Our national forests

by Richard H. D. Boerker

The Ranger's Protection and Improvement Plans. Long before this bill reaches Congress every Forest Ranger on every National Forest, every Forest Supervisor, and every Branch of the Washington and the District Offices have been estimating how much money they will need to carry out the plans proposed for the next fiscal year. Each Forest Ranger works and studies over his plans for the next year with which he hopes to protect his district from fire. He plans and figures out what improvements are urgently necessary to make the remote parts of his district more accessible. He tries to arrive at a safe estimate of the cost of so many miles of trails, roads, and telephone lines, so many cabins, barns, corrals, etc., which he thinks are absolutely essential to the proper administration of his district, and he estimates the number of Forest Guards, lookout men, and patrol men he will need for the protection of his territory. Usually these items are summed up under his annual Improvement Plan and his Protection Plan respectively.

The Supervisor's Plans. When the Forest Supervisor receives such estimates and plans from each of his Forest Rangers he studies them over carefully and tries to decide in an impartial way what improvements are most necessary in each Ranger district and what additional men are necessary for the adequate protection of the region in question. He carefully weighs the arguments for and against each expenditure and decides what improvements must be made now and which ones it would be possible to postpone for one or more years without detriment to the work of his Forest as a whole. For in most cases the amount of necessary work to be done on each Ranger district is far in excess of the amount which the Forest Supervisor could approve owing to the inadequacy of the Forest Service funds. So, for the Forest Supervisor, it is merely a question of how low he can keep his estimates for money for the ensuing year until such a time when Congress will appropriate more money so that all the important and necessary work can be done. In most cases therefore the major part of all the expenditures recommended by the Forest Ranger is warranted, but the Forest Supervisor knows that he must cut all the estimates down considerably in order to bring the total Forest estimate reasonably near the amount he is likely to get, basing his judgment upon what he got the year before.

Approval of Plans by the District Forester. The District Forester then gets the National Forest estimate from every one of his 25 or 30 Forest Supervisors and he in turn must decide what projects on each Forest are immediately necessary and which ones can be postponed. The same process is repeated in the Washington office when all the estimates from the District Foresters are received, and the Forester in turn sends to the Secretary of Agriculture his estimates by allotments or funds, which in turn are put before Congress. While Congress sometimes makes minor changes in the Forest Service appropriation, in most cases the bill is passed as it stands.

The District Fiscal Agent. The money appropriated by Congress is allotted to each district, and in turn to each National Forest and finally to each Ranger district by funds, such as General Expenses, Fire Fighting, Improvements, etc. In each district the financial matters are taken care of in the Office of Accounts by the District Fiscal Agent. He is the Assistant of the Chief of the Forest Service Branch of the Division of Accounts of the Department of Agriculture and pays all the bills incurred by the district and receives all the money which comes in from the sale of National Forest resources. The amount of money appropriated for the district is credited to him and he disburses this appropriation in accordance with the Fiscal Regulations of the Department of Agriculture. No other officer is allowed to receive money for the sale of timber, forage, or other resources; in fact no other official in the District handles any of the Forest Service funds whatsoever.

All remittances by users of the National Forests are made to the U. S. District Depository. If a rancher has bought some timber from a Forest Ranger, he is given a letter of transmittal showing the amount of the purchase which he must send to the District Fiscal Agent with the amount necessary to pay for the timber. The letter of transmittal explains the purpose of the remittance.

Tax Money Paid to the States. Another interesting feature of the National Forest business is the money paid each State out of the annual receipts in lieu of taxes. It must be remembered that National Forests do not pay taxes to the States in which they are located. On the other hand, if the National Forests were private property they would bring into the county and state treasuries yearly taxes. To compensate the State for the taxes lost in this way each National Forest pays to each county in proportion to the area of the National Forest lands located in that county a sum of money equal to 25 per cent, of the total gross receipts each fiscal year. From the receipts of the fiscal year 1917 this amounts to about $850,000. It is provided that this money is to be expended for schools and roads in the county in which the National Forests lie. Recently a law was passed giving the Secretary of Agriculture authority to expend an additional 10 per cent. of the National Forest receipts for the construction of roads and trails for the benefit of local communities. From the fiscal year 1917 this amounts to about $340,000. These moneys for roads, trails, and schools are of course a great benefit to the mountain communities, since usually the amount of taxable property in such remote localities is small and hence the amount of taxes received is small. These allotments to the counties have helped to develop the communication systems of local communities and have also made the National Forests more accessible and useful.

THE EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES FOR THE NATIONAL FORESTS

The Property Auditor and Property Clerk. The depot for equipment, supplies, and blank forms is located at Ogden, Utah, and this office furnishes all the Forests in all the districts with most of the equipment necessary. The record of the property of the United States in the custody of the Forest Service is kept by a man called the Property Auditor. Requisitions for supplies and equipment are made by the Forest Supervisor to the Property Clerk. Government property is considered expendable or non-expendable depending upon its character. Each Forest has a Property Custodian who has charge of all the property assigned to the Forest. When property is received from the Property Clerk or if property is transferred from one forest officer to another, the Property Custodian must note the change on his records.

Blank Forms. The blank forms which are supplied by the Property Clerk are printed standard forms used in issuing permits, making contracts, reports, examinations, timber sale agreements, in short, those used in almost every business transaction of the Forest Service. Even timber estimates, tree measurements, and other similar public records are kept on standard printed forms for permanent uniform record.

Supplies. Supplies such as stationery, typewriters, pencils, ink, notebooks, paper for map work, compasses, measuring tapes, and a host of other articles are furnished upon requisition by the Property Clerk. Equipment such as filing cases, tables, chairs, typewriters, tree-measuring instruments, tents, cooking utensils, surveying instruments, snow shoes, skiis, knapsacks, water buckets, canteens, kodaks, and many other forms of equipment are furnished by the Property Clerk, although in cases of emergency some of these things may be purchased locally by Forest officers by the authority of the Forest Supervisor.