Tentative allocations by regions New England region.. Middle Atlantic region_ Central States region. Pacific region.. North Rocky Mountain region_.. Administration and technical supervision in Washington. Total, cooperative projects with States.. 2. Farm-forestry extension. Expansion of group educational and Tentative allocations by research regions $25, 500 27, 500 51, 500 75, 000 77, 000 18, 000 10, 500 15,000 300, 000 105, 000 4. Prairie States forestry project: To establish tree shelter-belt Funds will be expended for the establishment and operation of Total, Prairie States forestry project--. Total, all projects 1938.... COOPERATION 95, 000 500, 000 1, 000, 000 WITH STATES IN FURNISHING NURSERY STOCK FOR The first project consists of cooperative efforts between the various services in the Department of Agriculture and the various services in the States in furnishing stock which may be needed for actual planting on the farms, advice in the making of those plantations, advice in the actual handling of farm woodlots, that is, how to handle them so as to perpetuate the forests and get the best growth and to carry it through to marketing. That gets right down to brass tacks and specific cases in the individual farm woodlots. Mr. LUDLOW. Is this stock furnished from Government nurseries? Mr. CLAPP. Probably some of it will have to be furnished from Government nurseries. Perhaps most of it. A great deal of it will be forest coniferous stock, which most of the commercial nurseries do not handle. This would be a cooperative enterprise between the States and the Federal Government. Mr. LUDLOw. Are those nurseries started now? Mr. CLAPP. We have nurseries which could probably be used. It might be necessary to start some new ones. It probably would be. Mr. CANNON. Let us take a specific example. Let us take an example of a county down in the State of Virginia. In that specific county just how would you proceed under these four divisions? Mr. CLAPP. You mean taking the cooperative farm forestry? That would be first. Mr. CANNON. Yes. Just how would you affect the farmers in that particular county? Mr. CLAPP. There would probably be men attached to the State services, with the Federal Government making a contribution to the salary and the State making a contribution. Mr. CANNON. What services would they be? Mr. CLAPP. Probably the State Forest Service under that first project. Mr. CANNON. Isn't that in the nature of a duplication? Don't the State services at this time render all the service that might be required for this project? Mr. CLAPP. They are spread out very, very thin. They cannot possibly begin to reach the farmers that we can help. They are spread out so thin that most of the farmers, in fact, don't realize that their returns are way below what they could be, both in the production of wood and in financial returns. Mr. LUDLOW. Are the farmers asking you for this education? Mr. CLAPP. Federal and State forestry agencies already get thousands of requests for information every year. To some extent this would take us into the second project. There will have to be general educational work to rouse them still further to the opportunities. Mr. CANNON. What would be the nature of the educational work? Would it be in the nature of personnel who would visit the farms individually, or would it be in the nature of literature which would be distributed or bulletins or radio discussions or newspaper releases? Mr. CLAPP. It may be any or all of those things. There would be group meetings, for one thing. Mr. WARBURTON. The employment of extension foresters, in the States, to work through the county agents. Mr. CANNON. It wouldn't mean any additional county personnel? Mr. WARBURTON. No. Mr. CANNON. Do you mean additional State personnel which would operate through the counties? Mr. WARBURTON. Yes. Mr. SNYDER. In the State of Pennsylvania, in the western part, the soft-coal region, where for 25 years they have been taking off the hillside timber for mining props, they have been doing that more each year until the hills are all bare. I don't suppose that there is one-fifth as much as there was originally. What would you do in a case like that? Mr. CLAPP. That would be a case of actually getting on the ground with the owners and showing them what they are losing by the practices that they are following now, and showing them the possibilities of much greater returns if they would follow other practices. Mr. SNYDER. Right there. You would have to have tree nurseries on those mountains with soil similar to that in which the pin oak or red oak or whatever nature of tree you are going to grow is found in. You have to have similar soil to what they are growing in if you ever want them to be transplanted. Mr. CLAPP. In a great many cases, of course, we can use the forests we find already growing on the ground without planting new ones. Mr. SNYDER. I understand that. Mr. CLAPP. I would say that it is only in the rather exceptional case that we would have to plant. But if it is a question of planting, it would be necessary to establish nurseries and to grow the stock and distribute it and arrange for the planting. The owners themselves would have to do that. Mr. CANNON. Here on this forest research we are already conducting the most elaborate and the most complete and most exhaustive research on forestry matters that is possible. The Federal Government is spending vast sums in forestry research. I cannot see what you would possibly do in forestry research that would not come in conflict with something that we have already in progress. Mr. CLAPP. There isn't any conflict here, Mr. Cannon. Under this project, we will undertake only studies designed to reach directly and specifically some of the serious problems in farm woodlots, things which are not now being covered. Mr. LUDLOW. Do you find that a good many farmers would be slow to take land out of crop production in order to plant it to trees? Mr. CLAPP. I think that there has been-I cannot give you the exact figures-but there has been a very large area of land abandoned which might be brought into forests and be made productive and bring returns. There is probably a great deal of that land. Mr. LUDLOW. In certain areas of the country, but not in our good farming sections you wouldn't find that condition, would you? Mr. CLAPP. Probably not, although even in some of the good farming sections there are relatively small areas of poorer lands that might be better put in forest. Mr. WOODRUM. You have already this project going, and you have $700,000 allotted from emergency funds, haven't you? Mr. CLAPP. The emergency funds are for work on the plains. Mr. WOODRUM. Is that the same thing that you are asking a million dollars for? Mr. CLAPP. Yes, for half of the million dollars. Mr. WOODRUM. So that that million would augment that? Mr. CLAPP. Yes. Mr. WOODRUM. And would further allotments from the emergency funds be available to do that? Mr. CLAPP. We don't know. Mr. WOODRUM. You mean you don't know or you haven't inquired, or just what do you mean by saying that you don't know? Mr. CLAPP. I don't believe that there is any assurance of anything further. We have no plans for further requests. Mr. JUMP. The nature of some of this work is such that the emergency funds cannot effectively be used for it. Mr. WOODRUM. What demand is there for this kind of legislation and for this kind of expenditure from the farmers affected by it? Mr. CLAPP. There is already a very large demand from the farmers which will increase materially when they realize that such a thing is available. Mr. LUDLOW. That is wholly anticipatory? Mr. CLAPP. Not wholly. We have many indications on that already. We have had expressions of interest from the State organizations, the State agricultural colleges, the State extension people, the State foresters. There has been a very wide spread interest from those State organizations. Mr. LUDLOW. Tell me why the farmer wants this. Why does the farmer have to have it this year and cannot wait until next year? Mr. CLAPP. There is an enormous acreage of land that for one reason or another contains timber. Its productivity is very, very low. Practically nothing has been done to increase that productivity. In fact, it is probably the other way. Here is an opportunity at relatively small cost to reach a very large number of farmers over a very large acreage of land, and increase the productivity of the land. And quite a bit of this, I think, is going to reach the problem areas, the areas which were formerly timbered and which have been cleared, which they have attempted to put into cultivation, which has been found through actual experience over the years to be submarginal, where relief of some kind is needed and is being given now in some form or other. This offers a chance, it seems to me, to help the farmers to help themselves. I want to give a specific example of a phase of this problem that is immediate and urgent now throughout much of the South. During the past 2 years some 10 pulp and paper plants have been or are being constructed in the South. This development is far from being at an end, because every few days we receive inquiries about the availability of timber resources which would justify new plants. The plants already constructed or under construction will practically double the demand for pulpwood in the South. While some of these companies are purchasing lands of their own, they are depending for a large part of their supply upon pulpwood to be cut from the farms and other holdings in the South. This demand for pulpwood is being imposed on top of large current demands for saw timber, poles, piling, ties, naval stores, and so forth. Properly handled it can be made an incentive to a wide-spread practice of forestry throughout the South, including farm holdings. If, however, it goes the wrong way, it may destroy the forest resource over millions of acres and become a serious detriment instead of a blessing. We know of instances where buyers have purchased the timber on farm holdings without limitation as to the time of cutting, without limitation as to the character of timber that will be cut, and on the basis of estimates which will actually return only a few cents per cord to the farmers. This means practically that the forest can be stripped from the land at almost any time during the next few years with only meager returns to the owner. This is an example of a very immediate and urgent problem on which, in cooperation with the States, we want to render service to the farm owners throughout the South and make their farm forests an asset rather than a liability. It is only one example. Another and very immediate one is getting strips planted in the prairie Plains region to offset the destructive forces of hot, dry winds in summer and cold winds in winter, to conserve soil moisture, and to prevent erosion of the rich surface layers of the soil. Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. What is the effect of it? Mr. CLAPP. The effect is to help establish forests where there are no forests now and where there ought to be forests; to get the forests which already exist or which have been established in the past in the best growing condition and keep them growing; to grow the best products, the most profitable products. Then finally to aid in marketing, so that they will bring the largest returns to the farmer. Mr. WOODRUM. Don't you have a lot of agencies in the counties already to do that? Mr. CLAPP. Strangely enough, this seems to have been a badly neglected field and relatively little has been done in it. That is one reason why we in the Department think that this bill, this legislation, covers a spot that has never been satisfactorily covered. Mr. WOODRUM. Have you had any money besides this $700,000? Is that the first allocation? Mr. CLAPP. I think we have a little money in research, haven't we, Mr. Marsh? Mr. MARSH. Yes. About $55,000 a year. Mr. CANNON. Along with this column which you have here of the proposed allocation, would you please put in the record the allocation of the $700,000 that you already have? Mr. CLAPP. Yes, sir. Mr. LUDLOW. This contemplates the planting of trees as a money crop? Mr. CLAPP. Yes. Mr. LUDLOW. How long do you think that it would take to grow the trees to maturity so as to be able to market them? Mr. CLAPP. There are parts of the South where trees of 15 years' age are a money crop. Mr. LUDLOW. What kind of trees would they be? Mr. CLAPP. Various pines. They can be used for pulpwood and naval stores. Mr. LUDLOW. What would be the average time to mature these trees over the country under this system? Mr. CLAPP. For the whole country? Mr. LUDLOW. Including the hardwoods. Mr. CLAPP. I would say, about 75 years. Mr. LUDLOW. Before they would be ready to market? Mr. CLAPP. Yes. It Of course, this must be taken into account: That on most of these areas the crop is already started, and it may have quite a start. is a question of getting that land fully productive instead of partially productive. Mr. LUDLOW. By the time you take the trees out of the nurseries and get them mature, it would depend on the kind of trees, of course, whether it would take a long or a short time. Soft woods would grow faster. Poplar would grow very fast, but it would be suitable only |