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Show Control of Forest Areas Described By Secretary Wallace By "Henry A. Wallace Secretary of Agriculture In Jrl; and early August of this year I visited, five of the ten National Forest regions in the United States. Most of the inspecting in-specting was done by auto, but a little on horseback and some on foot. The outstanding impression im-pression in my mind was the universally fine esprit de corps. Everywhere the men think first, last and all the time about the public interest as contrasted with the regional or private interest. I Again and again I asked how it happened that so many men' had become filled with the nec- essary courage and intelligence, to act for the long-time, general interest instead of the short-time, local and political interest. The, explanation goes back to Gifford' Pinchot and. Theodore Roosevelt., Gi.ford Pinchot, in his missionary mis-sionary zeal, built an organiza-j tion which stands as one of the greatest monuments to any living liv-ing man. No matter how much disagreement there may be over Pinchot as a Progressive Republican Republi-can political figure, there can b no disagreement over the marvel-! ous contribution he made to the people of the United States ini building the Forest Service firm and strong.- Ever since Pinchot left the Service in 1909, Forester after Forester has been firm to the faith of the first Chief. No one has ever brought to my attention the slighest sugges-, tion that any lumber company, has profited unfairly as a result of Forest Service laxity or favor- j itism. Steadily the 170,000,000 1 acres of national forest properties have been improved. The whole idea has been to devote the land all its resources to its highest public use; to fit; national forest lands for such uses as Jtheir character, that of, their resources, and the needs of the public, will permit. To do this, multiple-use is necessary. That means selective logging which will maintain the present lumber industry and prevent ghost towns, and developing camp grounds or renting land at $15 to $25 a year for summer homes, perhaps where attractive trout streams are handy to good roads. Again it means issuing permits to stockmen to graze the land, and, as for example in the Kaibab Forest of northern Arizona, paying especial attention atten-tion to maintaining wild life, m this particular forest you may (Continued on page three) Secretary of Agriculture WaUace Gives Highlights on Control of Forest Areas (Continued from first page) see almost any evening on the shadowed edges of a single mea! 0w. more than 100 dear The problem which aroused "y interest most-because it is east so ved-is the grazing pr0b- , U 18 separably linked ith forest land. Indeed, within hn fC0"t,inental United States, about 334,000,000 acres-more than 50 per cent of all commercial commer-cial and non-commercial forest ands are grazed by domestic livestock. And these forested Brazing lands are vital to farmers and their livestock in the Central, Cen-tral, New England, Middle Atlantic At-lantic and Lake States as well as in the South and the West Nearly 6,170,000 sheep and 1-48 1-48 4,000 cattle grazed in the national na-tional forests in 1935. In 1920, 7,324,700 sheep and 2,120,000 cattle were allowed. There was some overgrazing, although not one-third so bad as on other lands. From 1918 to 1933 the number of cattle and mouses on national forests in lon Ttr.j. wiGu western west-ern States was reduced 38 per cent, and the number of sheep 2S per tent. In many areas the numbers should be still further reduced. All reductions on and off the national forests in those same states and yeans, were only 16 per cent and 7 per cent, respectively. re-spectively. No one .who has not travelled in the West can realize the terrible ter-rible damage done by overgrazing. overgraz-ing. On the hills just east of the Salt Lake Valley in Utah, I call to mind how overgrazing of private land made it possible for heavy storms to start a mud flow carrying to the valley below boulders boul-ders weighing over 100 tons. In this flow, fertile valley soil, houses and even human beings were covered up. In other cases overgrazing has resulted in the rapid silting up of reservoirs. When traveling through the forests I have found it as interesting inter-esting to study the varities of grasses, and sustained yield of grass, as varieties of pine and fir and sustained yield of timber. In much of the northern mountain moun-tain area the good grasses have been replaced in considerable measure by awned brome grass (Bromus Tectorum), niggerhead (which is a kind of brown-eyed Susan, sage, and porcupine grass. Sage has some real value as sheep feed but is not nearly equal to the original grasses. Experimental Ex-perimental plots indicate that moderate grazing is probably a good thing, but that excessive grazing is one of the great sins against nature. Stockmen of the mountains are just beginning to realize the difference dif-ference between the good and poor grasses. Generally they call the good grasses bunch grass. Bunch grass may mean any of several wheat grasses, the better brome grasses, or fescues. Under Un-der moderate grazing these good species may replace themselves but if the grazing is heavy they may disappear entirely. In such cases no one knows how practical it is to bring them back. In a country where it takes five acres to support a sheep or 100 acres to support a cow there is some doubt as to how much money can be justifiably spent in reseeding unless protection of a valuable watershed is involved. I never fully realized what a splendid job of controlled grazing graz-ing the Forest Service has put in Dractice until I saw the terri- bly abused range land between Bozeman and Dillion, Montana. The Forest land was apparently in position to carry safely three times as much stock as this land, although originally they were of similar character. Under the Taylor Grazing Act the Interior In-terior Department hopes to control con-trol grazing in somewhat the same way as the Forest Service has. Grasses are just beginning to come into their own. Hitherto they have not had the same romantic ro-mantic appeal as trees. Actually, however, on a considerable part of the National Forest land they are even more important than the trees partly because of their grazing value but even more because be-cause they can prevent erosion, rapid runoff, and silting up of reservoirs. The American people peo-ple everywhere have sinned terribly ter-ribly against their grasses. The time has come to get "grass-minded" "grass-minded" even as Gifford Pinchnt and Theodore Roosevelt thirty years ago made the American people tree-conscious. With all their allegiance to the long time public interest, the Forest Service men have been amazingly tactful in dealing with the local communities. They have engaged in a long, slow program of education and. as a result the local people have confidence in the Forest Service men. False sentimentalists have occasionally oc-casionally objected. For example exam-ple when elk or deer multiply and overgraze, the Forest Service people are just as much concerned concern-ed as when there are too many cattle or sheep on the range. I call to mind an area in the Olympic Olym-pic peninsula where the elk have so cleaned up the browse that they are reduced to eating hemlock hem-lock bark and other strange substances, sub-stances, the result of which is necrotic stomatitis. Through protected pro-tected from man and wild animals, ani-mals, the elk and deer ofter die from diseases incident to starvation star-vation as they overgraze the range. In all of this, there is a common sense answer which recognizes that elk and deer eat grass and browse, and there must be a balance between food and population. If there is an excess of wild life it may be merciful to have a controlled kill of the surplus, or else again allow reduction re-duction by nature's process, through the couger and the wolf. The financial income of foreBt rangers and forest supervisors is low. Their public service to lumbermen, stockmen, game lovers, lov-ers, and seekers of recreation In the wild, is . high. I covet for these men the psychic income of intelligent, jpiublic lappreciatflon to make up for that which they will never get in terms of money. In the course of my trip I travelled over hundreds Of miles of trails made by the CCC boys. I saw millions of young nursery trees tended by . CCC boys. I talked from a region inaccessible except on horseback or on foot over a phone line put up by CCC boys. I saw beautiful camp sites which they had fixed up with necessary facilities. Here and there I met them responding to fire drill in a regular camp or in a spike camp. As a result I gained the impression that the public for two generations to come will be reaping the reward from work done by CCC in 1933, 1934, and 1935 in the National Forests of the United States. |