approximately 1,900 visits, and this, mind you, does not mean 1,900 people. Packers and others make a number of trips into the area each year. In my opinion, if the area were closed to deer hunting, the number of visits would fall off to 800-900 visits annually.

I know from talking to others in our industry that many wilderness and primitive areas provide similar pictures, and this is why I think it essential that thorough review procedures be set up before and after each area is set aside.

(3) The bill largely ignores the thinking, wishes, and desires of State officials, local officials, and residents of the area affected.

S. 174 makes a feeble provision for considering the feelings of the Governor of the State in which a wilderness area is being proposed, but this is not enough. It is proper for the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to propose new areas based on the reports that are given to them, but at this point, the people who will be directly affected should be considered.

The burden of selling each proposal to the Governor, State legislature, county boards of supervisors, industry associations, sportsmen's associations, and so forth, should be on the proposing Secretary, but the initial legislation, the initial legislative proposal that will ultimately result in the formation of a wilderness area should definitely come from an elected representative of that area. Veto powers are not enough of a safeguard for either Congress or the residents of areas who might be adversely affected economically by new wilder

ness areas.

(4) S. 174 would cause an expansion of the wilderness system that would be in direct opposition to the multiple-use concept of handling natural resources adopted by Congress in 1960.

In Public Law 86-517, Congress declared that:

The establishment and maintenance of areas of wilderness are consistent with the purposes and provisions of this Act.

This is a very broad statement, and saying so does not make it so. How can it be that recreation is the only activity that can dominate millions of acres to the point of having these areas set aside for its exclusive use?

I know of no areas in the United States where large areas of public land are set aside exclusively for development of timber, water, grazing, or mineral development. We would love to have such an area near us set aside for timber production only, but are told it would not be in keeping with the multiple-use concept of developing natural

resources.

We don't even exclude public recreation on our own private lands, even though it would be to our financial advantage to do so. Recreation and development of natural resources can go hand in hand—are going hand in hand in all parts of the country.

If an area has recreation potential that stands head and shoulders above all else, it should be set aside for the use of all, not just a minute percentage of the recreation public. I might add here that Government agencies are zealously, even overzealously at times, protecting recreation potential on the lands they administer. There is absolutely no danger that this potential will be destroyed by those of us who purchase raw materials from these lands.

(5) S. 174 would as Senator Thomas J. Dodd ably put it—

reverse the role of Congress from that of writing the laws of this Nation, subject to veto by the President, to that of merely having the veto power over laws written by the President.

The present method of setting up primitive and wilderness areas effectively bypasses Congress. The Secretary of Agriculture has the authority to sit in complete judgment of what parts of our national forests are to be wilderness areas.

S. 174 does improve on this situation and makes a start toward returning to Congress its constitutional right to dispose of Federal lands, but it doesn't go far enough. Congress has the duty to provide the initial impetus to each wilderness proposal, and this duty is not provided for by the "veto" powers set up by S. 174.

(6) This bill will lock up valuable natural resources, some of which do not lend themselves to "cold storage" but are even today deteriorating and losing value.

Timber is one resource that does not improve with age beyond a certain point. I can stand on the edge of the Yolla Bolly Wilderness Area just as I know I could stand on the edge of many primitive areas and see timber badly in need of thinning and proper management.

I am sure that valuable grazing areas in wilderness and primitive areas are being taken over by brush fields because of no management. Piles of dead trees and jungles of brush may be a thing of beauty to some, but to me they are a waste of valuable resources.

Communists boast that they will outstrip the free world economically within a few years. We have learned not to laugh at their boasts. I submit that we should not handicap the full development of our economy by locking resources up when they can be developed in harmony with other land uses.

(7) The real recreation need in this country is recreation facilities for the masses. S. 174 is special interest legislation which would hamper any program to provide for this basic need.

In the Mendocino National Forest of 1,080,000 acres, recreation for the few is provided by a wilderness area, and recreation for the masses is provided for in the form of picnic grounds, campgrounds, lakes, streams, and so forth. Last year on the forest there were 1,900 visits to the wilderness area and 126,000 visits to the balance of the forest. This is a clear indication of what the public's desire and need is.

As the population and leisure time increases, so will the demand for recreation facilities. S. 174 turns its back on this need for a volume of facilities and sets aside a disproportionate amount of acreage for the "cost free" recreation of a very small segment of the public.

(8) S. 174 would deprive owners of property within wilderness and primitive areas of the right to develop their holdings to their best advantage.

Eighty acres of some of the best timber our company owns lies within a wilderness area. We are presently paying taxes on this land but are powerless to harvest our crops, improve our land or provide for its protection from fire-although we know full well that if serious fire breaks out in this wilderness we, as the closest logging neighbors, will be called upon to drop everything and rush men and equipment into this roadless area to protect forests we can never harvest.

I personally own a 640-acre parcel just inside the wilderness area. I bought the parcel because it has real potential timber, Christmas trees, grazing and water development as well as recreation. I am not interested in selling this property to the Federal Government, but would rather retain the right to develop it myself. I can't see how the Federal Government can rightfully force me to give up this right when the property would be used only by a handful of people.

In conclusion, I submit that S. 174 is not a conservation measure as some call it. The wilderness system set up by S. 174 would be a gross waste of natural resources. If multiple use really is the official policy of Congress in handling natural resources, development of recreation facilities should take its place hand in hand with development of other resources.

Such a policy would allow setting aside areas of outstanding scenic beauty for the use and enjoyment of all the American public and much smaller areas for the enjoyment of the few who want and need areas "where earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man."

It would not be in keeping with multiple use to set up, through S. 174, a 60-million-acre reserve, as big as the States of Washington and Indiana combined, for the exclusive use of a privileged few at the expense of all.

Thank you.

Mrs. Prost. Mr. Crane, is your 640 acres improved?

Mr. CRANE. No; it is not.

Mrs. ProST. What approach do you have in getting to it?

Mr. CRANE. I have no approach at the present time because I am powerless to do anything.

Mrs. Prost. Is there a landing strip nearby?

Mr. CRANE. No.

Mrs. Prost. So you are within the wilderness area and this is considered an inholding?

Mr. CRANE. Yes.

Mrs. ProST. How far is it from there to the outside edge of the wilderness area?

Mr. CRANE. It is on the edge of the wilderness area.

Mrs. Prost. So in some of these areas where there are inholdings, if the Federal Government should not desire to purchase them, they could, perhaps be excluded. Would this remove your objection to the wilderness bill, providing such inholdings as yours on the edge of the wilderness area where there are no roads are excluded? Mr. CRANE. No; it would not remove all of my objections.

Mrs. ProST. Thank you very much.

Are there further questions?

If not, our next witness is Mr. Grant B. Potter, general manager of Sequoia Forest Industries, Inc.

And will Mr. Edwin Smith please come forward?

You may proceed, Mr. Potter.

STATEMENT OF GRANT B. POTTER, GENERAL MANAGER, SEQUOIA FOREST INDUSTRIES, INC., DINUBA, CALIF.

Mr. POTTER. Madam Chairman and members of the committee, I am Grant B. Potter, and I am general manager of Sequoia Forest Industries, Inc., at Dinuba, in the San Joaquin Valley.

I have been designated by the California Forest Practice Committee, of which I am a member, to present its views on S. 174, the wilderness system bill.

The committee is one of long standing, made up of forest industry men from all areas of the California pine country. It is part of the forest conservation function of the Western Pine Association, trade group of the 12-State pine region's lumber industry. While the committee limits its work to California forest resource matters, it serves in harmony with similar committees in the other pine States, whose forest affairs and problems are in most respects similar to California's. Therefore, we base our position on S. 174, first, on the bill's potential impact on the future of California and its many forest-borne communities; and in a broader sense, on regional and national aspects.

From long experience in forest resources matters the committee is convinced the economic point of view is inescapable in considering S. 174 yet it is by no means dominant to the exclusion of others.

Economic and social benefits accruing from forest management and forest-based industry are the very foundation for existence of hundreds of western communities, including many in California. Products manufactured from forest crops are intrinsically important, too, at home and elsewhere. As an example, consider the Dinuba operation, with which I am most familiar. With raw material supplied largely from the national forest, we employ about 200 men while producing each year enough lumber to build at least 2,500 houses, plus thousands of tons of byproducts such as pulp chips, baled shavings, wood flour, sawdust and ground bark.

In developing a sort of byproducts partnership with San Joaquin Valley agriculture we have achieved nearly 100-percent utilization of the log. Mature Government timber which we buy at auction and harvest the way the Government wants it done, makes all this possible while at the same time opening up new areas with roads for other forest uses, including recreation.

The Dinuba mill is but one of some 225 forest industry plants in the California pine region. These mills afford direct employment to about 25,000 men. In the entire western pine region the lumber industry counts about 140 million man-hours of employment annually, which means 70,000 men full time. The average hourly wage rate in 1960 was $2.4312.

This productive industry has every reason to look ahead to steady operations and further growth, providing the resource from which it. draws its raw material-the commercial forest-is not decimated by unwise land withdrawals. Obviously, since Government controls 73 percent of the region's commercial forest-in California the figure is 60 percent public land policies have the power of health or ruin over most of our industry and communities. There is not a single lumber manufacturing operation in the whole pine region, as far as we know that is not wholly or partly dependent on Government timber sales to stay in business.

Now, while we can see no jobs in wilderness, we do believe wilderness can be expanded and perpetuated without undermining the bread-andbutter pursuits of forest-borne communities.

Commercial forest lands are best suited to the endless production of forest crops, and these can be wisely harvested, regrown, and harvested again. This need not interfere with the wilderness program. We favor reserving of well-chosen, appropriate wilderness areas, while always keeping in mind it should not be so much a question of how much wilderness we can wrangle, but how much we can afford. The California Forest Practice Committee is convinced timber management fits in nicely with recreational and esthetic concepts of land use. Timber management poses no threat to soundly selected wilderness areas. Wilderness is safe and certain of adequacy under existing programs. Unnecessary and unsuitable withdrawals such as S. 174 proposes not only strike at western livelihood, but tend to pose a threat to wilderness itself by reason of excesses in withdrawals for this special purpose.

For these general reasons, and on specific points which follow, the California Forest Practice Committee opposes S. 174 while reaffirming its support of the wilderness idea.

The committee views the primitive area features of the bill as very bad. In the Nation as a whole-largely in the Western States-S. 174 would at the outset lock up as a part of the huge wilderenss system some 8 million acres of unclassified primitive areas in the national forests. These lands are known to include large areas of commercial forest most valuable for multiple use and not of proved wilderness caliber.

Congress would not be called on to scan and act individually on these withdrawals, no matter how large, in the manner the national park proposals are acted on. Our committee would like to see Congress scrutinize with a critical eyes and on an individual basis every single plan for special, limited use of public lands. And the burden of proof as to wilderness quality of lands involved should be on those wanting to set aside. Under S. 174 the burden of proof is cleverly reversed.

In California, under the systematic land classification program that the U.S. Forest Service put into effect some 30 years ago, the national forests have dedicated 446,000 acres to strictly wilderness purposes, and at this time 1,094,000 acres more are frozen in "primitive" status pending completion of surveys and studies on which to base classification decisions. Thus, California has 1,558,000 acres of national forest. lands earmarked under S. 174 to be placed in the wilderness system at the outset. Of this, 286,000 acres are commercial forest.

In addition, California's 4,026,000 acres of national parks and 194,000 acres of natural wildlife refuges would increase to 5,778,000 acres the total of California lands subject to S. 174. This is nearly 6 percent of California's land area.

Thus our State has a very large and real interest in S. 174. In blanketing-in of primitive areas, California's stake is larger than that of any other State except Idaho. As a transplanted former resident of Idaho, I feel a deep concern over the fact that California and Idaho together stand to contribute more than half of the 8 million acres that would be taken into the wilderness system from presently unclassified national forest lands.