Government Forest Work 7
In administering the national forests, therefore, the
first aim of the Forest Service has been to protect
their resources so that they will always be there to
use, and at the same time to see to it that the greatest
number of people have an equal chance to use them.
PURCHASE OF EASTERN NATIONAL FORESTS
Long before the creation of national forests began,
virtually all the unreserved public lands in the States
east of the Mississippi had been taken up. Indeed in
some of the thirteen original States there had never
been any public domain lands. Under the provisions
of the act of March 1, 1911, called the Weeks law, and
of the act of June 7, 1924, the Clarke-McNary law,
lands valuable for the protection of the headwaters of
navigable streams and for timber growing are purchased
by the Government and organized as national forests.
Nearly 3,000,000 acres, chiefly in the White Mountains
and the southern Appalachians, have been acquired or
approved for purchase. The National Forest Reserva-
tion Commission, established by the act of March 1,
1911, consisting of the Secretary of War, the Secretary
of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, two
Members of the Senate, and two Members of the House
of Representatives, authorizes the purchase of all
lands acquired under these acts. As the Government
obtains title the forests are put under systematic
management with the object of improving their regu-
lative effect upon stream flow and of increasing the
supply of forest products.
The timber alone on the eastern national forests
has a present value greater than the entire cost to the
Government of aequiring these lands, with their tim-
ber; and the revenue derived from these forests is
increasing steadily. Yet the sales of timber have
hitherto been salvaging operations or improvement
cuttings rather than actual harvesting of what the
forests annually grow, for the lands had been depleted
by lumbering and fires while in private ownership.
Under the practice of forestry the stands of timber
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