Major STUART. That is really the present situation, Mr. Chairman, in the sense that it is being done under the Secretary of Agriculture. Mr. JUMP. I wonder if this would not clear the air a little. I do not mean to deny the statement that all should be done by the several bureaus concerned. On the other hand, in may be that it all should be in one place. I do not know as to that, but am sure the experience and outlook of the various bureaus will constitute an invaluable element in whatever real progress is to be made in the land use and planning matter. As this matter of land use evolves the proper organization will become clear and if one place is needed probably this committee will provide for that one place, I think you may have a feeling that there is not an absolutely knowledge on the part of every one of the 4, 5, or 6 bureaus that are interested in land utilization in our department as to what each of the other bureaus is doing. That has been definitely and effectively met in the department by the appointment by the secretary sometime ago of a land-use planning committee. The secretary of the committee is the principal land economist of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics and the Forest Service and the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, and the Bureau of Agricultural Engineering and, other bureaus are represented on that committee. It is a very active committee, meeting frequently and all of the work of the department on land utilization is cleared through that committee. When the Bureau of Agricultural Economics comes up this whole subject of land use will be discussed most exhaustively so that any fears you may have on the lack of consolidation and coordination will be set at rest.

Mr. BUCHANAN. I am not claiming as to the lack of coordination. I am claiming this, the Forestry Service will go out there and make their survey to determine whether the land should be planted in forestry, that is all. The Bureau of Agricultural Economics will go out and survey the same land and determine whether or not it should be devoted to agriculture or maybe to pasturage. Now, the people that are making the survey ought to be qualified to pass on all the problems, forestry, pasturage, or agriculture.

Mr. SANDLIN. You will have it mapped twice.

Mr. JUMP. Well, it is just another tribute to the versatility of the forest rangers and the forest supervisors to say that for years they have been passing on land that is chiefly suitable for agriculture on their respective forests. They have had to do that for years. Mr. BUCHANAN. Under the Homestead Act.

Mr. JUMP. They know a great deal about the agricultural possibilities and impossibilities of their own forest areas.

Mr. BUCHANAN. They are going down now into areas that are not their own forest areas.

Major STUART. I think Mr. Kotok can explain that from some work he has done in that field.

FOREST SURVEY PROJECT IN CALIFORNIA

STATEMENT OF E. I. KOTOK, DIRECTOR CALIFORNIA FOREST EXPERIMENT STATION, BERKELEY, CALIF.

Mr. KOTOк. I might describe briefly what we are doing under the Forest Survey project in California.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Go ahead.

Mr. KOTOK. This happens to be a map of the California forest region [handing map to committee]. These are the kind of maps we are making. I thought the committee might be interested. They illustrate the details.

Now, the experiment station is cooperating with the state. As a matter of fact, we are spending $7,500 and the State is putting up about, anywhere from $15,000 to $20,000, which goes for the coordinated project. We are in charge of it. We are covering the forest land zones. the agricultural lands. First of all, we do to pass upon the agricultural land as such. upon the forest lands.

We stop immediately at not feel we are qualified We feel qualified to pass

Now, the State, with other bureaus of the Department of Agricul ture will ultimately cover all the land adjoining the territory that we have mapped.

These two maps do not appear to have agriculture lands on them. When we find agricultural lands we merely map the exterior boundaries. That is out of our province. Then we call on the bureaus for help, or the State agencies that are qualified to pass on the particular question as to what will ultimately become of these lands.

As far as the California project there is not any duplication. Now, there are other fields that we have to cover there where we have to get expert help. For example, we are interested in the soil map, which is an independent thing, and when the soil survey covers an area that information will merely supplement and make our own map more intelligent as to the decision as to what can be done with the land.

Major STUART. I hope, Mr. Chairman, that during the course of these hearings, following the suggestion made by Mr. Jump, that the committee will have a statement made upon the work of the National Land Use Planning Committee. That committee was organized following the conference in Chicago about a year ago and comprises representatives from the technical bureaus in the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior and representatives from the land grant colleges, also from the farm board and the Farm Loan Board.

It is approaching and studying the entire question of land use in a very comprehensive way.

As previously stated, that committee's consideration covers both agricultural land and forest land so that, as Mr. Jump has stated, there is a knowledge within that group and within the departments of the responsibility of the respective bureaus in relation to work hearing on land utilization and it is well understood that the Forest Service is to handle that portion that has to do with forest lands or with submarginal agricultural lands with a trend toward forest use. The rest of the field is covered by other agencies.

In other words, what you have in mind, Mr. Chairman, is brought about by coordination.

Mr. BUCHANAN. No, it is not brought about. What I had in mind is that you have one unit composed of forestry, pasturage men and agricultural men, and I say that all matters should be covered in one survey. That is what I have in mind.

Major ŠTUART. As a matter of fact, Mr. Chairman, the forest lands of the country by and large are geographically fairly well separated

from the larger areas of agricultural land so that in making a forest survey throughout the United States a great bulk of the work lies in extensive areas of forest lands within which there is very little agricultural land. In other words, you go from your high country, leaving the forest, and getting out into agricultural land. Now, there are exceptions to that, of course, like in the Lake States and the South, where there is more or less intermingling particularly in the submarginal territory.

Mr. BUCHANAN. What you say is true in the Northwest. There is no question about that, but it is not true at all in the South, and I notice the New Orleans station have $47,820 of this appropriation and they will make that survey and determine what land ought to be in forest.

Major STUART. Mr. Granger, would you mind stating how that works out as a practical proposition in the South?

Mr. Granger has charge of this forest survey work.

FOREST SURVEY WORK IN THE SOUTH

STATEMENT OF C. M. GRANGER, DIRECTOR OF FOREST SURVEY, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. GRANGER. In the South, where the land is very much intermixed, as you have indicated, Mr. Chairman, we cover the entire territory with our forest survey with the exception of certain extensive areas which are almost exclusively agricultural. By and large, we have to cover the entire territory with our system of running lines of field examination in order to get the material we need for our forest survey purposes.

What we are after primarily is an inventory of the forest situation from the standpoint of timber resources, the rate at which the timber is growing and the rate at which it is being depleted by cuttings, fire, insects, disease, and so forth, and a study of the wood use requirements of the different sections of the country and the Nation at large. We must also study the probable or possible increases in the consumption of wood for various purposes because those possibilities for increases bear on the profitability of using large areas of land for forest growing, and upon the probable extent to which forest land will be converted to agriculture or to which land which now is used for agriculture, or has recently been used for agriculture, will revert to its wild state. We call upon the assistance of the Federal bureaus, like the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, the Bureau of Soils in the Department of Agriculture, and the State agencies engaged in these activities and get from them as accurate a determination as it is feasible to make at this juncture of the probable changes in land use between agriculture and forestry for a given unit of area. This enables us to draw in rather bold outline, not in ultimate detail, the probable extent to which in one section of Louisiana or Texas or Mississippi, for example, there will be a major change between those two forms of land use. For example, if the main industry in a certain section has been cotton growing, and that is failing because of the economic situation or sterility of the soil, we will be able to tell the public agencies in that vicinity about what they really will produce or reasonably will produce if it is allowed to revert to forests.

In the Douglas fir territory in the Pacific Northwest where there is a sharp delineation between forests and agricultural land, we know that there will continue to be for some time a certain development of agriculture on cut-over forest areas. We make our maps which show the location of present agricultural developments and their relation to the cut-over land and timber land situation. We turn those maps over to the agricultural experiment station in the State which calls in its agricultural economists and soils people and according to their best judgment, they indicate on the map itself the probable agricultural development in these cut-over areas within the next 10 or 20 years which is about as far ahead as they care to make any forecast. That gives us the basis in that region for estimating how much land will probably be taken away from forest growing and timber growing, We follow that general practice everywhere that we are conducting

surveys.

In the Lake States, particularly in Michigan and Wisconsin, as Major Stuart pointed out, the major effort with which we are cooperating, involved a very detailed examination of the land with respect to soils and the economics of the situation, and we merely supply the additional information as to the timber stands and their rate of growth and the capacity of the locality for timber growing so that when a certain territory is finished information is available on which detailed land use planning can be soundly based.

We are not spending much money, and it is not deemed advisable at this juncture to spend much money for such detailed work in other sections of the country. I think you will find that there is no real lack of correlation, and it not only involves the other bureaus of the Department of Agriculture, but takes in suitable State agencies as well.

Mr. BUCHANAN. This set-up here is all under the McNary-McSweeney bill, is it not?

Major STUART. Yes, sir.

FOREST ECONOMICS

Mr. BUCHANAN. The next item is:

Forest economics: Investigations in forest economics under section 10, $65,608. Major STUART. The following statement is presented for the printed hearings:

A reduction of $4,632 on account of continuation of legislative furlough.

WORK UNDER THIS APPROPRIATION

This appropriation includes work in the field of forest economics other than that which is specifically provided for elsewhere. This excludes work on the forest survey, which is provided for under section 9 of the McSweeney-McNary Act, and forest insurance and forest taxation provided for by the Clarke-McNary Act. Work under this appropriation involves the three major projects-the development of private forestry, the new public domain, and the financial aspects of private forestry practice.

Development of private for stry.-This is an investigation to discover the things which are retarding the development of private forestry, which is making hardly discernible progress in the United States, and to devise ways and means of overcoming these obstacles. It is closely related to the work described hereinafter under financial aspects. Since four-fifths of the Nation's forest area is in private ownership, the acceleration of private forestry development is obviously of the utmost importance.

The project conducted by the Pacific Northwest Forest Experiment Station has thus far been concentrated in the Douglas fir region of western Oregon and Washington, a region characterized by enormous stands of virgin timber, where exist the most destructive overliquidation of private forests and overproduction of lumber, without any plan for perpetuating the resources under private management and with a discouraging effect on private forestry elsewhere in the United States. Exhaustive analyses have been made of costs and returns from logging and manufacturing trees and logs of different sizes and species and under a variety of silvicultural and physical conditions, and of the operating efficiency of different types of logging machinery. The results indicate the feasibility, through improved and cheaper logging methods and by applying the principle of selection, of removing the high values from the stands while leaving for volume and value increment the trees or stands which because of size, species, or location have not yet ripened economically. Such practices generally applied would not only represent tremendous improvement in logging efficiency and in silvicultural results, but they would have the effect of slowing down liquidation and of encouraging sustained yield management. Further work is necessary in the Douglas fir region to maintain the progress made and to insure application of findings. The spectacular success promised from the work here suggests corresponding possibilities for accomplishments in other forest regions.

In the Douglas fir region the West Coast Lumberman's Association and several private operators have not only displayed the keenest interest in this study, but have extended material and essential cooperation. Notable among the cooperating concerns has been the Crown Willamette Paper Co. The Pack Foundation proposes to finance the publications of results.

New public domain.—This is an investigation of the basic causes of reversion to public ownership, usually through tax delinquency, of increasingly large areas of cutover forest lands; of the trends of reversion and the economic factors influeninfluencing them; and of the measures necessary to obtain sound economic use of such areas, either under restored private ownership or by public ownership and management. The study is aimed at the solution of a rapidly expanding problem of forest-land abandonment which in several regions is causing severe economic and social disturbances, accelerated by the present economic depression, but of much longer standing. The study is contributing in an essential way to the formulation of regional programs of land use under the stimulus of the National Land Use Planning Committee and other agencies.

The work is being conducted by the regional forest experiment stations in the Lake States, the Pacific Northwest, and the Southern regions-in all of which the problem is of grave importance. The study shows, for example, that in the 16 northern counties of Minnesota there are nearly 7,000,000 acres tax delinquent, or 44 per cent of the taxable land in these counties; that the trend is toward greater delinquency; and that by 1933, 4,000,000 acres will probably have completely reverted to public ownership, and that thereafter the rate of reversion will probably be at the rate of about 1,000,000 acres a year. The situation is equally bad in Wisconsin and Michigan. In each of these States local remedial effort is well advanced. This Federal study, in cooperation with State agencies, supplements and strengthens the local effort.

The preliminary survey for the Southern States shows a total of over 14,000,000 acres, largely in three States, reverting or reverted to public ownership. Much of this is cut-over forest land. The detailed work by the Southern Forest Experiment Station at this time is in Arkansas and in cooperation with the Arkansas Agricultural College. With the latter's facilities for handling the agricultural and social aspects, a well-rounded-out study and more effective results are possible than could be secured through either agency alone.

The work has been under way but a few months in the Pacific Northwest, but the study conducted with the cooperation of local county officials, has already shown the seriousness of the situation in 11 of the Douglas fir counties and has secured factual information in urgent demand by such agencies as the Oregon State Bankers' Association, local chambers of commerce, the agricultural experiment stations, and other individuals and agencies working toward the solution of various land use and local governmental problems in these regions.

Financial aspects of private forestry. This is the first comprehensive study designed to show how much it costs to grow forests and the returns which may be obtained by private owners, and under different sets of conditions and methods of treatment. It is being conducted by the Southern Forest Experiment Station. Since four-fifths of the forest land in the United States is privately owned, the national problem of forest supplies and productive use of forest lands lies chiefly