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Show Department of Agriculture Gives Views on State Forests should strike at the heart of ithe most serious idle land situations. They should serve as centers of the best sort of forestry education, by demonstrating dem-onstrating good practice adapted t our immense range of soil, climate and forest types. This will leave the groat bulk of the additional public ownership which I have set up as a general target to state or other local undertakings. under-takings. That in my judgment i entirely as it should be. I believp that the population, financial resources, re-sources, industrial interests and public pub-lic sentiment in the great majority pf the states, particularly in the eastern states, are able and ready to support a large expansion in stats forest ownership, with whatever aid it may be possible to secure through county or municipal forests. And while we should go right ahead with full steam in developing fire protection, protec-tion, forest taxation and other encouragements en-couragements of industrial and farm forestry, I doubti if there is any single sin-gle item in the whole program tw. will give it greater strength or greater great-er public appeal or a more specific focusing point for public action than s-'ate forest ownership on a generous gener-ous scale. The main idea I am preaching today to-day is more localized effort in forestry for-estry all along the line; and this should include a great deal more research re-search work in timber growing and related utilization problems. The most we can all do together will fall short of supplying the information needed to guide wisely the forestry movement in its many local aspects. Ogtien, Nov. 3. W. B. Greeley, forester of the United States department depart-ment of agriculture, told the State Foresters conference at Washington, D. C, October 6, that our forest land, in round numbers, is split up approximately as follow: Acres Federal 'government 89,000,000 States . . . . 10,500,000 Municipalities and counties 700,000 Large private owners 220,000,000 Small private owners . . . 150,000,000 The state forest holdings vary from highly stabilized to wholly unstable. un-stable. About 63 per cent of them, or 5,500,000 acres, is under permanent perma-nent administration as state forests or state -parks, while nearly 5,000,000 j acres more is either subject to sale ; or is being held with na definite policy pol-icy or plan for future development. Instability of ownership and uncertainty uncer-tainty as.it o future use are still characteristic char-acteristic of the larger private forest holdings but a strong trend toward greater permanency of ownership and productive use is evident. This i trend constitutes one of the most significant and encouraging features of the present situation . I -have great faith in the future of industrial forestry and farm forestry; forest-ry; but their extension will be gradual. grad-ual. Our national and state efforts should aim .to promote it through every rational and practicable line of encouragement. And in line with the general precept of localizing forestry for-estry effort and identifying it w;th the state or community, I urge particularly par-ticularly the extension of public forest for-est ownership, with permanent forms . of administration, by states, counties and municipalities. One of the most interesting political politi-cal developments of the last 25 years in the United States is the skill it might almost be called the genius we have shown in preserving the constitutional relationships between the states and federal government and at the same time getting all manner man-ner of things done through voluntary cooperation. It has solved economic, social and educational needs in a big way. First we sell a problem to the country. Then we set up a unified program. Then we assign parts of that program to the federal government govern-ment and, to such states as voluntarily volun-tarily accept them. The genius of these movements lies in establishing a common conception' of what ought to be done, in avoiding undue centralization cen-tralization of authority or function, and in stimulating state or local activities ac-tivities for doing the major share of it. In a word, I believe we have found the way whereby a democratic people, jealously adhering to their individual prerogatives and local forms of government, can unite in putting through developments of national na-tional importance in a comprehensive, comprehen-sive, national fashion. In its later developments, this national na-tional program has defined the basis on which the federal government will deal with our forestry problem ;n the broad. It has accepted the cooperative principle. It has passed the ball back to the states. It anticipates an-ticipates and prepares the way for the outward spread of forestry under un-der state leadership. But the principal idea which I wish to place before you is that from the nature of forestry as a country-wide use of land and from the nature of the program which nas been adopted and to which I presume we all subscribe, sub-scribe, the development of greatest importance from this -time on should be in the forest policies and activities activi-ties of the states and in the forest undertakings of local institutions and individuals which the states can most directly aid. For many reasons, including the stimulous to local initiative, the commendable pride in local public achievement, and the beneficial influence in-fluence of active state paricipation in timberland management upon all phases of local public policy dealing with forestry, a vigorous extension of state forest ownership is desirable. desir-able. It should be designated primarily pri-marily perhaps to fill in the gaps where farm forestry and industrial forestry cannot reasonably be anticipated antici-pated . In broad , terms, considering our forest situation in the United States j and drawing upon the experience of the most progressive forest countries coun-tries of Europe, I do not think it un- reasonable to get one-third of the ' forest land in the United States un-' un-' der public administration. This would mean the acquisition by all public agencies of about 60,000,000 , acres more, including the 5,000,000 acres already in state ownership but : not yet under any permanent form of 'administration. Such ownings should ; be widely distributed. There should i be some of them in every state, and j broadly speaking in every important I forest region of every state. They |