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Show NATION'S FOREST AREAJSSENS Greeley Urges Federal Law to Stop Devastation of Timber Lands WASHINGTON Dec fri Forests, least of the Rocky mountains nn' being be-ing devastated so rapidly by cutting and burning th:it ihe nation soon will, he dependent for the hulk of its construction con-struction lumber upon iho forests of the Pacific const, William B, Greeley, United States forester, declares n bin annunl report, made public today The situation, Mr. Greeley says, is one that affects the puhiic welfare of the entire en-tire country and be urges federal law to atop the devastation of the re j maining forests and to put the idle' forest lands al work, "Two-thirds of the orglnal forests! of tho United State have been culled, OUt-OVer, or burnt, and three. ftft bs ' of their merchantable timber Is gone." said Mr. Greeley, The country is: taking about -Mi.oon, 000,000 Cubic feel of wood annually from Its forests and Is growing about 6.000.000.000 cubic feet We are cutting timber of everj class, even trees too small for the, sawmill, much faster than they are' being replaced in our forests. There are still large quantities of timber in the United states, but they are not in the right place. Sixty-one per cent of what is left lbs west of the great plains, far from the bulk of our popu- lotion, agriculture and manufactures. I The exhaustion of one forested sec-! lion after another in the eastern states has been reflected In rising I tpansportatlon costs. The distance be- I tween the average sawmin and the average hom builder la steadily Increasing; In-creasing; and we shall soon be de-; pendent for the bulk of our construction construc-tion lumber upon the forests of the Pacific cousl These conditions have bad .i Vital bearing upon the hlRb cost of lumber, which, during thA year, reached i prohibitive' figure for many uses and check,. d the building f homes which is so urgently need ed. TO STOP li: I I ion "We have used up our forests without growing m v. ones Al the bottom of the .whole problem is Idle forest land. The United States eon-i. eon-i. un- .iji; (100,000 acres ,,f , ot-over ami denuded forests containing no saw timber; 81.000,000 acres of this have been completely (levasted by forest for-est fires and methods of cutting which destroy or prevent new timber growth. The nrea of Idle or largely idle land is being Increased from 8,000,000 to 4,000,000 acres anniialU as the cutting cut-ting and burning of forests continue. "To stop the devastation and put Idle lands to work the first step mU8l he the anctment of a rcderal law WhOSG tWO chief prOViajons are ilia comprehensive plan Of federal cooperation co-operation with the states In fin- prevention pre-vention and the development of forestry for-estry practice, and t2) extension of tho national forests through imt-ehases, imt-ehases, through the Inclusion of other oth-er timber lands now In federal ownership, own-ership, and through exchange " 1 TH i , PROBLEM. Speaking of a national forest r policy, poli-cy, Mr Greeley said the program laid down by Colonel Graes had been further developed "This program." be stated, "Is based on the conviction thai the problem of halting forest devastation Is fun-i damentally a national, not a local.1 problem, and must he faced and handled han-dled aw so, h. At the same time It: la felt that ihe speediest, surest, and;i most equitable action can be secured through dependence on the police j i powers of the states for the enforce-' t ment of sueii reasonable requirements I as should be made of private owners i and on the State governments for pro-Jl viding organlzi l protection of prl- 1 wits lauds against fir-. "Because (he problem itself is es-sentlalls es-sentlalls national thai It, one affecting af-fecting the public welfare of the entire en-tire country and requiring to bf at-tacked at-tacked as a whole, not piecemeal both federal leadership and a largt, measure Of federal aid are obligatory, it should be obligatory .upon private iwners to apply the safeguards necessary nec-essary to prevent devastation. There IS a practical unanimity of agreement that the first and most essential step is a nation-wide protection from forest for-est fires, applicable to all classes ol forest land and borne Jointly hy the and oWber :nid the public." |