forest Supervisor, and every Branch of the Washington and the District Offices have been estimating how much money they will need to carry out the plans proposed for the next fiscal year. Each Forest Ranger works and studies over his plans for the next year with which he hopes to protect his district from fire. He plans and figures out what improvements are urgently necessary to make the remote parts of his district more accessible. He tries to arrive at a safe estimate of the cost of so many miles of trails, roads, and telephone lines, so many cabins, barns, corrals, etc., which he thinks are absolutely essential to the proper administration of his district, and he estimates the number of Forest Guards, lookout men, and patrol men he will need for the protection of his territory. Usually these items are summed up under his annual Improvement Plan and his Protection Plan respectively.

The Supervisor's Plans. When the Forest Supervisor receives such estimates and plans from each of his Forest Rangers he studies them over carefully and tries to decide in an impartial way what improvements are most necessary in each Ranger district and what additional men are necessary for the adequate protection of the region in question. He carefully weighs the arguments for and against each expenditure and decides what improvements must be made now and which ones it would be possible to postpone for one or more years without detriment to the work of his Forest as a whole. For in most cases the amount of necessary work to be done on each Ranger district is far in excess of the amount which the Forest Supervisor could approve owing to the inadequacy of the Forest Service funds. So, for the Forest Supervisor, it is merely a question of how low he can keep his estimates for money for the ensuing year until such a time when Congress will appropriate more money so that all the important and necessary work can be done. In most cases therefore the major part of all the expenditures recommended by the Forest Ranger is warranted, but the Forest Supervisor knows that he must cut all the estimates down considerably in order to bring the total Forest estimate reasonably near the amount he is likely to get, basing his judgment upon what he got the year before.

Approval of Plans by the District Forester. The District Forester then gets the National Forest estimate from every one of his 25 or 30 Forest Supervisors and he in turn must decide what projects on each Forest are immediately necessary and which ones can be postponed. The same process is repeated in the Washington office when all the estimates from the District Foresters are received, and the Forester in turn sends to the Secretary of Agriculture his estimates by allotments or funds, which in turn are put before Congress. While Congress sometimes makes minor changes in the Forest Service appropriation, in most cases the bill is passed as it stands.

The District Fiscal Agent. The money appropriated by Congress is allotted to each district, and in turn to each National Forest and finally to each Ranger district by funds, such as General Expenses, Fire Fighting, Improvements, etc. In each district the financial matters are taken care of in the Office of Accounts by the District Fiscal Agent. He is the Assistant of the Chief of the Forest Service Branch of the Division of Accounts of the Department of Agriculture and pays all the bills incurred by the district and receives all the money which comes in from the sale of National Forest resources. The amount of money appropriated for the district is credited to him and he disburses this appropriation in accordance with the Fiscal Regulations of the Department of Agriculture. No other officer is allowed to receive money for the sale of timber, forage, or other resources; in fact no other official in the District handles any of the Forest Service funds whatsoever.

All remittances by users of the National Forests are made to the U. S. District Depository. If a rancher has bought some timber from a Forest Ranger, he is given a letter of transmittal showing the amount of the purchase which he must send to the District Fiscal Agent with the amount necessary to pay for the timber. The letter of transmittal explains the purpose of the remittance.

Tax Money Paid to the States. Another interesting feature of the National Forest business is the money paid each State out of the annual receipts in lieu of taxes. It must be remembered that National Forests do not pay taxes to the States in which they are located. On the other hand, if the National Forests were private property they would bring into the county and state treasuries yearly taxes. To compensate the State for the taxes lost in this way each National Forest pays to each county in proportion to the area of the National Forest lands located in that county a sum of money equal to 25 per cent, of the total gross receipts each fiscal year. From the receipts of the fiscal year 1917 this amounts to about $850,000. It is provided that this money is to be expended for schools and roads in the county in which the National Forests lie. Recently a law was passed giving the Secretary of Agriculture authority to expend an additional 10 per cent. of the National Forest receipts for the construction of roads and trails for the benefit of local communities. From the fiscal year 1917 this amounts to about $340,000. These moneys for roads, trails, and schools are of course a great benefit to the mountain communities, since usually the amount of taxable property in such remote localities is small and hence the amount of taxes received is small. These allotments to the counties have helped to develop the communication systems of local communities and have also made the National Forests more accessible and useful.

THE EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES FOR THE NATIONAL FORESTS

The Property Auditor and Property Clerk. The depot for equipment, supplies, and blank forms is located at Ogden, Utah, and this office furnishes all the Forests in all the districts with most of the equipment necessary. The record of the property of the United States in the custody of the Forest Service is kept by a man called the Property Auditor. Requisitions for supplies and equipment are made by the Forest Supervisor to the Property Clerk. Government property is considered expendable or non-expendable depending upon its character. Each Forest has a Property Custodian who has charge of all the property assigned to the Forest. When property is received from the Property Clerk or if property is transferred from one forest officer to another, the Property Custodian must note the change on his records.

Blank Forms. The blank forms which are supplied by the Property Clerk are printed standard forms used in issuing permits, making contracts, reports, examinations, timber sale agreements, in short, those used in almost every business transaction of the Forest Service. Even timber estimates, tree measurements, and other similar public records are kept on standard printed forms for permanent uniform record.

Supplies. Supplies such as stationery, typewriters, pencils, ink, notebooks, paper for map work, compasses, measuring tapes, and a host of other articles are furnished upon requisition by the Property Clerk. Equipment such as filing cases, tables, chairs, typewriters, tree-measuring instruments, tents, cooking utensils, surveying instruments, snow shoes, skiis, knapsacks, water buckets, canteens, kodaks, and many other forms of equipment are furnished by the Property Clerk, although in cases of emergency some of these things may be purchased locally by Forest officers by the authority of the Forest Supervisor.

NATIONAL FOREST IMPROVEMENTS

The Need of Improvements. It is but natural, from their situation, that the National Forests represent pioneer conditions; conditions that one might expect to find in a wild, rugged, mountainous country. This was true to an extreme degree when the National Forests were first established and it is true in a very large degree even to-day, since the amount of time and money which it will be necessary to expend on the construction of improvements on the 155,000,000 acres of National Forests is something enormous. For a long time to come, then, the National Forests will need improvements in order to make them secure against fire and in order to make the resources, now locked up, available. Proper protection and the fullest use of National Forest resources depend mainly upon facilities for transportation, communication, and control. All parts of the National Forests should be accessible by roads and trails; there should be telephone communication between settlements and Forest officers' headquarters and with the lookout stations; and in most cases suitable living accommodations must be provided for the field force. For the fullest use of the forage resources, water for the live stock must be developed and range fences constructed; to reduce the hazard and the cost and difficulty of controlling forest fires, firebreaks and other works must be constructed.

Transportation Facilities. Adequate facilities for travel and transportation are of first importance. Steam roads, electric roads, and boat lines are utilized in the National Forest transportation system as well as the existing roads and trails. Added to this, new roads and trails are being constructed every year to complete the already existing network.

Figure 13. A forest fire lookout tower on Leek Springs Mountain. Eldorado National Forest, California.

The need for new roads and trails depends upon the number of them already existing, the value of the resources that it is necessary to make accessible, the fire liability, and the amount of unrealized revenues due to lack of transportation facilities. If valuable grazing land or timber land can be made accessible there is good reason for building a new road. In many cases roads and trails are built to facilitate the protection of large remote areas from fire. Such areas may have large bodies of valuable timber which if destroyed by forest fires would involve a heavy loss. Even aside from valuable timber on an area, it is absolutely necessary when a forest fire breaks out to get to it with men and fire-fighting equipment in the shortest possible time before it spreads. If the fire gets to be a large one, many men with provisions, tents, fire-fighting tools, and other equipment must be transported to the scene of the fire. Any delay in the transportation of these things may prove fatal and may result in an uncontrollable conflagration.

The transportation system that is proposed for a National Forest, if the one that exists is inadequate, is usually planned many years ahead. The ultimate or ideal system is always kept in mind so that every mile of road or trail that is constructed is made a part of it. If not enough money is available for a good road, a trail is built along the line of the proposed road. Later this trail is widened into a permanent road. The Engineer connected with each District Office usually has charge of laying out big road projects. A few miles of permanent, good, dirt road with good grade is always preferred to many miles of poor road with heavy grade and improper drainage. A road and trail system is planned for each National Forest which will eventually place every portion of the Forest within a distance of at least 7-1/2 miles of a wagon road. A pack-train can then transport supplies from the point to which they are delivered on the wagon road to any field camp and return in a single day.

In trail and road construction it is very often necessary to build bridges. Sometimes a very simple log bridge meets the need, but in bridging many large mountain torrents, which become very high and dangerous in the spring, large bridges are necessary. Cable suspension bridges and queen and king truss bridges are built where occasion arises for them, but only after being planned in detail and after the District Forester has approved their design and method of construction.

Figure 14. A typical Forest ranger's headquarters. Idlewood Ranger Station, Arapaho National Forest, Colorado

Very often navigable streams and lakes are used as a part of the transportation system on a National Forest. On the Tahoe National Forest in California launches are operated by the Forest Service on Lake Tahoe to patrol the region around the lake for forest fires. Ferries, boats, and launches belonging to private companies or individuals are used by agreement or if necessary are bought by the Service from the Improvement funds. Speeders, motor cars, and hand cars on railroads or logging roads are often used when an agreement has been made with the company. In this way railroads are made a part of the transportation system of the Forest.

Communication Facilities. The system of communication on the National Forests is scarcely less important than the system of transportation. This system includes telephone lines, signal systems, and mail service. The telephone system, as can be readily seen, is of the utmost importance for the transaction of all kinds of National Forest business. In case a Forest Ranger wishes to speak to his Supervisor about controlling a large fire, it makes a great difference whether he can talk to him over the telephone or whether he must send a messenger on horseback perhaps 60 or 70 miles. In the former case practically no time is lost, in the latter it would take at least two days for the messenger to reach the Forest Ranger, and in the meantime the fire would continue to rage and spread.

In the absence of a telephone system a signal system is used. The one probably used the most in forest fire protection work is the heliograph, by which code messages are sent from one point to another by means of a series of light flashes on a mirror. The light of the sun is used and the flashes are made by the opening and closing of a shutter in front of the mirror. Very often these heliograph stations are located on mountain tops in the midst of extremely inaccessible country. Where there are a number of these stations at least one is connected by telephone to the Forest Supervisor's office. When the Forest officer at the telephone gets a heliograph message about a certain fire he immediately telephones the news directly to the Forest Ranger in whose district the fire is located, or if he does not happen to be in direct communication with the Forest Ranger he notifies the Forest Supervisor, who then notifies the officer concerned. Of course it is all prearranged who should be notified in case a fire is reported to the heliograph man.

Figure 15. A typical view of the National Forest country in Montana. Forest Service trail up Squaw Peak Patrol Station, Cabinet National Forest.

Unfortunately it has been found that this system of communication is not satisfactory even under favorable conditions. This system depends upon direct sunlight; without it is useless. When there is much smoke in the air it is also of uncertain value. The heliograph system has perhaps reached its greatest development upon the California National Forest, but even here experience has shown that it is only a temporary makeshift and the plan is to replace it by a telephone system as soon as possible.

The Forest Supervisor, especially in his summer headquarters, depends directly upon the mail service for communication with the District Forester and the outside world. In many cases the fact that the Forest Supervisor has his headquarters in a small mountain community in the summer has made it possible for that community to receive a daily mail service or mail at least three times a week. When the Forest Supervisor becomes satisfied that mail service is desirable in certain mountain communities he investigates local settlers' needs for mail facilities; or he may coöperate with the people in the nearest village who are petitioning for mail service. Often his influence proves the deciding factor in getting it.

As I have said before, telephone communication is indispensable to fire protection and to quick and efficient methods of conducting National Forest business. Not only do Forest Service lines enter into the National Forest telephone system but all private lines are also made use of. By coöperative agreements with private companies the National Forest lines are used by private companies, in return for which private lines are used by the Forest Service. In this way a complete network of telephone lines is established connecting not only the Forest Supervisor with all his Rangers and his forest fire lookout stations, but also connecting each one of these with local communities and the large towns at a distance. Thus, when a forest fire occurs and the available local help is not sufficient to control the fire the telephone system is put to use to call help from the nearest villages and towns.

Figure 16. Forest Rangers repairing a bridge over a mountain stream. Arapaho National Forest, Colorado

Grazing Improvements. It is often necessary for the complete and economical use of the forage on a National Forest to coöperate with the local stockmen to develop range by constructing improvements. Water may have to be developed; fences, corrals, bridges, trails, and other works may have to be constructed. Often cattle belonging to different stockmen are grazed on adjacent areas which are not separated by natural boundaries such as rivers, ridges, or swamps. If there is no obstacle to prevent the cattle from drifting from one range into another, a drift fence is built, thus definitely separating one stockman's range from the other. Often good range would remain unused on account of lack of water altogether or on account of lack of water during the dry season only. In this case the Forest Service usually coöperates with the stockmen to provide water. Roads, trails, and bridges are often necessary to enable sheep and cattle to reach range lands.

Protective Improvements. Ranger stations, cabins, lookout stations, firebreaks and similar works are required to protect the forests from fire and are known as protective improvements. Buildings are constructed for the field force to afford necessary shelter and to furnish an office for the efficient transaction of business. Land is often cultivated for the production of forage crops and fences are built to insure necessary pasturage for live stock used by the Forest officers in their work. The buildings may be substantial houses to be used throughout the year or they may be merely such structures as will afford the necessary shelter and domestic conveniences for Forest officers in the summer. These summer camps are constructed where needed for the use of patrolmen, officers engaged in timber sale work or at such points as will serve the needs of officers traveling through the forest. Barns, sheds, and other small structures are constructed at the Ranger's headquarters when they are needed. Office buildings are also constructed for the use of Forest Rangers or for summer headquarters of the Forest Supervisor.

Figure 17. A forest fire lookout station on the top of Lassen Peak, elevation 10,400 feet, Lassen National Forest, California. This cabin was first erected complete in a carpenter's shop in Red Bluff, about 50 miles away. It was then taken to pieces and packed to the foot of Lassen Peak. On the last two miles of its journey it was packed piece by piece on forest officers' backs and finally reassembled on the topmost pinnacle of the mountain. Photo by the author.

Figure 18. Forest officers and laborers building a wagon road through trap rock. Payette National Forest, Idaho.

Appropriations for Improvement Work. The money for the construction of National Forest improvements is secured from various sources. The annual Forest Service appropriation usually carries a considerable sum for this purpose. In the fiscal year 1918 $450,000 has been appropriated for this work, which divided among the 147 National Forests gives an average only of about $3,000 per Forest. This is really a very small sum considering the size of the average National Forest. Fortunately there are other appropriations and funds and each year sees more money available for this most important work. Under the law 25 per cent. of the receipts are paid to the States in which the National Forests are located to be expended for roads and schools. The amount to be paid to the States in this way from the receipts in 1917 is about $848,874.00. By the acts of Congress organizing them as States, Arizona and New Mexico also receive for their schools funds an additional share of the receipts based on the proportion that their school lands within the National Forests bear to the total National Forest area in the States. The approximate amounts due on account of the receipts for 1917 are $42,844.80 to Arizona and $18,687.56 to New Mexico. Congress has also provided that 10 per cent, of the receipts shall be set aside as an appropriation to be used under the direction of the Secretary of Agriculture for road and trail building in National Forests in coöperation with state authorities or otherwise. The amount thus appropriated on account of the fiscal year 1917 receipts is $339,549.61. This added to the amount carried over from the 1916 receipts fund, $136,981.23, and the amount appropriated for improvements, in the regular Agricultural Appropriation Bill, $450,000.00, brings the total available for the construction of roads, trails, cabins, bridges, telephone lines, etc., on the National Forests for the fiscal year 1918 to $926,530.84.

There is still another fund recently appropriated which will enable roads and trails to be built on a very much larger scale than hitherto has been possible and will result in the rapid opening of forest regions at present practically inaccessible. The Federal Aid Road Act, passed by Congress in 1916, appropriated ten million dollars for the construction and maintenance of roads and trails within or partly within National Forests. This money becomes available at the rate of a million dollars a year until 1927. In general, the States and counties are required to furnish coöperation in an amount at least equal to 50 per cent. of the estimated cost of the surveys and construction of projects approved by the Secretary of Agriculture. The apportionment among the States is based on the area of National Forest lands in each State and the estimated value of the timber and forage resources which the Forests contain.

The total amount from all sources available for roads, trails, and other improvements on the National Forests during the fiscal year 1918 is therefore $1,926,530.84.

THE CLASSIFICATION AND CONSOLIDATION OF NATIONAL FOREST LANDS

The classification and consolidation of National Forest lands is a matter of great importance to their proper administration and protection. If all the lands within the Forests are to be put to their highest use for the permanent good of the whole people the lands inside of their boundaries must be classified and permanent boundaries established for each Forest. Through this kind of work the National Forests gain in stability. The classification and segregation of the agricultural lands is most important, for these lands are open to entry under the Forest Homestead Act.

Land Classification. The land classification work is organized in the Washington and District Offices under the Branch of Lands. Crews of men are sent out from the District Offices and the work of classification, carefully planned ahead, is done by projects, that is, large contiguous areas are examined together. For instance, the Hat Creek Project on the Lassen National Forest consisted of a number of large areas containing scattered parcels of agricultural lands along the Hat Creek valley in that Forest. For the classification of the lands on a big project a surveyor and a lineman, one or more timber cruisers, and an expert from the Bureau of Soils constitute the crew. As a result of this work over 1,100 individual tracts within the Forests were made available for entry under the Forest Homestead Act during the fiscal year 1916, because this land was found to have a greater value for growing agricultural crops than for growing timber. Under this same policy since 1912 about 12,000,000 acres were eliminated from the Forests, partly because they were of greater value for agricultural use, or because they were not suited for the purposes for which the National Forests were created. Up to June 30, 1917, 127,156,610 acres of National Forest land have been examined and classified. Such work as this, once and for all time, will settle the controversy now and then waged in Congress by certain Congressmen that the National Forests have large and valuable tracts of agricultural lands locked up within their boundaries and therefore should be abolished, or turned over to the States, or equally radical disposition made of them. Such Congressmen usually are working for some predatory private interests who want to secure the great wealth in the National Forests that is being wisely conserved for the people.

The Consolidation of National Forest Lands. There has also been a great need for consolidating the National Forest lands where these were interspersed with private or state lands. Congress has recognized this need and from time to time has granted authority to exchange lands with private owners or States where such an exchange would be advantageous to the Government through the resulting consolidation of holdings. Thus by getting the government lands into a more compact body their administration and protection are materially facilitated in many ways.

Before any exchange is made it must be ascertained that the land which the Government is to receive has equal value with that relinquished, also that the land is chiefly valuable for the production of timber and the protection of stream flow. Recent additions to the Whitman National Forest in Oregon consisted of privately owned cut-over timberland rapidly reproducing to valuable timber trees. Title to this will be secured by exchange for government owned lands.

HOW YOUNG FORESTS ARE PLANTED TO REPLACE THOSE DESTROYED BY FIRE

Reforestation and the Timber Supply. More than 15,000,000 acres of National Forest lands which are capable of producing timber and valuable chiefly for that purpose have been denuded of their original tree growth. These lands are not adapted to agriculture and possess but a small value for grazing. In their present condition they are practically unproductive barrens.

It is probable that one-half of this area will reforest itself naturally through the reseeding of burns, and the encroachment of tree growth upon natural openings, parks, grass lands, and brush lands. This natural extension of the forest on such areas is progressing at the estimated rate of 150,000 acres annually. The remaining half of the denuded area, 7,500,000 acres, must be reforested by artificial means. This land is unquestionably adapted to growing timber and useful to the nation primarily for that purpose. Every year that it lies idle the country suffers a great financial loss, for such an immense area is capable of growing at least three-quarters of a billion feet of timber annually. It was recently estimated that the timberlands on the National Forests are producing between five and six billion feet of lumber annually by growth. The complete restocking of the areas now denuded or sparsely timbered will increase the annual production of wood at least 25 per cent., an item certainly worth considering.

Reforestation and Water Supply. Even more important than the value of the timber which is lost annually is the part which these large areas play in the conservation of water supply. Most of this area is on the watersheds of western streams and rivers and the fact that it is denuded is a dangerous menace to the equable flow of the rivers which drain those areas. The National Forests contain over 1,175 watersheds which supply many municipalities, 324 water-power projects, and 1,266 irrigation projects, aside from many other outside power and irrigation projects which are fed by watersheds within the Forests. The cities of Salt Lake City, Utah; Denver and Colorado Springs, Colorado; Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, all derive their municipal water supply from streams arising in the National Forests. The proposed water system for the city of San Francisco, California, is also to be taken from the National Forest streams. A few years ago planting was undertaken on the watershed of the Colorado Springs, Colorado, reservoir. This water supply is worth annually from $80,000 to $100,000. Besides this the 2,000 horsepower hydro-electric plants are valued at $40,000 and the 40,000 undeveloped horsepower are said to have an additional value of $400,000, making the total value of the watershed more than $500,000, with the probability that a greater water supply having a far greater value will be needed as the city grows.

Figure 19. Drying pine cones preparatory to extracting the seed. Near Plumas National Forest, California.

Figure 20. Extracting tree seed from the cones. The dried cones are shaken around until the seeds drop out through the wire mesh which forms the sides of the machine.

And there are many evidences that the people of the West have begun to realize that the National Forests are the key to the entire water-supply situation in the West no matter for what purpose the water is used. The public consideration now being given to flood control, the requests from many western cities for special measures to protect their municipal water supply, the concern expressed by irrigation associations in Colorado and elsewhere, lest even the regulated cutting on the National Forests may reduce stream flow, and the rapid rate at which unused reservoir and power sites in the Forests are being developed, all are evidences of the importance of Forests in protecting water supplies. Reforestation is essential so that the National Forests can effectively discharge this function.

Government Reforestation Policy. The duty of the Forest Service to put the denuded areas which will not be reforested naturally into a condition of productivity admits of no further argument. But the problem is not so easily solved as it is made clear. Under the semi-arid conditions prevailing on many National Forests this work involves uncertainties and unsolved problems. On the National Forests artificial reforestation was an untried field when the Forest Service entered it. The Government therefore had to develop its own practice in the face of a great variety of conditions, largely unfavorable. The situation still calls for intensive experiments to develop the best methods from the standpoint of both cost and results. More than that, it calls for a different set of methods for each forest region of the West which has its peculiar trees, climate, and soils. Then, lastly, when the proper methods have been demonstrated by experiment, the new methods can be applied on a large scale with a very good chance for success.

Therefore intensive experiments must come first. Business prudence requires the development of all methods in detail and reasonable certainty as to their results before large sums are expended upon field operations. In the least favorable regions like the semi-arid mesas of the Southwest, the work is restricted for the present to small, carefully conducted experiments, the result sought being reliable information upon how to proceed rather than the reforestation of many acres. In the most favorable regions, as the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains and the Cascade Ranges, the results already obtained have been so excellent, due to an unusual combination of good growing conditions, that operations upon a larger scale have been justified simultaneously with continued intensive investigations. As the work is extended into each new region or new National Forest, the most favorable sites are always chosen first. After the possibilities and limitations of each method have been ascertained by experience under the best conditions of each locality the work can either be intelligently extended or restricted. But the work is always conducted from the standpoint of the maximum return for each dollar expended.

In accordance with the policy outlined by the Forest Service watersheds used for municipal supply or irrigation continue to receive first consideration. Large sums are not, however, being spent on such watersheds where any uncertainty as to the outcome exists; that is before successful methods have been perfected by experiment. In addition to watersheds, reforestation work is being conducted for the primary object of producing timber only where climatic conditions and other factors are extremely favorable. As far as possible these areas are being selected with reference to the low cost of the work, natural conditions which insure rapid tree growth, and urgent local need for additional timber supplies. These favorable conditions generally obtain in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Minnesota, and Michigan and it is in these States that the best results have been obtained. In California, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, and the Southwest the work is restricted to intensive experiments on a small scale, until successful methods of meeting the adverse local conditions have been perfected.

Figure 21. Preparing the ground with a spring-tooth harrow for the broadcast sowing of tree seeds. Battlement National Forest, Colorado. This view was taken at approximately 10,000 feet elevation. Photo by the author.

Figure 22. A local settler delivering a load of Lodgepole pine cones at the seed extractors, for which he receives 45 cents per bushel. Forest officers receiving them. Arapaho National Forest, Colorado.

Methods of Reforestation. Two general methods of reforestation have been developed. The first is called the direct seeding method, in which tree seed is sown upon the ground with or without simple forms of cultivation. The other method is the planting method by which seedlings are grown in nurseries under ideal conditions of soil, light, and moisture until they are large enough to be transplanted and stand the rigors of the open field. Direct seeding, where successful, is the cheaper method, but is necessarily limited to sites whose soil and moisture conditions are exceptionally favorable to tree growth. The inability of the newly germinated seedling to establish itself except in comparatively moist soil makes the success of this method on the semi-arid mesas of the Southwest, for example, very problematical, especially since these localities are subject to long dry seasons. In such localities the use of the direct seeding method must be restricted to experiments designed to determine the exact range of conditions under which it is feasible. The main effort, however, of the Forest Service has been given to direct seeding on areas where reasonable success appears to be assured. The planting of 2 or 3 year old seedlings or transplants largely overcomes the adverse soil and moisture factors which appear to have made direct seeding unsuccessful in many localities. This method, which is the general practice in European forestry, must without doubt be employed to reforest a considerable portion of the denuded lands. The growing and planting of nursery stock is carried on simultaneously with direct seeding. The object of this is to ascertain the comparative results of the two methods, the sites on which the greater success will be obtained from each, and the proper relation of the two methods in the future development of reforestation work.

Since reforestation work was begun on the National Forests about 135,500 acres have been sowed or planted. The larger part of this acreage was reforested by direct seeding. Until only a few years ago larger areas were direct seeded each year than were planted to nursery stock, but at the present time more planting is being done. During the fiscal year 1916 about 7,600 acres were planted and about 2,800 acres were seeded. The average cost in that year of planting was about $10.00 per acre, that of the seeding was about $4.50 per acre. The 1917 costs were slightly higher, due to the increased cost of labor and supplies.

The reforesting methods of the Forest Service mean the collection of large quantities of seeds and the growing of large quantities of small trees for planting. Since 1911 the Forest Service has collected over 175,000 pounds of seeds for its direct seeding and planting work. During the fiscal year 1916 the Forest Service had 14 large tree-nurseries and 7 small ones, which had in them over 37 million young trees which would, in a short time, be planted in the field. From these figures it is readily seen that the reforestation work on the National Forests is conducted on a large scale.

Direct Seeding Work on the National Forests. The direct seeding work on the National Forests involves many more problems than one would at first thought suppose. Seed must be collected and extracted; it must be stored, if it is not used immediately; if the seed is sown it must be protected from rodents and very often the ground must be prepared before the seed is sown.

Figure 23. In the forest nursery a trough is often used for sowing seed in drills. The seed scattered along the sides of the trough rattles into position at the bottom and is more even than when distributed by the ordinary worker at the bottom of the trough. Pike National Forest, Colorado.

Figure 24. Uncle Sam grows the little trees by the millions. These will soon cover some of the bare hillsides on the National Forests of the West.

Seeds are collected in various ways. Often cones are purchased at advertised rates from persons who make a business of seed collecting. The collectors deliver the cones to a specified Ranger station or to some seed extracting plant. But such collectors are not always available. Seed is collected by Forest officers by stripping cones directly from standing trees or from those felled in logging operations. Large quantities are also gathered from the vast stores or caches assembled by squirrels.

Seed extraction is usually done most economically by experienced Forest officers. It requires drying by exposure to natural or artificial heat to open the cones; threshing to separate the seed from the scales and woody portions of the cone; and cleaning or fanning to remove chaff and dirt. Much of the extraction has hitherto been done in small quantities at a large number of stations and with very simple home-made appliances. In view of the large amount of seed which must be handled each year the cost of extraction has been materially reduced and seed of higher average fertility has been obtained by concentrating the major part of the work at central seed-extracting plants equipped with improved machinery.

A problem of great importance from the standpoint of final results is that of having seed available at the season of the year when it is needed. Past experiments have shown that fall sowing is essential to success in most parts of the West where extensive seeding projects will be conducted. Experience has also shown that seed on a large scale cannot be extracted in time for use in the same season. Moreover, every year is not a good seed year, so that Forest officers must take advantage of the good years to collect large quantities and store them for use during years of seed shortage. Purchased domestic or foreign seed cannot be used to advantage to make up these deficiencies because it is sometimes of poor quality and not adapted to the climatic conditions in which it must be sown. For these reasons methods had to be devised for storing large quantities of seeds for several years at a time and in such a manner that their vitality would not be impaired. Many storage tests have been made by the Forest Service to determine the best way of storing seeds. The tests showed that the sealed glass jar is the best container and that seed must be stored either in air-tight receptacles or at low temperatures to be kept for any considerable period without loss of fertility.

Probably the greatest obstacle encountered in reforestation by direct seeding is the destruction of the seeds by rodents. The failure of many direct seeding projects has been due primarily to loss from this cause. Failure has occurred on areas of practically every character regardless of the time of the year the seed was sown. Success has been encountered only where recent burns had largely eliminated the animals either by outright destruction or by the loss of food supply. The rodents which are most destructive to tree seeds are the ground squirrels, the chipmunks, the mice, and the gophers. It is not strange that they should seek out the seed that has been carefully sown by the Forest officers. In many cases these seeds are their natural food and they are wonderfully diligent and expert in searching it out.

In coöperation with the Biological Survey, the Forest Service has worked on the problem of destroying the rodents. Many methods have been tried out in the field. The free use of grain poisoned with strychnine has thus far produced the best results and has reduced the loss from rodents sufficiently to secure satisfactory germination. The successful elimination of such injury appears to lie in the thorough poisoning by this method of areas to be seeded, once or oftener in advance of sowing.

With successful germination assured by the collection of good seed and the protection of it after it has been sowed from rodents, the next problem lies in cheap methods of cultivation and sowing. This will enable the young seedling to develop its root system early enough and rapidly enough to withstand the first annual drought, the dominant feature of the climate of all the western National Forests.

Figure 25. One of the large Forest Service nurseries where the young trees are given the utmost care before they are large and strong enough to endure the rigorous climate of the National Forests. McCloud Nursery, Shasta National Forest, California.

There are numerous methods used in sowing tree seed on the National Forests. Three general methods are used in most of the work. Broadcast sowing is practiced in the fall and spring or upon the snow in the winter, both on ground that has not been prepared and on soil that has been scarified by rough brush drags, harrowing, disking, or partial or complete plowing. In seed-spot sowing the seed is planted at regular intervals in small spots where the soil is cleared of vegetation and worked up loose to a depth of from 5 to 6 inches. When corn planting or dibbling is practiced the seed is thrust into the soil by a hand corn-planter, or, in the case of large nuts, pressed into holes made with a pointed stick. The corn-planter method is often combined with the preparation of seed spots or the plowing of single furrows, in order to plant the seed in loose soil free from vegetation.

On a large majority of the Forests broadcast seeding on unprepared ground has not succeeded. As a rule satisfactory stands have been secured from broadcasting only after an expensive preliminary cultivation which would be impracticable in extended operations and which would exceed the cost of planting with nursery stock. But broadcasting on prepared strips and upon recent burns has given some success. The seed-spot method has been most successful if done at the proper season. Late summer and early fall sowing has produced better results than sowing in spring or winter. As a whole direct seeding has not succeeded, especially when the results and costs of the work are compared with the planting of nursery stock. Planting has thus far yielded better results, especially on the less favorable areas. Furthermore, from the standpoint of final results attained, planting has actually been cheaper than seeding, in spite of the greater initial cost of planting. While the major emphasis in reforestation work is placed upon planting, considerable seeding is being done, but it is confined to the most favorable localities and sites.

Planting on the National Forests. Reforestation by planting young trees has received much attention during the last few years principally because it has produced better results. Much still remains to be said for both methods and future experiments alone can decide which method to use in a specified region and under given conditions of climate and soil. Usually direct seeding has been tried first in any given locality where reforestation work was to be done. In fact the policy of the Forest Service in artificial reforestation on the National Forests has been, first, to conduct experiments to find out what can be done and what is the best way to do it; second, to reforest by direct seeding wherever this is feasible; and third, to plant nursery seedlings where direct seeding has been found too uncertain.

Figure 26. A view of seed sowing with a corn planter. San Isabel National Forest, Colorado

Figure 27. Sowing seed along contour lines on the slopes. Pike National Forest, Colorado

In selecting areas for planting, preference is usually given to the watersheds of streams important for irrigation and municipal water supply and to land which is capable of producing heavy stands of a quick-growing species or of a specially valuable species. Next in importance are areas which offer good opportunities for object lessons to the public in the practice of forestry. Some areas offer combinations of advantages. For instance, a burned-over tract may be suitable for planting to some rapid-growing species which is also valuable for timber and at the same time may be situated so that it will serve as an object lesson also. It is on such areas in general that reforestation by planting is being concentrated.

While the reforestation of the watersheds of streams important for irrigation and municipal water supply has a large financial value, this value is hard to estimate because it involves not actual cash profit but loss prevented. But when a favorable site is planted to a quick-growing, valuable, species, it is comparatively easy to arrive at a fair estimate of the possible profit on money invested. It has been estimated that under many conditions it is highly profitable to reforest waste lands on the National Forests by planting. From certain experiments made it is estimated that a white pine forest artificially established on a second-class forest soil in Minnesota, will yield about 46,500 board feet per acre in 50 years, worth at least $10 per thousand feet, or $465 per acre. Figuring the cost of planting and the cost of care and protection per acre per year at 3 per cent. compound interest gives a total cost of $34.07 per acre at the time the timber is cut and a net profit of $8.62 per acre per year. Douglas fir in the Northwest will produce 81,000 board feet in 80 years, worth at least $8.50 per thousand feet. After deducting all expenses this would leave a net profit of $555.30 in 80 years or about $6.94 per acre per year. These profits are indeed large, considering that the land is not capable of producing cereal or vegetable crops profitably. And it must be remembered that in all the above calculations all the money invested is earning 3 per cent. compound interest and that the net profits are the earnings in excess of this 3 per cent. interest.

The little trees that are set out on the National Forests every year are produced in large nurseries, where they are grown by the millions. In these nurseries the little trees receive the most expert care from the time the seeds germinate until the time they are large enough to withstand the rigors of wind and weather on the barren hillsides of Uncle Sam's Forests. The seeds are first carefully sown in seed beds and left to develop in these from one to three years. At the end of one year they may be transplanted in nursery rows where they will have more room to develop. Rapidly growing species like yellow pine are kept only a year in the seed bed and perhaps one or two years in the transplant beds; but slow growing species, like cedar, must remain in the seed beds two years and usually two years in the transplant beds. All this depends upon the species and the site upon which it is to be planted.

If my reader were to visit the Pikes Peak region during spring or fall he would doubtless encounter large gangs of men planting young trees on the barren mountain slopes. Under the proper supervision of Forest officers some of the men will be seen digging holes with a mattock while others are coming directly behind them with bags or boxes with wet moss or burlap, containing small trees. These men are called respectively the diggers and planters. Two men will plant from 500 to 1,000 trees a day, depending upon how deep the holes must be dug to accommodate the roots, whether the ground is bare or covered with sod, whether the land is mountainous or level, and many other factors.

In this way Uncle Sam plants his denuded areas in the Forests, so that they will be producing timber for future generations instead of useless brush or tree weeds. The great variety of climatic and topographic conditions included in the National Forest area makes the problem of tree planting infinitely complex. Nursery stock must be raised in each region having similar climatic conditions, and in each of these regions different methods of planting must be used, depending upon local conditions. The semi-arid mesas of Arizona and New Mexico present different planting problems from the humid forest regions of Oregon and Washington; the methods used in the sandhills of Nebraska and the sand plains of Michigan cannot be applied in full on the high mountain slopes of Colorado; nor are the planting problems in the vast chaparral areas of northern California anything like those encountered in the mountains of Idaho, or in the prairie States of the Middle West, or in the Black Hills. Then, again, the reforestation problems of the chaparral fields of southern California are more perplexing than any I have mentioned above.

Figure 28. A planting crew at work setting out small trees. The man ahead digs the hole, and the man behind plants the tree. Wasatch National Forest, Utah

THE ORGANIZATION AND SCOPE OF FOREST EXPERIMENTS AND INVESTIGATIONS

The Need of Scientific Experiments. No science can make progress without intensive experiments and investigations, least of all a new science like forestry. The science of forestry as it has developed in Europe is several hundred years old, but the science of forestry as applied to American conditions is still in the infancy of its development—probably not over 20 years old. Therefore we know very little about our trees, our forests, and the wood which they produce, and the professional foresters who handle the scientific work on our National Forests are very much handicapped. To supply the needed information about the requirements of many of our tree species, the uses to which their wood can be put, and many other related subjects, the Forest Service has established 8 Forest Experiment Stations (recently reduced to 6) and one Forest Products Laboratory. It has become the business of these institutions to study the laws governing the life of the tree and the forest and their effect upon the final product—wood. The Experiment Stations are working on the solution of the many problems which confront the Forest officers in the management and the protection of the National Forests; while the Forest Products Laboratory was organized to promote the most profitable utilization and the most economical disposition of the forest products of the National Forests. Both sets of institutions, in doing this, are helping materially to build up the science of American Forestry, which even to-day can hardly be said to exist.

The Science of Growing Timber. In order to better understand the many diversified problems which are being studied at the Forest Experiment Stations, it is necessary to give the reader a few ideas concerning the science of forest ecology. This science is the basis of all problems dealing with the growing of timber and is therefore a study of the utmost importance to forestry. Forest ecology is the study of the relations of trees and forests to their surroundings. By surroundings (or environment) we mean all the factors which influence their growth and reproduction, such as soil temperature, soil moisture, soil texture, rainfall, light, wind, air temperature, relative humidity, altitude, slope, exposure, and surface. Forests, we must remember, are not warehouses of standing logs; they are not merely aggregations of individual trees; but they are complex communities of living organisms, which are affected in many ways by climate and soil and which, in turn, affect in no small degree the climatic and soil conditions in their immediate vicinity. The forester cannot treat the forest as an aggregation of individuals, for forests have laws which govern their behavior which are entirely different from those that govern the individual tree. Some foresters and botanists prefer to call this science by the name of "tree sociology," and they compare it with human sociology. Individuals, as we well know, are governed by different natural laws than communities. Just so with trees and forests. In order, therefore, to grow a never-failing supply of timber intelligently and economically we must understand these complex organisms and communities, we must study their behavior under different soil and climatic conditions and ascertain the conditions under which they grow best. Only by doing this can the forester achieve all the objects of forestry, namely, to help Nature to produce more and better timber, in a shorter length of time and at the smallest possible cost.

The experimental work of the Forest Experiment Stations is grouped under such categories as these: dendrological studies, forestation studies, studies in forest influences, studies relating to forest management, studies in forest protection, commercial tree studies, and grazing studies.

Dendrological Studies. Dendrological studies include studies in tree distribution and wood identification. For each tree species growing in the United States (and there are about 500 of them) it is desirable to know its geographical distribution, its commercial distribution, and its local distribution. The first of these deals with the entire range of the tree by geographical divisions; the second of these with the distribution of those bodies of timber that are of commercial quantity or size; and the last deals with the distribution of the tree by local divisions, such as lowlands, slopes, ridges, valleys, plateaus, etc. This information is usually placed on maps for permanent record. Observations by Forest officers on the many National Forests are recorded by them and at the first opportunity sent to Washington. Very often it happens that the range of a species of tree is considerably extended and that a tree is found growing in a locality where it was never reported from before. The identification of woods is done at the Forest Products Laboratory. The distinguishing characteristics of the woods of many American tree species have been determined. The wood of different trees is studied under the microscope to discover in what way it differs from other woods closely related. Many such results are published for the benefit of both the lumber dealer and the general public in the form of bulletins. Both the subject of dyewoods and that of the many woods now sold as mahogany have been investigated in this way. The resulting data have been used by many companies and have helped to protect the public from frauds.

Seed Studies. Experiments in reforestation are grouped under seed studies, nursery studies, and sowing and planting. Considerable work has been done in developing the best methods of seed-extraction. Much valuable information has been gathered on the largest amount of seed that may be extracted from pine cones of different species per unit of time at different degrees of temperature; the maximum temperature which may be applied to seeds of different species without impairing their vitality; the germinating power of seed extracted at different temperatures; the comparative length of time required for the germination of seed extracted with or without artificial heat; and the most economical type of seed-extracting plant. Studies have been made upon the comparative germination of tree seeds in the field and the greenhouse. The ultimate success of the plantations being established on the National Forests in a large degree depends upon the character of the seed used. Hence studies are being conducted of the effect of altitude, soil, age of the tree, density of stand, insect damage and disease infection, and other factors that affect the mother tree, upon the character of the seed collected from those trees, and the growth and form of the resulting seedling. Also tests to show the effect of the source of seed on the form and growth of young seedlings have indicated very clearly that with all species the seed grown in the locality where the trees are to be planted give as a rule better results than seed imported from another region.

Nursery Studies. Nursery studies endeavor to show the most efficient methods for growing young trees for field planting for each species of trees. It is of great importance to know how much seed to sow per foot in the nursery beds; what is the best time (spring or fall) for sowing; to what depth the seed should be covered in order to give the highest germination; whether better results are obtained by drill sowing or by broadcast sowing; the best methods of shading, fertilizing, watering, and cultivating the seed beds; the methods of securing the best root development of the young seedlings; the best time and method of transplanting from the nursery beds to the transplant beds; the best methods for retarding spring growth in seedlings to be used at high altitudes; and other problems of similar nature.

Forestation Experiments. Experiments in forestation have, year after year, proven that planting is much safer than direct seeding and ultimately less expensive. For this reason a greater emphasis has been placed upon planting studies. These studies have attempted to show the best season for planting each species; the best methods of planting; the most advantageous classes of stock to use; and what the most suitable sites are for each species of tree.

Studies of Forest Influences. Studies on the influence of forests upon stream flow and erosion are attempting to furnish important data for American conditions upon this subject. At the Wagon Wheel Gap Forest Experiment Station in Colorado such a study is being carried on. The purpose of the study for the first two or three years has been to determine the character of the two streams which are to be measured. The forest cover on the two watersheds is practically identical. The results so far obtained indicate that the influence upon the stream flow must be about the same in both cases, and, consequently, a comparison of these streams after the denudation of one watershed will be a very fair test of the influence of the forest cover upon the relative height of the flood stage and low-water stage, the amount of erosion, and the rate of melting of the snow.

Figure 29. At the Fort Valley Forest Experiment Station, Coconino National Forest, Arizona. A typical meteorological station Forest officer measuring precipitation. Note the shelter which contains thermometers and also the electrically equipped instruments to record the direction and velocity of the wind.

Figure 30. Forest officer ascertaining the amount of evaporation from a free water surface. Fort Valley Forest Experiment Station, Flagstaff, Arizona.

Experimental observations which have been conducted since 1908 at the various Forest Experiment Stations have shown that the forest exercises a decided moderating influence upon temperature extremes, wind motion, and evaporation. Likewise, the presence of a forest cover retards the melting of snow in the spring, and in this way huge snowbanks in the forests feed the nearby streams until late in the summer. Forests therefore have been shown to conserve the water supply and also causing this water to run off slowly rather than in sudden floods. Studies have also been conducted on determining the effect of cutting timber upon the climate within the forest.

Meteorological Observations. The climatic requirements of forest types have been studied at the Fremont Experiment Station since January 1, 1910, through experimental observations, and other stations have taken up the same problem since that date. The first step in this work at the Fremont has been to obtain a complete meteorological record as a basis for determining what climatic conditions are most important in limiting the natural range of such important species as Yellow pine, Douglas fir, and Engelmann spruce. The data collected so far have shown that soil moisture and soil temperature are the controlling factors in determining the existence of the three forest types. It has also been shown what climatic conditions each of the three types of forest must have in order to succeed. This work has since been extended to include other types of forest and a meteorological station has been established at timber line on Pikes Peak. This station, which is at approximately 11,500 feet, is equipped with self-recording instruments to measure the climatic factors which obtain at that elevation and which mark the uppermost altitudinal limit of tree growth in that locality.

Such studies as these, based upon systematic meteorological observations, have an important bearing on all other forest problems. The data secured in this way especially assist the technical foresters in solving the various problems in forest management, reforestation, fire protection, and land classification, besides giving positive knowledge of the environment in which our trees live and of the factors affecting their growth and reproduction. These systematic observations are of prime importance if we ever hope to have a science of American Forestry.

Forest Management Studies. Experiments in forest management are carried on to determine the best methods of cutting National Forest timber to secure natural reproduction and at the same time to improve the quality and productivity of the remaining stand. These studies are carried on by means of permanent sample plots, on which all the trees are carefully measured and recorded. First the timber is cut on the plots under different systems of management, or thinnings or improvement cuttings are made. An exact record is kept of the amount of timber removed and of the size and distribution of the remaining trees. Measurements taken at regular intervals show the precise effect of the method used on each plot. Close observations of the reproduction which takes place, brush and other forms of cover which may establish themselves, and changes in soil conditions are recorded. On similar sample plots methods of brush disposal, methods of marking timber for cutting, and thinning methods are studied. After logging there are several ways in which the resulting slash may be disposed, depending upon surrounding conditions. In some localities the brush must be burned immediately on account of the fire danger which its presence involves; in other places it must be removed because it interferes with reproduction; in still other places the brush may be scattered over the area because there is little fire danger and, in fact, the brush has been found to assist and protect reproduction. All these possibilities must be determined by experiments. Likewise in marking timber for cutting and in thinning practice various methods are possible, depending upon circumstances, the most important of which are the requirements of the species and the density of the forest.

Other management studies deal with the determination by actual measurement of the volumes of trees and stands, and the growth of trees and the yields of whole forests. Reliable growth and yield data for the different species and types are necessary to properly handle timber sales as well as for forest management. They are also essential for determining damages caused by fires and trespass.