road, in excess of the minimum required for the administration of the area for the purposes of this act.

Section 6(b) states:

In addition, such measures may be taken as may be necessary in the control of fire, insects, and diseases, subject to such conditions as the Secretary of Agriculture may deem desirable.

The latter provision allows the Secretary of Agriculture to take measures to control fire and insects. Must a fire or insect attack be in progress or can he reduce hazards to prevent fire and insect attacks. in the absence of a specific provision?

Section 6(b) bans comercial enterprise in the area unless specifically provided for. Reduction of the hazards following fire and insects involve felling the snags and removing the wood from the area. This is tremendously expensive-in fact the cost can be prohibitive in the absence of a financial return from sale of the wood. There is no specific provision for the Secretary of Agriculture to put a commercial enterprise in the wilderness area to salvage this wood and thus provide a safeguard for all of the values.

This is not an idle question. What would happen to the thousands of acres of snags left by last summer's fires in the Selway-Bitterroot and Salmon Primitive Areas of Idaho if this bill were enacted?

In section 6(b) who determined "the minimum required for the administration of the area for the purposes of this act"? The professional administrators are forbidden to exceed this undefined minimum even to protect the area unless the ambiguous passage "subject to such conditions as the Secretary of Agriculture deems desirable" can be construed as a specific provision.

If the administering agency finds it necessary to build forest protection roads to safeguard the area, will they be exceeding the undefined minimum, and how will they know at what point they are doing so? In all probability there would be a test of this the first time that the administering agency took some action which offend the advocates of this bill.

If Congress, by passage of S. 174, decides to single out wilderness areas from other areas and to issue a policy directive concerning them, it should clarify its intent concerning these questions.

It is the opinion of our association that the designation of wilderness areas should remain an administrative function of the Forest Service as is land allocation for other uses.

We believe that the Multiple Use Act is an adequate policy directive to the U.S. Forest Service for management of all the values of the national forests.

We believe that special congressional policy treatment of any single land use can lead only to confusion and obstruction of the administering agency as it pursues its job of management and protection of the forest complex.

We, therefore, urge that you do not pass S. 174.

Madam Chairman, I have statements from two other organizations. May I place them in the record or file them with the committee without introduction?

Mrs. PrOST. Whose statements are they?

Mr. LARSON. The Washington State Forestry Conference which they asked me to bring down. I also have a statement from the Puget

Sound section of the Society of American Foresters that I would like to introduce.

Mrs. Prost. Without objection, the statements will be placed in the record at this point.

Hearing no objection, it is so ordered.

(The statements follow:)

STATEMENT OF PUGET SOUND SECTION, SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FORESTERS

The Society of American Foresters is comprised of professional foresters and has over 14,000 members, which is approximately two-thirds of the total professional foresters employed in the United States. The Puget Sound section of the Society of American Foresters has over 600 members in the State of Washington working for Federal, State, and private agencies.

We oppose bill 174 since, in our opinion, it would not promote wise resource management.

In August 1958, by letter ballot, the section membership overwhelmingly passed a policy statement which is outlined below with executive committee interpretation:

The Puget Sound section subscribes to the principle of multiple use of forest and other wild lands; meaning by that, a conscious effort to manage each unit of land for its highest sustained productivity. In some cases, this may mean utilization of an identical area for several purposes at the same time; in others, utilization of different parts of an administrative unit for different single or limited purposes. In all cases, the development of management plans and policies requires adequate recognition of all resources and benefits, with due consideration of the relative economic and social values of each resource present and of the effects of utilizing one resource upon the stability value, and appreciation of the others.

Within the framework of these principles, the Puget Sound section recognizes the importance and desirability for preserving as wilderness those areas most valuable for that purpose so that this and future generations may continue to enjoy those benefits derived only from lands which retain their natural primeval environment.

More specifically:

1. Increasing demand by an ever-expanding population for a multitude of products and services from forest and other wild lands requires that withdrawals for wilderness use must be correlated with these demands and the total amount of forest and wild land available in each region.

2. Determination of areas considered most valuable for wilderness use must be predicated upon intensive land management studies. Boundaries should be established only by the responsible administrative agencies after careful analysis of all economic, social, and cultural factors tempered by full public discussion.

3. The Puget Sound section strongly opposes any attempt to establish wilderness areas by blanket legislative action without exhaustive study of individual areas and their interrelationship with other lands in affected administrative units.

Some people believe that foresters are concerned only with economies and sawlogs. This is not true. Most foresters are technically trained land managers and are fully cognizant of the nondollar values to be found in our forests.

In our opinion this combination of professional training plus awareness of nondollar values makes the forester uniquely qualified to make objective judgments regarding wilderness as well as other forest land uses.

STATEMENT OF Gordon D. MARCKWORTH, PRESIDENT, WASHINGTON STATE

FORESTRY CONFERENCE

The Washington State Forestry Conference is an organization of foresters, forest landowners, administrators of forest programs in the public agencies, as well as friends of forestry. It was organized in 1922, to provide a forum for the discussion of all manner of forestry problems, and to recommend a State forestry program to appropriate State officials. It's usefulness and success can be measured by the fact that the 40th annual conference was held November 3, 1961.

You, as a committee, are studying the question of whether Congress should rely on the multiple-use law, enacted last session, as its land-use policy directive to the U.S. Forest Service; or whether Congress should single out a minority segment of one of the uses, i.e., the wilderness segment of recreation, and direct the Forest Service to administer large areas exclusively for this use. Our organization is very concerned about the problems of providing increasing benefits of all kinds for our increasing population from a steadily decreasing forest land base.

Our multiple-use forest land base is in two segments, partly private and partly public. The largest single entity in this base is the national forest system of the Federal Government. This forest land base has provided our State with a major portion of its payrolls and wealth. It is providing a rich bounty of all types of outdoor recreation, including wilderness and nonwilderness type of outdoor living. On the nonwilderness segment of this recreational potential, our State is building a substantial tourist industry. Certain of our eastern Washington pine forest areas are supporting a major grazing industry. In addition we have a substantial mining industry. The perpetuation of these uses in addition to fostering water production constitutes the multiple-use concept which Congress has directed the Forest Service to apply to the national forests. Recreational withdrawals, both wilderness and nonwilderness, cannot be considered in a vacuum. We are a State with very rapid population growth. This means that, while depending on our forests to provide the material for more jobs every year, we are at the same time reducing our forest area for the other services necessary to our way of life. Among these reductions are areas for suburban homes, highways, power lines, and reservoirs, as well as a host of others.

At its 38th annual conference in 1959, the Washington State Forestry Conference attempted to measure the impact of these withdrawals by asking a panel of experts to discuss the matter under the title, "The Impact of Public Works on our Forest Land Base." Two of our largest public works agencies were represented by the Chief, Branch of Lands, Bonneville Power Administration and by the director of State highways. Completing the panel was a forester from the U.S. Forest Service, and another from an industrial landowning company. Their discussion is reported in printed proceedings of that conference between pages 50 and 70, and I request that it be reproduced in the record of these hearings at this point.

The seriousness of these restricting proposals is shown in Mr. Loner's chart. From our public forest lands alone, 728 square miles will be withdrawn in the next 15 years. Unfortunately such complete figures are not available for the private land, but withdrawals from this segment must exceed those on the public lands. One measure of this impact is Mr. Gruenfeld's statement that his company alone is losing over two square miles per year. It must be realized that much land in private ownership is affected by suburbanization of rural areas. We have no good measure of this tremendous withdrawal.

The Washington State Forestry Conference explored the multiple-use program of the U.S. Forest Service at this 38th conference in 1959, by asking Mr. J. Herbert Stone, Regional Forester, to discuss this subject in the light of proposals for single-use withdrawals. He presented a particularly concise statement of this subject to our luncheon held with the Seattle Chamber of Commerce. I request that this statement, beginning on page 43 and ending on page 49 of the printed proceedings be reproduced in the record of these hearings at this point.

Mr. Stone's statement of multiple-use forest management is simply a recitation of the job of a professional forester. We, the public, have employed a staff of these foresters in our U.S. Forest Service, and we have given them their instructions in the Multiple-Use Act enacted by Congress last year. This is a technical, complex job that has been given to them. They should be allowed to do that job without myriads of restrictions, and special-use withdrawals each time some minority becomes displeased with some detail of their work or seeks undue advantage in the use of areas.

Finally, the 38th conference of 1959 passed a resolution which pertains to the subject before you as follows:

"Be it resolved, That the Washington State Forestry Conference reaffirm its opposition to national wilderness legislation similar to S. 1123 or any legislation which would place areas that are under the administration of different Federal agencies together in a National Wilderness Preservation System. The conference notes that such legislation would jeopardize the forestland base supporting

our State economy, restrict the ability of forest land managers to protect and manage forest resources for the greatest good of all the people and would invite the establishment of another Federal agency to administer such a wilderness system."

This opposition was reaffirmed at our 39th conference in 1960. It was again reaffirmed by the following resolution adopted November 3, 1961:

"Whereas there is now before Congress S. 174, which would lead to confiscation of certain lands for single-use purposes; and

"Whereas it is the intention and the avowed purpose of the American people, in seeking an abundant future, to apply scientific land management to all classes of land: Therefore be it

Resolved, That the Washington State Forestry Conference strongly urges that the fundamental principle of sound land management be applied to all lands, lowland and forested, alpine and agricultural alike, and further that no steps be taken at this time to set aside any lands for a single purpose, which does not conform to the principles of multiple use. Also that further consideration of Senate bill S. 174 be postponed until the Outdoor Recreation Resource Review Commission Report, containing recommendations for land use, is published."

The attitude of the conference regarding the present management of wilderness recreation on these lands is further clarified by the following resolution of 1959 concerning the proposal of the U.S. Forest Service to establish the Glacier Peak Wilderness Area. This area has now been dedicated.

"Be it resolved, That the Washington State Forestry Conference compliment the U.S. Forest Service on soundness of establishing a wilderness area in the Glacier Peak country as a part of the multiple use plan for the area, but urge that only those lands primarily valuable as wilderness be included."

Though the question is not now before you, you will be interested in the 38th conference attitude toward the extension of the national park system to the National Forest lands of our North Cascades, which constitutes a further withdrawal from our multiple-use land base.

"Be it resolved, That the Washington State Forestry Conference favors the continued management of the Glacier Peak area of the Northern Cascades as National Forest land under the multiple-use principle of forest land management by the U.S. Forest Service and opposes its establishment as a national park. The conference notes that over 14 million acres in Washington are now devoted to single use as national parks and feels that this acreage should be better developed for public use before need for additional national parks can be demonstrated."

Mrs. PrOST. Thank you, Mr. Larson.

You referred to the Selway-Bitterroot and Salmon River primitive areas in Idaho, Mr. Larson. Of course, commercial cutting of timber is prohibited in those areas now because of their primitive designation. Is it your contention that the primitive areas should be done away with-in other words, eliminated?

Mr. LARSON. We do not challenge the fact wilderness recreation is a legitimate land use. These primitive areas were set up many years ago when there were no pressures on the land. Subsequent to that time it was thought they would be studied, the boundaries refined, and that large areas of land not specifically suited for wilderness would be deleted. So that the present areas should be refined, the large areas of timber which are in some of them should be removed, and then the administration of them should remain with the professional foresters of the Forest Service so that they may meet such hazards as come to them.

Mrs. ProST. Are there further questions?

The gentleman from North Dakota.

Mr. NYGAARD. Would you feel that the primitive areas are adequately being taken care of under the Forest Service?

Mr. LARSON. I believe that there are large areas in some of the primitive areas which should be deleted. As I say, they were set

up at a time when there was no pressure on the land. This is being done actually by the Forest Service in the establishment of some of their wilderness areas now. This, in my opinion, should delete large areas of commercial forest land to which these hazards apply of which I speak. We should then allow the Forest Service the flexibility to meet those hazards with their proficient people.

Mr. NYGAARD. Thank you.

Mrs. PrOST. Mr. Larson, as you probably know, the bill provides for a study of the areas over a 10-year period. For instance, in Idaho, the Selway-Bitterroot primitive area will probably have deleted upon the recommendation of the Forest Service large acreages that are now in primitive status, which will not be taken in under the wilderness legislation. So I believe the study may possibly be the source of turning a few thousand acres into multiple use.

Mr. LARSON. Yes, ma'am. But I believe there is a difference in the administrative rulings under which it is possible for the technicians of the Forest Service to protect these areas as the situation is now set up for these areas and would be under this bill.

Mrs. Prost. They are in single-use status in Idaho today.

Mr. LARSON. That is right.

Mrs. Prost. And I am sure they are in California, too.

Thank you very much, Mr. Larson, for your very constructive

statement.

Mr. LARSON. Thank you.

Mrs. PrOST. Our next witness is Mr. Fred H. Dressler, Gardnerville, Nev., president of the American National Cattlemen's Association.

And will Mr. Gordon Goodwin come to the front of the room, please?

Let the Chair make this announcement:

For those of you who are standing in the back of the room, the gallery is open, and you are welcome to take seats up there.

You may proceed, Mr. Dressler.

STATEMENT OF FRED H. DRESSLER, GARDNERVILLE, NEV., PRESIDENT, AMERICAN NATIONAL CATTLEMEN'S ASSOCIATION

Mr. DRESSLER. Madam Chairman and honorable members of the subcommittee, I am Fred H. Dressler, president of the American National Cattlemen's Association. This organization is made up of 33 State cattlemen's associations, more than 100 regional, local, and breed associations, and thousands of individual cattlemen from every part of the country.

I will just seek to make a few remarks on the points that we think are important.

First, I wish to point up that in the instance of a new setup of a wilderness bill, it seems highly unnecessary. We have bureaus and departments handling the present land. We have emerged to a position and development in this country whereby the Homestead Act was instituted and the lands that are left over are the lands under government bureaus and government administration and did not lend themselves readily to development as homesteads and to development by people owning some of their own. That is what built this country.