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Show Production and Marketing Administration A program of incentive payments is operated by the Production and Marketing Administra- tion, also in the Department of Agriculture, which is intended to foster conservation farming. A committee of farmers, assisted by technicians and engineers, establishes a list of sound practices for a given area. Then a schedule of payments is set up, by which farmers are to be encouraged to institute the various practices. The payments may run as high as half the out-of-pocket cost of the improvement. The appropriation of the Production and Mar- keting Administration for this purpose is about 250 million dollars annually. Critics of the pro- gram believe that the payments are too often used as an income-support measure, rather than as a soil conservation measure. They hold that the two purposes should be served by separate devices, and that conservation requires more careful and continuous planning than is possible under the present PMA system. A further need is for an adequate system of follow-ups, to be sure that the practices, once instituted, do not later lapse. The Forest Service A fourth agency in the Department of Agri- culture concerned with watershed management is the Forest Service, which is responsible for the maintenance and operation of public forest lands. In addition, it conducts research and demonstra- tion programs on improved forestry and timber use, and cooperates with State and private forest operators to reduce fire and disease losses. Its budget of about 65 million dollars is far too small to permit it to exercise full responsibility for forest conservation. About 75 percent of the total appropriation is spent on protection and management of Federal forest lands. Another 15 percent goes into its fire and disease control work in cooperation with private owners. Less than 10 percent is directed into research. Yet an adequate research program might, by attacking the problem of wood utilization, make a major contribution to forest, and hence water- shed, management. The Forest Service esti- mated in 1944 that 35 percent of all timber cut was not used, 22 percent was used for fuel (under very inefficient methods), and 43 percent by weight appeared in the final product. Egon Glesinger, a forestry expert in the Food and Agriculture Organization, states in The Coming Age of Wood that the Nation wastes 80 percent of its timber. The difference in the estimate is related to the base; the Forest Service figure refers to "timber cut," and Glesinger's figure re- flects a large waste in the cutting operation itself. An adequate research program might discover better harvesting methods, as well as ways to use the entire tree, including stumps, smaller branches, and twigs. It might also develop proc- essing methods which would take advantage of the relatively large supplies of low-grade wood, many of which are quick-growing and hence very valuable for watershed management purposes. In Sweden, for example, experiments have been carried on to measure the extent to which the cellulose yield of an acre of trees can be in- creased by careful management. Under the par- ticularly favorable conditions for tree growth which exist in that country, the annual yield per acre was increased 12 times. No such experi- ments have been instituted in this country, but there are large areas, particularly in the South and West, where favorable growth conditions are combined with a serious erosion hazard. The discovery of a system under which timber yield could be substantially increased on these erodible lands, would serve the triple purpose of conserv- ing timber, soil, and water. Both timber and soil have always been con- sidered a cheap resource, partly because there has always seemed to be plenty more, and partly because to a degree they reconstitute themselves, even after destructive use. Under these circum- stances, it has not always been clear to owners how expenditures to maintain the productivity of their resources would benefit them. Where productivity is high, and market factors favorable, a land owner usually sees the advan- tages of investing labor and materials in increas- &11609- 135 |
