About 44 million acres of State and private forest and watershed land, however, still remain without organized protection against fire. In calendar year 1955, 138,350 forest fires burned 7,424,000 acres on State and private land; 11.3 percent of the unprotected area was burned, compared with 0.6 percent of the protected area. The Forest Service cooperates with 44 States, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico in the production and distribution of trees to farmers and other landowners. Minnesota entered this cooperative program during the year. Distribution from the State nurseries amounted to approximately 559 million trees in 1956, an increase of about 60 million over the preceding year and enough to plant about 560,000 acres. Private landowners' interest in woodland planting last year was at an alltime high. Interest will grow still more because of the Soil Bank program. An increase in production of several hundred million trees annually is expected. A naval stores program, administered by the FS for the Agricultural Conservation Program Service, provides assistance to gum turpentine farmers who follow conservation practices. In the 1955-56 season, 2,454 producers participated in the program, representing 49 percent of the producers and about 92 percent of the total production. Cooperating with State agencies, counties, townships, and landowners, the Department last year continued its blister-rust-control program. The control area comprises more than 23 million acres. On about three-fourths of this, control has been established and is being maintained. A total of 1,816,103 acres in the northern Rocky Mountain, Intermountain, and Pacific Northwest regions was airplane sprayed during the year for the control of the spruce budworm. Most of the acreage involved was Federal land. Control work to combat heavy infestations of spruce bark beetles in national forests of the northern and central Rocky Mountain regions has reduced the infestations; maintenance control by logging, supplemented by some chemical treatment mainly in isolated areas, should meet the need until the outbreak subsides. In Idaho and Montana, a major epidemic involving eight national forests and adjacent areas was controlled largely by logging of infested trees. Cooperative projects to combat the oak wilt by logging of infested trees were carried on in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. The Forest Service shared in developing work plans in 100 of the 172 watersheds approved under the Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act of 1954. National forest lands were involved in 17 of these watersheds. Improvements started on the Mill Canyon-Sage Flat watershed project in Utah, authorized by Congress for an action program in 1956. The Forest Service and State foresters will participate in 12 other authorized projects. In the Hope-Anderson watershed protection demonstration program, the Forest Service carried out floodprevention measures on 8 projects involving national forest lands and assisted State forestry agencies on 37 additional projects. The Service participated with the Soil Conservation Service in floodprevention work on six large watershed projects authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1944 the Los Angeles, Santa Ynez, Little Tallahatchie-Yazoo, Potomac, Buffalo Creek, and Coosa watersheds. Work on most of these projects has been in progress for nearly 12 years, with some significant results now appar ent. Five watersheds received emergency treatment under authority of the Flood Control Act in fiscal year 1956. Four of these were fire-impaired watersheds in southern California; the fifth was in Wyoming. Areas treated were in steep mountainous country and were potential sources of serious flood and debris damage to downstream industrial, agricultural, and residential developments. Emergency treatment included aerial seeding of 68,400 acres of burned-over land to quick-growing grasses or mustard, stabilizing 16 miles of eroding fire-control lanes and trails, and clearing 47 miles of clogged channels. About one-third of the cost of these emergency projects was borne by local interests. Forest Research Each year the research work of the Forest Service produces new knowledge and techniques which help to improve the management of forest lands and the utilization of forest products. Thus it brings increased returns to forest owners. The research program is carried on at Beltsville, at nine regional forest and range experiment stations, a research center in Alaska, a tropical forest research center in Puerto Rico, and at a national Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wis. Under each of the regional experiment stations, several research centers work on problems related to particular forest types. The Forest Survey covered an additional 41 million acres of forest lands in 1956, including 12 million acres initially inventoried in 14 States, and resurveys of 29 million acres in 10 States. The survey has now covered, at least once, a total of 510 million acres-77 percent of the total United States forest area and more than 90 percent of the country's commercial forest land. "Skyfire," the Forest Service's cooperative project for the study of lightning storms, received substantial support from the Advisory Committee on Weather Control. This included an advance of funds to convert a Weather Bureau radar into a mobile field unit for analyzing clouds and making exploratory tests of the effects of cloud seeding on the lightning potential of storm clouds. The Service had an active part in the Committee on Fire Research and the Fire Research Conference, organized last year under auspices of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council. These groups met in June 1956 to consider means of bringing the skills of the country's scientists to bear on forest fire and other fire problems. In research on forest diseases, additional evidence was obtained that genetic resistance to the chestnut blight is present in a few old American chestnut trees that have survived repeated attacks by the fungus. Genetic resistance of selected ponderosa pines to the western gall rust also was indicated. In the Southeast, research indicated that individual healthy trees may be genetically resistant to littleleaf, one of the most serious diseases of shortleaf pine. Two hitherto unknown diseases were discovered. One is causing killing of red, black, and scarlet oaks in the Northeast; the other is killing white pine in the Southeast. Research to determine the causes and to develop control procedures is underway. Ethylene dibromide emulsion sprays were proved effective in control of the Douglas-fir beetle. The emulsion sprays are less costly than oil-base sprays. Malathion proved an effective insecticide for control of the black pine leaf scale in southern California. Selective removal of high-risk trees from pine forests in southern California was found an effective method for control of bark beetles. Tree mortality in areas cut by this "sanitation-salvage" method was reduced as much as 95 percent, compared with areas not benefited by the selective logging treatment. An analysis of windthrow (uprooting by wind) on the edges of patch cuttings in the Douglas-fir forests of Oregon indicated patterns by which loggers can avoid excessive losses. Research in Louisiana showed that with the use of a bird repellent, direct seeding of southern pines can be successful. Birds eating the seeds have usually nullified previous direct seeding efforts. In the southern Appalachians, pruning of white pine proved to be profitable. Experimental pruning yielded profits of $11 to $13 per tree, or $57 to $63 per thousand board-feet. Two major projects in forest genetics were started during the year: A study of the races of eastern white pine, in which four Forest Service experiment stations and a research unit in Canada are participating; and a study of the races of ponderosa pine by the western forest experiment stations. In watershed management research, a method has been developed for predicting soil moisture under a wide variety of conditions over large areas in the United States, Alaska, and Puerto Rico. Changes in soil moisture in the top 6 inches of soil can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy. This accomplishment resulted from cooperative research by the Forest Service and the Waterways Experiment Station of the Corps of Engineers. The Forest Products Laboratory made progress in the development of the cold-soda pulping process. This process is expected to produce yields of pulp approaching 95 percent, as compared with conventional chemical pulping yields of 45 percent and semichemical yields of 85 percent. As a result of studies of quality standards for wood members of box containers, conducted by the Forest Service in cooperation with the Army Engineer Research and Development Laboratories, a guide for purchase of container woods was prepared. Results of this work should greatly reduce lumber procurement costs for the military services, as well as improve the performance of containers. itors brought their problems to the More than 3,500 consulting visForest Products Laboratory during the year. A large number of the laboratory's projects were ducted on a cooperative basis. con Private industry invested 24 percent more money in laboratory research projects than it did in the preceding year. Timber Resource Review The Timber Resource Review, a comprehensive appraisal of the Nation's timber resource, was conducted from 1952 to 1955 by the Forest Service with the collaboration of State conservation or forestry departments, the forest industries and others. A review draft of the report of this study was released by the Forest Service in October 1955. Several thousand comments on this preliminary report were received and evaluated during 1956. Preparation of the final report with careful consideration of these comments was begun during the year. A family in Milwaukee, including father, mother, and seven children, had been living on $57 a week. Three years ago, the mother and several of the children were tuberculosis suspects-pale, tired, and frequently ill. At least one member of the family had to visit a free medical clinic almost every week. For the past 3 years they have received Federal surplus foods to help tide them over: butter, cheese, dry skim milk, pork, beans, rice, flour, lard and shortening. The health of all the family has improved tremendously. Fear of tuberculosis has disappeared. No member of this family has had to see a doctor for at least a year. A distributing official says, "As in many other cases, no amount of medical treatment could help until this family's nutritional level was raised. Once they got enough of the right foods their health problems disappeared.” The plentiful foods program also gave substantial assistance to orderly marketing of hogs. In cooperation with the food trades and information media, a sustained merchandising drive was conducted on pork products. Major special plentiful foods programs also were conducted during the year on rice, potatoes, beef, and dairy products. Twenty-eight other special drives were conducted on an area or local basis, giving marketing help to such varied food products as sweetpotatoes, dates, watermelons, and grapefruit. On June 4, 1956, the national 10th anniversary. The number of school-lunch program celebrated its children eating complete lunches with milk under the program climbed to about 9.7 million—a 10percent gain over the previous year. In Cape Girardeau, Mo., the school lunch program provided the foundation for a near revolution in eating habits. In December 1955, a survey showed that few children ate adequate meals except at noon; few of them drank enough, if any, milk; most of the children nibbled between meals. Teachers and health officials launched a widespread program of education in nutrition in the schools, based on the school lunch program. A followup survey in May 1956, showed the number of children eating good breakfasts had jumped from 13 to 43 percent; those eating good suppers, 15 to 43 percent; those eating good lunches increased from 44 to 50 percent; milk consumption almost doubled; between-meal eating fell off from 87 to 76 percent. In its second year of operation the special milk program operated in more than 62,000 schools, a gain of more than 50 percent over the previous year, and 1.4 billion half pints of milk were consumed. The program has been so successful that it has been continued for another 2 years, its scope broadened, and the amount of funds available increased by 50 percent. The program now operates in schools, nursery schools, settlement houses, summer camps, and other nonprofit child-care institutions. A teacher in Marshall County, Tenn., said of the special milk program at her school: "The pupils of Cedar Grove each drink 2 bottles of milk per day, and over a period of 5 months have gained from 1 to 10 pounds each, or an average of 3-9/10 pounds per child. "The health of the children on a whole has been much better and, except for an epidemic of measles, attendance has ranged from 92 to 98 percent each month." Marketing Agreements and Orders Thirty-one marketing agreements and orders on fruits and vegetables were in effect in 1956. Products covered by new programs included Florida tomatoes and California dates. Several of the programs were amended to accord with new developments in marketing. In south Florida, where Marketing Agreement and Order No. 69 regulating the handling of avocados has been in effect since June 1954, commercial growers report the program helped improve the quality of avocados shipped to market. "The pressure of 'getting on the market first' has been relieved to a considerable extent by the order, which protects the normally early varieties from the glut of the immature midseason or late fruit, which formerly was rushed to market in response to any abnormally high price,” reports the manager of the Avocado Administrative Committee, with headquarters at Homestead, Fla. "Growers have profited volumewise," the manager continued, “since avocados can now be safely allowed to remain on the trees until they have attained their full size, which is a major marketing factor for several of our leading varieties.” The operator of a 70-acre potato farm near Eaton, Colo., said of the potato marketing agreement and order: “It stimulates repeat orders and improves returns to growers by offering only the best of the crop to consumers. This saves containers, freight, and labor on undesirable potatoes." Another grower, who has a large peach orchard at Palisades, Colo., thinks the marketing agreement and order helps to create new consumer demand because it guarantees quality. "It has helped us build such a reputation for Colorado peaches that consumers know they're going to get their money's worth." Sixty-six Federal milk marketing orders were in effect in 1956, an increase of eight during the year. These orders help to stabilize prices and supplies by requiring all handlers in a marketing area to pay all producers supplying that market the On December 29, 1955 the Boston, Mass., Herald editorialized as follows: "The result of this system is that we are getting enough milk without any unwieldy surplus. New England is nearly self-sufficient in dairy products. We used to import our cream from the West, but last year we had to bring cream in only in July and August. “Our farmers are not adding to the $7,700 million mountain of CCC-stored commodities. Yet they are making a living, and we are getting plenty of good milk. "What's wrong with that?” |