Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 63, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1915 — U.S. PLAYGROUNDS [ARTICLE]

U.S. PLAYGROUNDS

National Forests to Be Open to Pleasure Seekers. Hundreds of Permits Already Granted for Camps and Cottages in the Woods Belonging to the People. Washington.—To make the national forests with their aggregate area of 187,000,000 acres a vast camping and recreation ground for the people is one of the ambitions of Henry S. Graves, chief forester. Already hundreds of canyons and lake shores are dotted with camps and cottages built on sites obtained through permits of the forest service. The combined area of the national forests equals that of Chile and is nearly half as big as Germany. While most of the forests are in the Pacific coast and Rocky Mountain states, with several million acres in Alaska, there are acres in various other states. All types of American scenery are included in these forests of the people. The forests embody the Cascades and Sierras of the Pacific coast, snow capped peaks in Alaska, rugged wild sections of the central and northern Rockies, desert lands In the southwest, the flat lake regions of Minnesota, semitropical swamps of Florida, Ozark highlands, southern Appalachians and North woods of New England. Special provision is made by the forest officials and rangers for enabling pleasure seekers to get the full worth of their holiday. Four-fifths of the people in the national forests during the last fiscal year were pleasure seekers, numbering over 1,500,000. But they were not a drop in the bucket compared with the number that could be taken care of.

Those who do not care to camp and down in one spot may travel from place to place without let or hindrance so long as they observe reasonable caution To prevent fires. Those who want a particular spot for a camp are required to pay a nominal sum for a permit This enables the forest officer in charge to keep track of them. Forest rangers are under special instructions to assist the tourists and campers in every reasonable way. They can always be depended upon to advise the traveler how best to reach his destination or to direct him to places or trips of special attractive- , ness, to aid him in an emergency, to procure a physician for him if needed ,or to give him a neighborly"lift. . Straight “sight seeing” in > the national forests may be had for the taking. At certain of the ranger stations interesting collections of plant and tree specimens are on exhibition. Special attention is paid to poisonous forage plant?, which are a menace to the stockman’s grazing cattle or sheep and to the camper's pack animals. Many, lines of activity are constantly carried on in the national forests, but they do not in any way interfere with their use as a national recreation ground. Lumbering does not leave such scars on the mountains as usually occur where private timber lands are being logged. The slash and debris of the logging operation is cleaned up as the work proceeds, and later is burned or otherwise disposed of. This reduces the fire hazard, prepares the ground for the reproduction of a new forest crop and at the same time makes the area more accessible and less unsightly.

One of the great recreation attractions of the national forests is hunting and fishing, and numerous camps are maintained for this purpose. The fish and game laws of the particular state in which a forest is located govern the use of the forest for these purposes. Many of the streams, which are very numerous, are kegt stocked by the” bureau of fisheries. . The spare time of the rangers Is spent in building, with other workers, the trails and other permanent im-

provement in the national forests, and the tyro will find the forest officers ever ready to instruct him in the necessary camp and wood lore.