Community Civics and Rural Life Part 31

To prevent this sort of thing, the government now sells the timber and the land separately, withholding from agricultural entry heavily timbered land until the timber is cut off.

In the Kaniksy National Forest, in Idaho and Was.h.i.+ngton, timber sales have been made to include much of the remaining agricultural timberland. Within eight years fully 10,000 acres of land will be made available for settlement. Permanent homes will be established and there will be available for the use of the communities approximately $225,000 for roads and schools, their share of the proceeds from the sale of the timber. [Footnote 3: IBID., p. 71.]

STATE FORESTS

Besides the National Forests, there are more than 4,000,000 acres of STATE FORESTS.

Twenty-four states have forestry departments, sometimes under a state board or a commission, sometimes under the control of a single state forester, as in Ma.s.sachusetts and Virginia. In New York, New Jersey, and Wisconsin the state forestry is a part of the work of a general "conservation commission." In Connecticut it is centered in the state agricultural experiment station, and in Texas in the agricultural college. In South Dakota the state forester is under the "commissioner of schools and public lands."

So there is great variety in the organization of forestry work, and great variation in the amount and kind of attention given to it.

PRIVATELY OWNED TIMBERLANDS

The difference between the number of states having state forests and the number having forestry departments is due to the fact that the public forests embrace only a small part of the timbered land of a state. It will be noted from the table on page 225 that only one southern state (North Carolina; two if Maryland is counted) has state forests. Six of them (eight with Maryland and Virginia) have state forestry departments. More attention is now being given to forest preservation and use in the South than these facts indicate, because of cooperation between state and national governments, chiefly through the county agents. Such cooperation also exists in the northern states. The map on page 242 shows cooperation for fire protection in New Hamps.h.i.+re.

VOLUNTARY PROTECTIVE a.s.sOCIATIONS

The conservation of our forest resources requires cooperation on the part of citizens. In many states there are "timberland owners'

fire protective a.s.sociations," in 1917 about fifty of them. There is an American Forestry a.s.sociation that publishes a magazine devoted to forestry, AMERICAN FORESTRY; a Society of American Foresters; The Camp Fire Club of America, with a committee on conservation of forests and wild life. Besides, there is a considerable number of local a.s.sociations with similar purposes.

EROSION

It is not always realized how important to our welfare the forests are, especially from the point of view of agricultural production.

A very large part of the timbered area of the United States is in small woodlands on privately owned farms. Not only are the timber resources themselves of great value, but the relation of woodland to agriculture is very close, especially in its effect upon soil erosion.

Altogether it has been estimated that erosion is responsible for an annual loss in this country of approximately $100,000,000. To the farmer it means money out of pocket from start to finish. It impairs the fertility and decreases the productivity of his land, and may even ruin it altogether; it renders irrigation more difficult and more costly; by reducing the possibilities of cheap water power development it tends to keep up the price and check the more extended use of electricity; and by interfering with navigation it helps to prevent the development of a comprehensive system of cheap inland water transportation. But the farmer is not the only sufferer. The entire community is directly affected by the loss and is justified in taking heroic measures to remedy the evil.

If the problem is to be solved we must cease to accelerate surface run-off by burning the forests and brush fields, overgrazing the range, clearing steep slopes for agriculture, and practicing antiquated methods of cultivation. On the contrary, the farmer, the forester, and the stockman must cooperate in seeing that the land is so used that surface run-off, particularly at the higher elevations, is reduced to a minimum.

Children in particular should have their interest actively aroused and their support enlisted. In one state, "gully clubs" have been organized by the state forester. These are composed largely of school children who take an active part in the work of gully reclamation and particularly in finding and checking incipient gullies before it is too late. Why could not such organizations as boy scouts, girl scouts, and campfire girls be used in the same way? [Footnote: "Farms, Forests, and Erosion," YEAR BOOK of the Department of Agriculture, 1916, pp. 107-134.]

MINERAL RESOURCES

Soil, water, and forests are only a few of the rich natural resources of our country, although they are among the most important. Great as the mineral production of our country now is, we have only begun to open the mineral storehouse. On the other hand, we have been extremely wasteful of some of our minerals, as in the case of natural gas, oil, and coal. The war has done more, perhaps, than anything else to open our eyes to our mineral wealth and to convict us of our wastefulness in the past. In the light of what it has shown us we should redouble our efforts to conserve our resources. Our government has been gradually developing a program of conservation which we should help to make effective. At the end of this chapter will be found references to interesting accounts of our national wealth, and of what the government is doing to conserve it in other directions than those described in this chapter. Many of these references are to publications issued by the government itself, which can be obtained for the asking.

Investigate and report on.

Losses in your state from periodic floods. Measures adopted or proposed to control them.

The by products of coal and of petroleum.

The Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture.

A description of your state forests (if any).

Forestry in your own state, public and private.

Losses from forest fires in your state.

The life of a forest ranger.

The use of the farm woodlot in your locality.

The extent and effects of soil erosion in your locality or state.

Measures taken to prevent it.

The feasibility of "gully clubs" in your locality.

The mineral resources of your state. Uses in war and peace.

Game laws of your state.

READINGS

In LESSONS IN COMMUNITY AND NATIONAL LIFE:

Series A: Lesson 13, The United States Food Administration.

Lesson 14, Subst.i.tute Foods.

Series B: Lesson 5, Saving the soil.

Lesson 6, Making dyes from coal tar.

Lesson 9, How men made heat to work.

Lesson 13, The Department of the Interior.

Series C: Lesson 4, Petroleum and its uses.

Lesson 5, Conservation as exemplified by irrigation projects.

Lesson 6, Checking waste in the production and use of coal.

Lesson 10, Iron and steel.

Lesson 14, The United States Fuel Administration.

Lesson 16, The Commercial Economy Board of the Council of National Defense.

Reports of your State Agricultural College and Experiment Station, and of your State Geologist and other officers having to do with the natural resources of your state.

Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Interior. That for 1915 (pp. 1-30) contains an interesting review of our natural resources and their use; also (pp. 151-209) a comprehensive and interesting discussion of our mineral resources and their development. That for 1918 contains an account of the plan for land reclamation by and for soldiers.

Publications of the Geological Survey, the Bureau of Mines, and the Reclamation Service (all in the Department of the Interior), and of the Bureau of Fisheries (Department of Commerce).

Publications of the Forestry Service (Department of Agriculture).

Among the numerous publications of the Department of Agriculture may be mentioned:

Farmers' Bulletin 340(Declaration of Governors for the conservation of natural resources).

The National Forests and the farmer, YEAR BOOK 1914, 65-88.

Importance of developing our natural resources of potash, YEAR BOOK 1916, pp. 301-310.

Agriculture and Government reclamation projects, YEAR BOOK 1916, 177-198.

Farms, forests, and erosion, YEAR BOOK 1916, 107-134.