2. The volume of sales has increased rapidly because much forest is ripe for the axe, the demand is strong, and control by trained men makes it safe to cut more freely. The increase is marked both in small and in large sales, but a score of sales for less than $5000 are made against one for more. The total cut is still far below the annual increment of the forests. As the demand grows restrictions must increase in order to husband the present supply until the next crop matures.
3. The stumpage price would seem on the face of the figures to have risen from about one dollar to more than three dollars per thousand board-feet. The receipts, however, for any one year are not exclusively for the timber cut in that year, since payments are made in advance. In the year 1907 the average price obtained was something less than $2.50 per thousand. It is therefore true that stumpage prices have risen greatly, although conditions new to the American lumbermen are imposed. Full utilization of all merchantable material, care of young growth in felling and logging, and the piling of brush, to be subsequently burned by the forest officers if burning is necessary, are among these conditions. Timber to be cut must first be marked by the forest officers. Sales of more than $100 in value are made only after public advertisement.
Only the simplest forms of silviculture have as yet been introduced. The vast area of the national forests, the comparatively sparse population of the West, the rough and broken character of the forests themselves, and the newness of the problems which their management presents, make the general application of intensive methods for the present impracticable. Natural reproduction is secured. The selection system is most used, often under the rough and ready method of an approximate diameter limit, with the reservation of seed trees where needed. The tendency, however, is strongly towards a more flexible and effective application of the selection principle, as a better trained field force is developed and as market conditions improve.
One conspicuous achievement was the reduction of loss by fires on the national forests. During the unusually dry season of 1905 there were only eight fires of any importance, and the area burned over amounted only to about .16 of 1% of the total area. In 1900 about .12 of 1% was burned. This was accomplished by efficient patrol, co-operation of the public, and by preventive measures, such as piling and burning the brush on cut-over areas.
Since the beginning of 1906 the largest source of income from the national forests was their use for grazing. Stock-raising is one of the most important industries of the West. Formerly cattle and sheep grazed freely on all parts of the public domain. In the early days of the national forests the wisdom of permitting any grazing at all upon them was sharply questioned. Unrestricted grazing had led to friction between individuals, the deterioration of much of the range through overstocking, and serious injury to the forests and stream flow. The forests of the West, however, are largely of open growth and contain many grassy parks, the results of old fires, and many high mountain meadows. Under proper regulations the grass and other forage plants which they produce in great quantity can be used without detriment to the forests themselves, and with great benefit to the stock industry, which often can find summer pasturage nowhere else. Except in southern California grazing is now permitted on all national forests unless the watersheds furnish water for domestic use; but the time of entering and leaving, the number of head to be grazed by each applicant, and the part of the range to be occupied are carefully prescribed. Planted areas and cut-over areas are closed to stock until the young growth is safe from harm, and goats are allowed only in the brushland of the foothills.
The results of regulation, in addition to the protection of forest growth and streams, are the prevention of disputes, improved range, better stock, stable conditions in the stock industry, and the best use of the range in the interest of progress and development. The first right to graze stock on the forests is given to residents, small owners and those who have used the range before. Thus the crowding out of the weaker by the stronger and of the settler by the roving outsider has been stopped. In 1906 the forest service began to impose a moderate charge for the use of the national forest range. The following statement shows the amount of stock grazed on the national forests 1904-09, and the receipts for the grazing charge:—
| Year. | Number of Cattle and Horses. | Number of Sheep and Goats. | Receipts. |
| $ | |||
| 1904 | 610,091 | 1,806,722 | · · |
| 1905 | 692,124 | 1,709,987 | · · |
| 1906 | 1,015,148 | 5,763,100 | 514,692.87 |
| 1907 | 1,200,158 | 6,657,083 | 863,920.32 |
| 1909 | 1,581,404 | 7,819,594 | 1,032,185.70 |
A work of enormous magnitude which has now begun is planting on the national forests. At present, with low stumpage prices and incomplete utilization of forest products, clear cutting with subsequent planting is not practicable. There are, however, many million acres of denuded land within the national forests which require planting. Such planting is still confined chiefly to watersheds which supply cities and towns with water. The first planting was done in 1892, in California. Since then similar work has been done on city watersheds in Colorado, Utah, Idaho and New Mexico. Other plantations are in the Black Hills national forest, where large areas of cut-over and burned-over land are entirely without seed trees, and in the sandhill region of Nebraska. Up to 1908 about 2,000,000 seedlings had been planted, on over 2000 acres—a small beginning, but the work was entirely new and presented many hard problems.
The nursery operations of the forest service are concentrated at seven stations, located in southern California, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico (2), Utah and Idaho, where stock is raised for local planting and for shipment elsewhere. These nurseries are small. Their annual productive capacity is between 8,000,000 and 10,000,000 seedlings. Each nursery is practically an experimental forest-planting station, at which a large variety of species are grown and various methods are tried.
The organization of the administrative work of the national forests is by single forests. On the 1st of January 1908 the total number of forests was 165 with a total area of 162,023,190 acres (on April 7, 1909, the numbers were 146 national forests in the U.S. with 167,672,467 acres, besides two in Alaska with 26,761,626 and one in Porto Rico with 65,950 acres). In charge of each forest is a forest supervisor. Under the supervisors are forest rangers and forest guards, whose duties include patrol, marking timber and scaling logs, enforcing the regulations and conducting some of the minor business arising from the use of the forests. Guards are temporary employés; rangers are employed by the year. The supervisors report directly to and receive instructions from the central office at Washington. In this office there are four branches—operation, grazing, silviculture and products—each of which directs that part of the work which belongs to it, dealing directly with the supervisor. For inspection purposes, however, the forests are separated into six districts, in each of which is located a chief inspector with a corps of assistants. The inspectors are without administrative authority, but assist by their counsel the supervisors, and through inspection reports keep the Washington office informed of the condition of all lines of administrative work in progress. Administrative officers alternate frequently between field and office duties.