National Forest
of California, dog-team races over courses of 25 to 50 miles are
held each winter.

About eighty per cent. of the 5,500,000 people who visit the
National Forests are automobile tourists. The other twenty per
cent. consists of sportsmen interested in hunting, fishing,
canoeing, boating, mountain climbing, bathing, riding and hiking.
In the Pacific Coast States there are a number of mountain
climbing clubs whose members compete with each other in making
difficult ascents. The mountaineering clubs of Portland, Oregon,
for example, stage an interesting contest each summer in climbing
Mount Hood, one of the highest peaks in the country.

CHAPTER XIII

SOLVING OUR FORESTRY PROBLEMS

A system of forestry which will provide sufficient lumber for the
needs of our country and keep our forest land productive must be
built on the extension of our public forests. Our National
Forests are, at present, the one bright feature of future
lumbering. Their tree crops will never be cut faster than they
can be grown. A balance between production and consumption will
always be maintained. Our needs for more timber, the necessity
for protecting the headwaters of streams, the demands for saving
wild life, and the playground possibilities of our forests
justify their extension. Approximately eighty per cent of the
American forests are now privately owned. The chances are that
most of these wooded tracts will always remain in the hands of
private owners. It is important that the production of these
forests be kept up without injuring their future value. We must
prepare for the lumber demands of many years from now.

Some method must be worked out of harnessing our idle forest
lands and putting them to work growing timber. Any regulations
that are imposed on the private owners of woodlands must be
reasonable. Changes in our present methods of taxing timberlands
must be made to encourage reforestation. The public must aid the
private individuals in fighting forest fires, the greatest menace
that modern forestry has to face. A national policy is needed
which will permit the private owner to grow trees which will give
him fair and reasonable profit when sold.

The farmers of this country use about one-half of all the lumber
consumed annually. They own approximately 191,000,000 acres of
timber in their farm woodlots. If farmers would devote a little
time and labor to the permanent upkeep and improvement of their
timb