Another economic effect of National forests in the South has been their relation to the tourist industry. By the construction of roads and trails these forests have been available to the tourists who are visiting the Southern Appalachians by the hundreds of thousands. At the present time the Forest Service is maintaining 777 miles of roads and 3,242 miles of trails, which are open to the public without any fee. The Forest Service has expended thus far $1,746.304 in the construction and maintenance of roads and trails. In addition to this $349,252 have been spent for the same purpose from cooperative funds. That the people do appreciate the forests as places to visit and for recreational purposes is evidenced by the 11,000,000 and over people, who visited the National Forests last year. Of these over a million visited the Southern Appalachian and Eastern forests. It is hard to estimate the real economic value of the forests to the tourist trade. It is not only in the number of visitors, but in the influence the preservation of National forests is having on the visitors and people of the South in requesting similar protection for the preservation of the other forests of the South. As game preserves and game refugees the forests also have an economic value to the tourist industry.

The forests are also laboratories where the trees and shrubs can be studied. In the preservation of the forests, types and species of trees and shrubs, peculiar to the section of the country in which the forest is located, are also preserved and are really National History Museums.

NATIONAL FORESTS AND THEIR GAME RESOURCES

A. B. BROOKS, Chief Game Protector, West Virginia

The National Forests in the United States and Alaska, numbering 152 and containing 158 million acres, comprise areas in every life zone from the tropical to the alpine. They embrace altitudes from the sea level to 15 thousand feet, and have every conceivable exposure, cover, kind of food, and other conditions, forming the habitats of the principal species of game mammals and birds, fishes, and other wild life native to the North American Continent. A census of big game on the National Forests places the number of antelope at 5,000; black and brown bears, 44,000; grizzly bears, 6,000; deer, 600,000; elk, 53,000; moose, 5,000; mountain goats, 17,000; and sheep, 12,000.

Our conception of the National Forests, therefore, need not be based wholly upon the commercial timber aspects-the number of board feet or the quantities of forest products with certain monetary values. My subject takes us away from forestry but not away from the forest.

It would be interesting to know each person's individual conception of a forest. Doubtless to some a forest is merely a piece of ground growing trees; to others it is a hunting ground; to others a watershed protecting the streams. Likewise, to some the forest is a field for collecting botanical or zoological specimens; to some a retreat for rest and recreation; a health resort; or a place to satisfy the aesthetic. The complete forest is a complicated composite of plant and animal life—a living, breathing organism, pliable and adaptable to the needs and varying interpretations of all

Many persons do not know the forest nor understand its meaning. Neither those who regard it as a collection of standing timber which can be measured and sawed into lumber, nor those who look upon it as a place overgrown with thickets of thorns and populated with dangerous and repulsive reptiles and insects, nor yet those who claim to admire it from a distance or from a passing automobile and speak of it in terms of flippant sentiment, have really known it. To know the forest it is requisite that one should live in it for a time, eat and sleep within it, drink water from its springs, gather fruit from its vines, climb its mountains and follow its streams in quest of game or recreation. The timid deer cropping vegetation on the lonely lake shore, the mountain sheep upon the crag, the chattering squirrel, the grouse upon his mossy log, the musical thrush, the tiny wood folk beneath the leaf mould, are as much a part of the forest as the trees themselves. Without them a forest is no more a forest than an empty house is a home. All these forms blending in harmonious hue and tone produce Nature's great sylvan symphony and together constitute the spirit as well as the substance of the forest.

Manhood, in his publication entitled "Laws of the Forest," published in 1598, defines the forest as "a certain territory of woody grounds, fruitful pastures, privileged for wild beasts and the fowls of the forest, to rest and abide in, in the safe protection of the king, for his princely delight and pleasure." This ancient conception of a forest and its uses, which has somewhat swallowed up by modern economic considerations, may well be revived. At any rate the definition is in keeping with the purposes of my remarks. In our consideration of this subject it is pro

per that we discuss, briefly, the interrelations of animal life and the forest, and the part which the National Forest will play in our future supply of game.

The forest trees and the lesser plants among them have formed a partnership, as it were, with the beasts, the birds, and the smaller creatures. The squirrel plants the nut which grows into the tree that feeds his offspring; the shew, burrowing beneath the leaves, devours the larva of the nut weevil, thus preserving the nut and maintaining life in the shrew; the wild turkey, the grouse, and theater fowl swallow the seeds of tree and shrub and scatter them in favorable soil. The birds say to the forest, "Give us your protecting shelte and we will rid you of the insects that prey upon you. No plant conimunity could remain intact without its associated active protectors. The ecological balance must forever be maintained. Neither party to the partnership could survive without the other.

We may or may not be approaching the close of the age of mammals. I cannot say. But we have all seen the rise of the hunter-array, the perfecting of the deadly firearm, the reduction of game covers, with the consequent total extinction of certain species of game, the practical disappearance of others, and the waning of nearly all. The rate of destruction, on the whole, during the last forty years need not be accelerated to insure the fulfillment of the prophesies of the most radical alarmist.

It is our disposition, however, to look hopefully forward because we look knowingly backward. The unforgivable mistakes of the past have brought their lesson. It is inconceivable to me that a single species of game now abundant would be allowed to suffer extinction-except from possible natural causes beyond our control-during the next forty years, or the next. Had we the roosting grounds of the passenger pigeon today we would make of them a sanctuary and not a slaughter pen. America has a race of the most intelligent, far-seeing, pure-blooded sportsmen the world has ever known. International treaties, Federal legislation, and state enactments, ever strengthening, form the background of security. The broad-minded policies of conservation promulgated by Government chiefs in cooperation with state officials, give purpose and stimulus to effective work.

Amidst perpetual change it is eminently satisfying to find the elements of permanence. Most of our forests have not been permanent. No feature has been more constantly and disastrously altered. There was the necessary disturbance for agriculture, the necessary removal in

lumbering. But there was the unnecessary destruction attending the latter, and there was the ever-present fire. So that one year we could stand within coolness of towering trees and the next year within a heap of ashes. But all forests have not been subjected to exploitation and change.

To me a protected forest, under permanent ownership, is something more than a thing of beauty and has an inexpressible appeal. It is like a rainbow of promise insuring to us wood, constant streams, scenic beauty, game and fish, recreation and health. Such are the National Forests.

The plans of the Federal Forest Service have not neglected to include the safeguarding and propagation of game. Included in the system of National forests there are five Federal refuges, containing a total of a million acres. These refuges are well distributed, one being at the Grand Canyon, one in Oklahoma, one in Wyoming, one in Tennessee and Georgia, and one in North Carolina. In addition there are 130 state refuges inside the National Forests, containing a total of 16 million acres. Such refuges are established under agreement between the Department of Agriculture and State Departments and are given protection as authorized by state statutes. The two refuges with which I am most familiar are the Otter Creek Refuge, within the Monongahela National Forest, and the Brocks Gap Refuge, within the Shenandoah National Forest, the first wholly within West Virginia and the latter, recently established, in West Virginia and Virginia. Under the terms of the contract they are established for a period of ten years, but it is understood that renewal will follow, making them permanent. In addition to protection given such refuges by officers of our state department certain Federal officers upon the forests are commissioned as game protectors, being thus authorized to make arrests for violations of the game laws. We look upon such refuges as not only permanent but ideally located, with surrounding hunting grounds, with unusual facilities for guarding, and with the best of fire protection—a thing in itself of first importance to the perpetuation of game and fish. The artificial restocking of these refuges can be done with safety and assurance, and this is being done in many places. As an example, the Game and Fish Commission of West Virginia has recently placed a number of white-tail deer in the Otter Creek Refuge, before referred to. These animals, introduced from distant states, will mingle with the resident stock, building up a healthy, virile race. In addition to he deer, the black bear, wild turkey, ruffed grouse, gray squirrel, and the common fur-bearers are resident upon these refuges and some are al

ready showing marked increase in numbers. We expect these refuges to be highly successful, even though they are located in badly devastated sections.

We can truthfully say, that the National Forests, stretching from coast to coast, and interlocked with the system of state forests and game refuges, will constitute, in future years, the great permanent reservoirs of game and other useful wild life, and will be the controlling influence in perpetuating our most valuable species.

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S POLICY FOR
SOUTHERN NATIONAL FORESTS

W. B. GREELEY, Chief, U. S. Forest Service

Looking back over the past thirty years, the historian will point out three distinct steps in the creation of National Forests. The first was the reservation of the timber-producing portions of the public domain, a striking phase of the awakening to the need for conservation that will always be identified with the administration of President Roosevelt. The second step was marked by the passage of the Weeks Act in 1911, which launched a policy of forest purchases in the eastern States primarily for protecting the headwaters of navigable streams. The third step followed in 1924 when the Clarke-McNary Act extended the field of forest purchases to include denuded, and other lands whose acquisition is desirable for the growing of timber.

In the first two stages of National Forest development, the United States was, in a sense, pioneering in forest conservation. It was blazing the trail. It was not attempting to draw complete plans for a national program of forestry that would extend to all of the timber growing lands in the country. It was dealing rather with the most obvious and urgent things that had to be done at once.

The third step in the extension of National Forests, on the other hand, was one part of a comprehensive program which looked ahead to the growing of timber on all of the 469 odd million acres of American soil that appears primarily to this economic service. This program, in a word, sought to define the place for National Forests in a general plan wherein industrial forestry and farm forestry were assigned the greater part in the common undertaking.