(2) Basic reserve of untouched resource for the new techniques, new minerals of the future.

(3) Recreation of wilderness type-riding, hiking, climbing, exploring, camping.

(4) Re-creation of urban man-by spacious solitude, unspoiled view, music of nature, natural providences of life.

(5) Historic evidences of America's struggle, growth, success.

(6) Teaching and laboratory par excellence.

(7) Living monuments, mementoes, samples of wild, original America.

Millions of years in the making, wilderness will perpetuate itself.

Costs, operations, administration are minimal, or nonexistent.

Preservation is leaving alone, eliminating multiuse, stopping development, holding back progress.

Use is: (a) Future: Reserve resource; (b) Future: Relict, historic; (c) Current: Recreation, re-creation.

ROLAND CASE ROSS, Professor of Nature Study, Los Angeles State College.

Mrs. PrOST. The next witness is Mr. Joe Hughes, Hughes Bros., Foresthill, Calif.

And will Mrs. J. B. Atkisson, State chairman of conservation, California Federation of Women's Clubs, please come to the front and be ready to testify?

You may proceed, Mr. Hughes.

STATEMENT OF JOE HUGHES, HUGHES BROS., FORESTHILL, CALIF.

Mr. HUGHES. Madam Chairman and members of the committee, I am Joe Hughes of Hughes Bros., Foresthill, Calif. Our organization, a family partnership, is a second generation, owner-operated sawmill and logging enterprise.

The wilderness bill is of particular interest to us who have lived all our lives within the national forest boundaries. Our father started cutting timber in the mountains of New Mexico at the turn of the century. At that time there were no restrictions or regulations on timber cutting, as the Forest Service had not yet come into being.

We have progressed from the horsepower sweep first used by our father through steam diesel to electric power, and we have grown from a concern hiring a few employees and cutting a few thousand feet to one employing 140 people and producing in excess of 10 million feet of lumber annually. Preservation of the wild land is as dear to us as to any, but we oppose S. 174 for the following reasons:

(1) Because we consider it a gross injustice to existing agencies, who we feel are doing an overzealous job, to take the responsibility from them.

(2) Because the bill in its full import would handicap the economy of the Western States and bring about great unemployment and displacement of people.

(3) Because timber is an agricultural crop and as such cannot be preserved in the field-it must be harvested to be kept growing.

(4) Because it will withdraw from development many other natural resources such as minerals, water, and recreation, to name a few.

(5) Because by its very stipulated exclusion of roads, airfields, and supply centers, it will allow egress to the few most apt to set fires and will at the same time deny the means of suppressing forest fires.

We do wish to thank the Public Lands Committee for allowing us time to express our views.

Mrs. Prost. Mr. Hughes, I have a question. In view of the fact that the wilderness bill as passed by the Senate would take in only those areas that are now in either primitive, wilderness, or canoe status, I wondered about this statement where you say the bill would bring about great unemployment and displacement of people. What did you have in mind?

Mr. HUGHES. I had in mind an estimated billions of feet of timberland that would be included in the wilderness area, according to the reading I have done on it.

Mrs. ProST. Do you have hopes, then, at the present time you will be able to go into the present wilderness or primitive areas and cut timber at some future time? Is that what you had in mind?

Mr. HUGHES. Yes. I think the lumbermen as a whole would like to think we can harvest that timber before it dies or is lost to us. Mrs. Prost. Of course, you do know it is prohibited under present law?

Mr. HUGHES. Yes, ma'am.

Mrs. Prost. And that it really is not open for cutting at this time. Mr. HUGHES. No. That is the reason we oppose it. We think multiple-use programs of the heavily timbered areas will be allowed for selective cutting in the wilderness.

Mrs. Prost. Then are you advocating doing away with the present wilderness and primitive areas?

Mr. HUGHES. No, ma'am. I hope in time we can have the timber and not spoil the wilderness either.

Mrs. Prost. You do recognize, of course, that this committee has the responsibility of watershed protection and that in some areas, at least in my State of Idaho-and I am speaking of it because I know more about Idaho than I do about other areas-leaving timber up in the higher reaches with the smaller brush and pine needle cover is an extremely valuable resource to us for a slow snowmelt on the tributaries to the rivers. It provides us with late summer water rather than the quick runoff that carries the soil down into the streams.

Therefore, we also have a little concern about that phase of it, that, if we should allow all of our timber in the primitive areas in Idaho to be cut, we would be faced with floods in the spring and probably no water to drain into our reservoirs at times when we needed it.

I wondered if you had given that phase of our primitive and wilderness areas any thought as a conservation measure?

Mr. HUGHES. I had assumed, if it were wisely marked by the agencies selling us the timber, that timber would not be cut too heavily in the areas where required for holding water back.

Mrs. Prost. Are there further questions?

The gentleman from North Dakota.

Mr. NYGAARD. I gather from your statement it is your feeling that controlled harvesting was in order to eliminate waste. That was the purpose of your wanting to go into these areas, not for the purpose of destroying the wilderness areas?

Mr. HUGHES. That is right.

Mr. NYGAARD. When no part is ever touched it is certainly and very definitely a waste of a natural resource. I thought that was possibly your feeling on the subject.

Mr. HUGHES. Yes; it is.

Mrs. ProST. Are there further questions or observations?

Thank you very much.

Mr. HUGHES. Thank you.

Mrs. ProST. Our next witness is Gretchen Fitzpatrick, vice president, Carmichael Garden Club, Carmichael, Calif.

You may proceed, Mrs. Fitzpatrick.

STATEMENT OF GRETCHEN FITZPATRICK, VICE PRESIDENT, CARMICHAEL GARDEN CLUB, CARMICHAEL, CALIF.

Mrs. FITZPATRICK. Madam Chairman and gentlemen, I represent the Carmichael Garden Club.

The Carmichael Garden Club, with a membership of 40, wishes to go on record as favoring prompt action on the Wilderness Act, S. 174. We strongly feel there are no valid reasons for opposing or delaying and there is overwhelming urgency to insure that wilderness areas already so designated are kept inviolate for the present and future generations.

Thank you.

Mrs. Prost. Thank you very much.

Our next witness is Mrs. J. B. Atkisson, State chairman of conservation, California Federation of Women's Clubs. You may proceed.

STATEMENT OF MRS. J. B. ATKISSON, CONSERVATION CHAIRMAN, CALIFORNIA FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS

Mrs. ATKISSON. Madam Chairman and members of the committee, the California Federation of Women's Clubs is an organization of 64,660 women in 613 clubs located throughout the State of California.

We have a deep concern for preserving the natural heritage God gave us. Our urban and mechanized society is spreading itself with increasing speed and destructiveness across the land. Intolerable pressures are exerted on our natural resources. Nowhere has this been more evident than in the State of California. In the past decade we have witnessed people and industry constantly encroaching on our superb natural areas. As the pressures of civilization continue to increase, wild areas not specifically set aside by law have little chance for survival.

Occasionally we need escape from the overwhelming aspects of civilization. Surely a nation as great and as prosperous as ours can afford to set aside some of the few remaining areas of wilderness where the intangible values of contact with nature may be preserved intact and unmodified by human activity.

Our action in supporting this wilderness legislation is based on a reverence for the esthetic values of nature, a recognition of the need for undisturbed natural areas permitting the fundamental study of ecology, and a concern for the spiritual welfare of this and future generations.

We note that the text of the bill makes provision for necessary, established, or essential economic development. We feel that here has been achieved a compromise which permits reasonable consideration of once-conflicting interests. We have faith in the integrity of

our administrators that these provisions will be justly administered. With the threat of nuclear destruction ever present in the human mind, the sublime majesty and peace of the landscape as God created it becomes more essential to harassed mankind.

It is imperative that an adequate system of wilderness be established by law. Legislative protection is the American way. Should we fail to preserve these wilderness areas, our generation will be derelict in its duty.

Thank you.

Mrs. Prost. Thank you, Mrs. Atkisson.

Are there questions of Mrs. Atkisson?

Thank you very much.

The time is arriving for a luncheon recess.

Before we adjourn, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from California, Congressman Johnson.

Mr. JOHNSON. Madam Chairman, on behalf of the people from our State here, as a member of this committee, I want to thank you and my colleagues on this committee and the staff for coming here to California and giving us the opportunity for our people to present their views in behalf of the wilderness legislation that is pending before the Congress.

Coming from an area that has a good deal of wilderness, wild, and primitive areas in existence now, and know of the interest of the people of the State of California in behalf of this legislation, I think it only proper that this meeting was held in Sacramento, giving the people of our State the opportunity to come here and testify without making a trip to Washington to testify at some of the later hearings on this legislation that will take place, I am sure.

I think that each person here appreciates the opportunity to come here and hear the views of the many interests involved in this legislation. This legislation will come before the Congress next session, it will be properly heard and debated by the committee, and just what the bill will read like that comes out of the committee is more than I can say at this time.

With that, I think you can reconvene here at probably 1:45 and get started on the afternoon agenda. We have a good many more people to be heard.

Mrs. ProST. Thank you very much for these kind words, Mr. Johnson. It is our pleasure to be here and to have the benefit of the testimony of the good people of California.

The subcommittee stands in recess until 1:45.

(Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 1:45 p.m. of the same day.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

Mrs. Prost. The Subcommittee on Public Lands will now come to order for the further consideration of the wilderness legislation.

Our first witness this afternoon is Mr. Ray Crane, of Corning, Calif. He represents the Crane Mills.

Our next witness immediately following Mr. Crane will be Mr. Grant B. Potter, general manager of the Sequoia Forest Industries, Inc., of Dinuba, Calif.

You may proceed, Mr. Crane.

STATEMENT OF RAY CRANE, CRANE MILLS, CORNING, CALIF.

Mr. CRANE. Madam Chairman and members of the committee, by way of introduction, my name is Ray Crane. I am general manager of Crane Mills, a small business concern engaged in logging and lumber manufacturing in Tehama County, Calif. We employ about 200 people and provide a direct payroll of just over $1 million annually to the communities of Paskenta and Corning, Calif. We also operate a 40,000-acre tree farm which borders on the Yolla Bolly-Middle Eel Wilderness Area.

I have eight basic objections to S. 174 and will list them for you and enlarge on each as follows:

(1) The bill would automatically throw into the wilderness system 8 million acres of primitive areas-about 212 million acres of which is commercial forest land.

Acting on any wilderness bill before the 1962 report of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission is available would be completely premature and a waste of the $2.5 million that has been set aside for this study.

It seems almost as if proponents of S. 174 are in a hurry because they fear what this report might reveal. If the 22 million acres of commercial forest land mentioned above contained even a modest 10,000 board feet per acre, they would provide raw material for 50 logging and sawmill operations our size for just under 17 years or, putting it another way, direct employment for 10,000 people for almost 17 years. And this is just one of the resources that S. 174 would lock up. I submit that we are not ready for this big a leap before we know exactly what will be needed for recreational facilities for a privileged few.

(2) The bill does not provide for adequate review, now or in the future, of existing wilderness areas.

Through the years the values of certain natural resources change, usually upward. In our industry there are several species of timber that are commercially valuable now that were considered a liability as little as 20 years ago. Uranium is one of the minerals I can think of that has taken on considerable value in a relatively short period of time. Water, especially in California, is increasing in value yearly. The needs of our economy also change with the years. Because of this, a periodic review of each and every wilderness area should be provided for in any forthcoming wilderness legislation.

As an example of what I am talking about, let me give you a few facts and figures on the Yolla Bolly-Middle Eel Wilderness Area, which was set up in the late 1930's with little or no apparent opposition.

The U.S. Forest Service reports that this area of 111,091 acres1,776 of which are privately owned-now contains 1,324 million feet of commercial timber-enough to run a plant of our size for over 44 years and provide approximately 17,600,000 man-hours of direct employment or well over 44 million direct payroll dollars.

This is the timber resource only, and I know that the area also contains considerable resources in grazing, water, and possibly minerals. All of this has been put into the deep freeze so that a few hundred people each year can commune with nature. Last year this area had