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and private lands. Accomplishment of these ownership adjustments will contribute much toward meeting resource demands by the year 2000 and will be largely accomplished by that time.

In the initial period, national-forest boundary and ownership classification studies will be completed for all national-forest lands as the basis for landownership adjustment. Such adjustments will be brought about mainly by exchanging on a land-for-land basis approximately 1.4 million acres of scattered or checkerboard nationalforest parcels for other lands needed to consolidate the national-forest land pattern. This will (a) enable national-forest boundaries to be modified to exclude about 11 million acres of private and State land from within national-forest boundaries; and (b) materially reduce the checkerboard pattern of ownership. Special attention will be given to completion of consolidation of national-forest ownership in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and in certain key watersheds of the Cache National Forest in Utah. In addition, about 217,000 acres of land utilization project lands will be exchanged in the initial period to promote more effective management of such projects. Thereafter there will be a continuing program in the national forests and related areas to adjust ownership problems and further consolidate these public properties.

There must also be accomplished in the short-term period: (a) Development of an improved and more adequate land status record system with provision for continuous maintenance; and (b) establishment and marking of public property corners and the surveying and posting of over 100,000 miles of property lines between nationalforest and other lands which now are inadequately located and marked. The uses of national-forest lands for many special purposes, including the extraction of mineral resources, will continue to increase at a rapid rate. The supervision of these uses will need to keep pace in order that such uses can be properly correlated into multiple-use management of the national-forest system, and to prevent unauthorized use. The program for the determination of surface rights which has been under way since the approval of the Act of July 23, 1955, will be completed.

Administrative Structures and Equipment

To facilitate the resource management and development work, construction and maintenance of administrative and fire control improvements will need to be provided at an increased rate in the shortterm period. This will consist of completing the present backlog of housing needs for field officers and of administrative and fire improvements, and the construction of additional housing and improvements. New construction needs include 2,730 dwellings and related improvements, 2,710 service buildings, and 530 lookout structures. Completion

of the communications system needed for protection and management of the national forests will require 2,000 additional radios and replacement of 9,000 radios and 3,000 miles of telephone lines. The increasing use of aircraft as an efficient and economical means of transportation for protection and management of wild lands will require an additional 25 landing fields and reconstruction of 37 existing fields.

Research

Forestry and allied research is needed to keep the national forests and the utilization of their resources moving ahead on an efficient, effective, and economical basis to play their proper role in the progress and development of the Nation. Resource managers and adminis trators need answers to their everyday problems. Resource development, management, protection, and utilization have an additional need, and organized research has an additional objective to achieve significant break-throughs that will show the way to new methods and new horizons in the management of timber, soil and water, forage, wildlife habitat, and recreation resources. The short-term research program is needed to yield both quick results of applicability during the initial period, and information of value in attaining long-range objectives.

The research proposals for the initial period embrace work that should yield information of wide application and high value. These proposals include

1. Accelerated research in forest genetics to produce trees superior to present ones-in growth rate, wood quality, resistance to insects and diseases, and other special qualities-for use in the needed planting programs on national forests.

2. Development of new cultural practices to increase the production of high-quality seed through establishment and management of seed orchards; better methods of harvesting, storing, and processing of seed; and more efficient planting practices, including direct seeding with aircraft.

3. Better implementation of the national-forest pest control program by developing a broader knowledge of the life histories of damaging insects and diseases and of new methods for controlling them through use of diseases and predators of the pests themselves, as well as through improved selective chemicals for use in direct control action.

4. Better implementation of the national-forest fire control program by developing a better understanding of fire behavior and new techniques and equipment needed to eliminate the runaway fires now responsible for 90 percent of fire losses in the national-forest system.

5. Development of new and improved practices required to facili

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Through research, high-quality, disease-resistant trees are being developed for the future

tate good watershed management so vitally important to the management of national-forest timber and range resources. This will include studies of water yields, both quality and quantity, and management of snowpacks at high elevations and soil stabilization.

6. Design and evaluation of new and improved equipment for logging without damage to watershed values-as by an overhead cable system in order to extend harvesting operations into steep mountainous slopes not now operable by ground skidding methods; and equipment to increase the efficiency of woods-utilization of forest products.

7. Improvement of volume and yield tables, rotation age data, and other information for regulating timber growing-stock levels for use in the national-forest timber-management plans.

8. Development of silvicultural bases to guide timber harvesting and regeneration practices in new forest types and areas, particu

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Watershed research helps the national-forest manager do a more effective and economical job larly in Alaska and the more remote areas of the western national forests to be newly reached in sustained-yield operations.

9. Continuing investigations of the physical and chemical properties of wood and of processing methods to increase the efficiency of forest products utilization from national-forest timber-sale areas.

10. Development of new uses for the large volume of low-quality timber, for logging and milling residues, and for thinnings in order to broaden the utilization and market base, and to facilitate timber sales and sustained-yield management.

11. Development of log and tree grades and other information needed in the marketing of national-forest timber.

12. Development of improved livestock-grazing management practices on the national forests to increase forage yields and to protect watershed values.

13. Develop methods of improving national-forest wildlife habitat through modified timber and range management practices, as well as through development of special measures such as propagation of browse and other game foods.

14. Determination of the needs and preferences of recreational uses of the national forests, and of the carrying capacities of campgrounds and other recreational areas in order to guide the development and management of the recreational resources.

15. Provision for laboratories, greenhouses, and other facilities, including modern scientific equipment, required to adequately implement the research program. This will consist of expansions

through new construction and betterment of existing facilities. The needs include 17 specialized laboratories and related greenhouse and service facilities for the basic research on forest insects and diseases, tree genetics and physiology, forest soils and hydrology, forest fires, and forest products, and for development of new equipment for fire fighting and for harvesting timber; 5 office-laboratory buildings at regional headquarters of forest and range experiment stations; 25 office-laboratories at centers of field research and minor structures, fencing, stream gages, and other research installations that will be required on about 100 experimental forests and ranges.

Program Benefits

Under the proposed program, management and utilization of national-forest resources will keep pace with population growth and national economic development and needs.

Many of the benefits from the program for the short-term period will carry over or will be delayed until after the end of the period. Investments in such measures as roadbuilding, tree planting, range reseeding, water conservation, research, recreation, and other improvements proposed in the initial period are geared not only to short-term needs, but also to the longer range objectives of meeting expected demands on the national forests during the remainder of the century. Benefits include direct financial revenues, secondary benefits, and intangible values.

Direct financial revenues from the national-forest system will rise to about 210 million dollars annually by the time the short-term conservation program is completed, or double current receipts. Over 90 percent of such revenues will continue to come from the sale of standing timber. By the year 2000 national-forest timber sales should reach 21 billion board feet of sawtimber worth 350 million dollars at 1958 prices.

Payments from national-forest revenues for county schools and roads will increase correspondingly. These increased payments to counties, coupled with increased national-forest expenditures for roads and fire control, will exceed the taxes that the national-forest system would pay, if subject to local taxation, by an even greater margin at the end of the initial period than at the present time.

The capital value of the timber, forage, and lands of the nationalforest system will have increased by about a billion dollars as a result of the short-term conservation program.

In addition to direct financial income to the United States as a result of the national-forest conservation program, there will be both substantial secondary benefits and very real intangible benefits.

Secondary benefits include such things as numbers of people employed in the harvesting of national-forest timber and other products and the value added to those products by manufacture, distribution, and marketing.

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