17

C—3a

This volumetric and economic analysis will enable your Forest Service to definitely recommend ffic basic requirements for a permanent forest policy in— (1.) The necessary addition to Ihe State forests to lie placed for submission to forest management. (2.) Definite measures to ensure regeneration of the native species. (3.) The necessity or otherwise for increased exotic-tree planting by the State and individuals. (4.) The national and local protection measures. (5.) Degree of control and regulation over the forest industry. (6.) The relative areas of agricultural land available in State forests. CLASSIFICATION OF AGRICULTURAL AND NON-AGRICULTURAL LANDS IX STATE FORESTS, FOREST LANDS OF THE CROWN, ETC. The Forest Service should begin without delay an examination of all State forests and provisional State forests, forest lands of the Natives, and other Crown lands carrying forests, with a view to ascertaining the location and extent of lands which are chiefly valuable for agriculture, and which could be occupied for agricultural purposes without injury to the State forests of the country, and which are not needed for public purposes, to the end that they may be listed with the Department of Lands for opening to settlement, The principle that should be emphasized here is that all forest lands under the control of the State should pass first through the hands of the Forest Service, so that a scientific examination may be made by the competent soil specialists of this Department as to whether the land is agricultural or non-agricultural—for in these days when the maximum production is so necessary to the life of the State the great thing is to keep all land steadily at work, and those areas which can best produce forest crops should be kept at work growing limber, while lands which can best produce farm crops should be kept producing such crops. During the past, and even now, the writer is informed, about 30,000 acres per year of land reverts to scrub and useless waste. At this time every effort, should lie made to work this problem out to the best advantage of all. A very close co-operative agreement should be entered into by the Forest Service, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Lands as to the procedure to lie adopted. Every acre of available agricultural land should be earmarked for use; and the writer is confident that if this problem lie attacked in a practical, efficient, and workmanlike manner it should lie possible in two or three years to classify every acre of agricultural ground within the State forests and forests lands of the Crown. To ensure the efficient administration, protection, improvement; and use of the State forests and their resources, however, certain lands, whether agricultural or non-agricultural, must be retained in public ownership. These include areas for forest administrative stations, pastures, planting and nursery sites, and for similar purposes needed in the work of Government officials charged with the administration, improvement, and protection of the forests. They include also public-service sites which embrace all areas needed for the proper utilization of State-forest resources, such as camping-grounds, springs, mill-sites, logging-roads, stock-driveways, holdinggrounds, likewise tracts embracing watersheds from which the water-supply of municipalities is taken. The following lands, for instance, should be retained for the public : — (1.) Lands which protect stream-flow, or check erosion on the watershed of any stream important to irrigation, water-power, or to the water-supply of any municipality or open lands, unless their permanent value under cultivation is greater than their value as a protective forest. (2.) Lands more valuable for the production of trees than for agricultural crops, and lands densely stocked with young trees having a prospective value greater than the value of the land for agricultural purposes. (3.) Lands above timber-line, or in small stands scattered through the forests, making elimination impracticable. (4.) Lands not either wholly or in part covered with timber or undergrowth upon which it is expected to grow trees. FOREST LANDS OF THE NATIVES. In the wider public interest of the Dominion the writer suggests a new method of treatment with reference to these lands. The present system has not always been in the immediate or ultimate interest of the public or the Native owners, for it has opened the way to some extent to flagrant trafficking and speculation. Your adviser submits a new method of management which will result in the greatest good to the Native owners, ensure the greatest economic productivity of the land, and ensure to the wood-consuming public a considerable proportion of this timber-supply in perpetuity. It is as follows: After the completion of the stock-taking of the forest resources and land-classification of the Native blocks, the agricultural lands therein should be definitely earmarked for disposition for set I lenient purposes, and the standing timber thereon earmarked for alienation, after careful appraisal and valuation in the Forest Service. The non-agricultural areas, or lands better suited for silviculture than for agriculture, should be then definitely dedicated to forest management under the control and administration of the Forest Service (in trust for the owners): all profits accruing from such administration to lie handed over to the Native owners.

3—C. 3a.