other forage plants which they produce in great quantity can be used without detriment to the forests themselves, and with great benefit to the stock industry, which often can find summer pasturage nowhere else. Except in southern California grazing is now permitted on all national forests unless the watersheds furnish water for domestic use; but the time of entering and leaving, the number of head to be grazed by each applicant, and the part of the range to be occupied are carefully prescribed. Planted areas and cut-over areas are closed to stock until the young growth is safe from harm, and goats are allowed only in the brushland of the foothills.
The results of regulation, in addition to the protection of forest growth and streams, are the prevention of disputes, improved range, better stock, stable conditions in the stock industry, and the best use of the range in the interest of progress and development. The first right to graze stock on the forests is given to residents, small owners and those who have used the range before. Thus the crowding out of the weaker by the stronger and of the settler by the roving outsider has been stopped. In 1906 the forest service began to impose a moderate charge for the use of the national forest range. The following statement shows the amount of stock grazed on the national forests 1904-09, and the receipts for the grazing charge:—
| Year. | Number of Cattle and Horses. |
Number of Sheep and Goats. |
Receipts. |
| $ | |||
| 1904 | 610,091 | 1,806,722 | · · |
| 1905 | 692,124 | 1,709,987 | · · |
| 1906 | 1,015,148 | 5,763,100 | 514,692.87 |
| 1907 | 1,200,158 | 6,657,083 | 863,920.32 |
| 1909 | 1,581,404 | 7,819,594 | 1,032,185.70 |
A work of enormous magnitude which has now begun is planting on the national forests. At present, with low stumpage prices and incomplete utilization of forest products, clear cutting with subsequent planting is not practicable. There are, however, many million acres of denuded land within the national forests which require planting. Such planting is still confined chiefly to watersheds which supply cities and towns with water. The first planting was done in 1892, in California. Since then similar work has been done on city watersheds in Colorado, Utah, Idaho and New Mexico. Other plantations are in the Black Hills national forest, where large areas of cut-over and burned-over land are entirely without seed trees, and in the sandhill region of Nebraska. Up to 1908 about 2,000,000 seedlings had been planted, on over 2000 acres—a small beginning, but the work was entirely new and presented many hard problems.
The nursery operations of the forest service are concentrated at seven stations, located in southern California, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico (2), Utah and Idaho, where stock is raised for local planting and for shipment elsewhere. These nurseries are small. Their annual productive capacity is between 8,000,000 and 10,000,000 seedlings. Each nursery is practically an experimental forest-planting station, at which a large variety of species are grown and various methods are tried.
The organization of the administrative work of the national forests is by single forests. On the 1st of January 1908 the total number of forests was 165 with a total area of 162,023,190 acres (on April 7, 1909, the numbers were 146 national forests in the U.S. with 167,672,467 acres, besides two in Alaska with 26,761,626 and one in Porto Rico with 65,950 acres). In charge of each forest is a forest supervisor. Under the supervisors are forest rangers and forest guards, whose duties include patrol, marking timber and scaling logs, enforcing the regulations and conducting some of the minor business arising from the use of the forests. Guards are temporary employés; rangers are employed by the year. The supervisors report directly to and receive instructions from the central office at Washington. In this office there are four branches—operation, grazing, silviculture and products—each of which directs that part of the work which belongs to it, dealing directly with the supervisor. For inspection purposes, however, the forests are separated into six districts, in each of which is located a chief inspector with a corps of assistants. The inspectors are without administrative authority, but assist by their counsel the supervisors, and through inspection reports keep the Washington office informed of the condition of all lines of administrative work in progress. Administrative officers alternate frequently between field and office duties.
The number of forest officers in the several grades on the 1st of January 1908 were: 6 chief inspectors, 26 inspectors, 106 forest supervisors, 41 deputy forest supervisors, 820 forest rangers and 283 forest guards. The total number of employés of the forest service on the same date, including the clerical force, was 2034.
Besides the administration of the national forests, the forest service conducts general investigations, carries on an extensive educational work, and co-operates with private owners who contemplate forest management upon their own tracts. This last work is undertaken because of the need of bringing forestry into practice, the lack of trained foresters outside of the employ of the government, and the lack of information as to how to apply forestry and what returns may be obtained. Co-operation takes the form of advice upon the ground and, on occasion, of the making of working plans. The educational work of the service is performed chiefly through publications, the purpose of which is to spread very widely a knowledge of the importance of forestry to the nation and of the principles upon which its practice rests. The investigations which the service conducts extend from studies of the natural distribution and classification of American forests and of their varied silvicultural problems to statistics of lumber production and laboratory researches which bear upon the economical utilization of forest products. As examples of these researches may be mentioned tests of the strength of timber, studies of the preservative treatment of wood for various uses, wood-pulp investigations and studies in wood chemistry.
Forest Instruction.—Most of the men now in the forest service received their training in the United States. There are several professional schools of forestry. The Yale Forest School, which was opened as a department of Yale University in September 1900, offers a two-years’ graduate course with abundant field work, and also conducts a summer school of forestry, especially adapted to the training of forest rangers and special students, at Milford, Pennsylvania. The university of Michigan and Harvard University also offer a two-years’ graduate course in forestry. The Pennsylvania State College has recently established a four-years’ undergraduate course in forestry. The Biltmore Forest School in North Carolina, the oldest of all these schools, offers a one-year course in technical forestry. A large number of the agricultural colleges give instruction in forestry. Among these are Nebraska, Minnesota, Maine, Michigan, Washington and Mississippi agricultural colleges, the university of Georgia and Iowa State College. Berea College, Kentucky, deserves special mention as a college which has done valuable work in teaching forestry without attempting to turn out professional foresters.
Forestry among the States.—Among the states forestry has hardly reached the stage of practical application on the ground. New York holds 1,500,000 acres of forest land. It has a commission to care for its forest preserve, and to protect the forest land throughout the state from fire. The constitution of the state, however, prohibits the cutting of timber on state land, and thus confines the work entirely to protection of the forest and to the planting of waste areas. Pennsylvania is at present showing the most efficient activity in working out a forest policy. It has state forests of 820,000 acres, a good fire law more and more satisfactorily enforced, and eight nurseries for growing planting material. In 1905, 160,000 white pine seedlings were set out. It has also a school for forest rangers, to be employed on the state forests, and it has just established a state professional school of forestry.
Twenty-six of the states have regularly appointed forest officers, six have carried on studies of forest conditions in co-operation with the forest service, and there is scarcely one which is not actively interested in forestry. Laws, generally good, to prevent damage from forest fires, have been enacted by practically all
