included among those considered for withdrawal: (a) Lands adjacent to headwaters of streams feeding reclamation projects and/or of other streams in order to help control erosion, to conserve moisture, and to prevent floods; (b) lands particularly adapted for the growth of desirable timber, in order to develop our national timber resources; (c) lands adjacent to or suitable for parks and/or game preserves, in order to increase our facilities for recreation and for the preservation of game; (d) lands remote from markets, in order to reduce unprofitable production; (e) lands unsuited by soil composition or condition, in order to seed them for grazing, to stop erosion, and to protect soil fertility; (f) lands whose operation entails excessive costs in maintaining schools, highways, and other community facilities. And be it further

Resolved, That drainage projects to make wet or swamp land available for production be curtailed.

The new approach to public works has come on in a big way during the last 2 years and it is not a small matter. It seems to me that it takes a great deal of executive ability in that field. Mines and minerals and soils are not a small program at all, yet they are being taken care of by the Department of the Interior.

Mr. HAMLIN. You did not suggest any commission?

Mr. HALL. No; that did not come up. Ordinarily our body does not take up very many matters that are not related to agriculture. It is perfectly natural that we did not have anything to say with reference to the Department of the Interior. We are an agricultural organization.

Mr. GASQUE. All the agencies you propose to transfer to the Department of Agriculture would come from the Department of the Interior; I believe?

Mr. HALL. Yes; it so happens.

Mr. HOUSTON. Do you not think this bill is a good step in the right direction, in that some of these Bureaus should be transferred elsewhere? The matter would, after investigation, come back to the committee, go to the House and be acted upon.

Mr. HALL. It seems to me that the approach to this bill is fundamentally wrong. I think it was demonstrated in previous legislation that empowered the President to make certain shifts in governmental activities. Secretary Ickes referred to the matter of a lobby. When it comes to the President making shifts in functions of separate organizations of government these pressure groups, lobbyists, obviously work pro and con, as the case may be. I wonder whether it is better to have these groups working on the executive officers rather than on the Congress.

With reference to this bill, there is a 60-day provision. I think the Secretary of the Interior suggested that he would not object to 90 days.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. Did not the Senate make it 120 days?
Mr. GASQUE. One hundred and ten days.

Mr. HALL. Why not have these important matters originate in the Congress in the first place? Let these matters originate in the Congress as the need arises and then the Congress may reject or adopt them.

Mr. GASQUE. If you had been on this committee during the last. 10 years you would know why.

Mr. RICH. Because all these lobbyists come here and tell Members of Congress what to do, and the Members get up in the air and do not know what to do. If they put the matter in the hands of the President some think he would do something; but Members of Con

gress do not think we should segregate some of these departmental activities.

Mr. GIFFORD. Many persons think they realize which department may be closer to the President. He is human.

Mr. GASQUE. The time of the witness has expired.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. Have you, Mr. Hall, finished?

Mr. HALL. Yes. However, I should like to have permission to insert the full resolution in the record in order. It is a resolution passed at the sixteenth annual meeting of the American Farm Bureau Federation at Nashville, Tenn., December 12, 1934.

Mr. HOUSTON. Is that an organization similar to the National Grange?

Mr. HALL. Yes.

Mr. QUINN. Would it save time if we should say in place of that resolution that the Department of the Interior shall be eliminated? Mr. WHITTINGTON. I move that the witness be allowed the privilege of filing a supplemental statement.

Mr. RICH. But do not put in the record a lot of unnecessary matter, which would only clutter up the record.

Mr. HALL. I will put in our policy with reference to the utilization of land.

Mr. GASQUE. The time suggested by the committee has expired. We have one more gentleman who has been here, I think at every meeting of the committee, to be heard.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. I move that he be heard at this time.
Mr. GASQUE. If there is no objection, he will be heard.

STATEMENT OF W. L. WILSON, FLORIDA STATE CHAMBER OF

COMMERCE

Mr. GASQUE. Let us now hear Mr. W. L. Wilson.

Mr. WILSON. I am here to represent the Florida State Chamber of Commerce and the State of Florida. I will try not to repeat what has been said here.

Unfortunately, I am very local in my ideas. There are two angles of this situation which concern us. There are two agencies of the Government that could under the terms of the proposed bill be moved from the departments operating them to the suggested Department of Conservation and Works. I refer to the Forest Service, in the Department of Agriculture, and river and harbor activities, now under the Chief of Engineers in the War Department.

I want to speak first of the forestry phase. We are practicing tree farming in the State of Florida. It seems to be the only hope for us. About one-half of the acreage of our State is used for that purpose. It is good tree-growing land. In the growing of trees we are receiving the best possible kind of assistance from the Department of Agriculture's Bureaus of Chemistry and Soils and Entomology and Plant Quarantine.

In Florida we have an interesting place. It is off the railroad. There are 250,000 acres of Federal forest and south of it are 52,000 acres of private forest; while south of that there are 60,000 acres of State forest. The State forests serve as a nursery. The Bureau of

Chemistry has a turpentine and resin plant; and the Bureau of Forestry, in its Division of Entomology, has an investigating laboratory in which they investigate the methods of growing trees, so that we

may know how to get the most and the best gum. The splendid cooperation we are receiving from the Department of Agriculture would be upset, we feel, in any change.

During the last 15 or 20 years, since we have discovered that it is possible for us to renew our forest products if we can keep fire and hogs away from the forests, we have been trying to get forestry recognized as an agricultural pursuit. The first thing we did when the Farm Loan Act, I think it was, was passed we had a clause inserted which said that the manufacture of resin and turpentine should be considered an agricultural pursuit. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration has set up a resin-turpentine control agreement, which is working well. This is all within the Department of Agriculture; and if the Bureau were shifted to the Department of the Interior we feel that it would be a decidedly backward step.

Since the Forest Service has been within the Department of Agriculture it has in the State of Florida-I do not know about other States-taken over more than 1,000,000 acres of land, set up four Government.forests, all of which are expected to pay. The Forest Service under the able guidance of the Department of Agriculture has rendered valuable assistance to the private forest owners of my State. I am not so much interested in the Federal forests as I am in the Federal assistance accorded the State. We have 16,000,000 acres of land on our tax books today delinquent, and unless we put more than half of that back into trees there is no use for it. We do not know how to effectively do this work ourselves; we very much need the help that is already set up and functioning in the Department of Agriculture.

Referring to rivers and harbors, we have the longest coastline in the Union. Secretary Ickes stated here that it is not the intention to ask that river and harbor activities be placed within the proposed Department of Conservation and Works; but that activity is certainly a public-work and a very important one. Secretary Ickes may not last out the job and his successor may want to transfer river and harbor activities to this proposed new Department.

We object to such a transfer because great and substantial progress has been made in river and harbor work under the leadership of the Chief of Engineers of the War Department, and we should like to see it remain there.

Finally, I really do not see the necessity for this proposed bill. The President has had the authority to do this during the last 2 years. I understand very reliably that pressure was brought upon him to move a lot of these bureaus and agencies of Government; but he did not do it. Why put him on the spot again? He has, I think, enough trouble.

STATEMENT OF G. H. COLLINGSWOOD, THE AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION

Mr. GASQUE. The next gentleman to be heard is Mr. G. H. Collingswood, of the American Forestry Association.

Mr. COLLINGSWOOD. I represent the American Forestry Association, which has about 14,000 members. Our organization is somewhat different than the Society of American Foresters, represented by Professor Chapman. Ours is not a technical organization, but it

is made up of men and women throughout the United States who are interested in forestry and in the conservation of natural resources which come from the forests.

You have mentioned before this hearing started that this is an old question. True, it is an old question. It has been coming up in one way or another during the last 30 years. During all the time since President Theodore Roosevelt transferred the Forest Service to the Department of Agriculture there have been repeated efforts to return the national forests to the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior, and always and consistently the American Forestry Association has taken a position of leadership in keeping the national forests and their administration and all matters pertaining to the national forests and forestry as a whole in the Department of Agriculture, where, as we believe, it belongs.

Now, I could bring to you any number of resolutions that this association has passed. I shall submit only the last one passed at the annual meeting of the American Forestry Association held at Knoxville, Tenn., October 17-29, 1934. It says:

Whereas there is a renewed and powerful effort to bring about a transfer of the Forest Service from the United States Department of Agriculture to the Department of the Interior, and

Whereas the American Forestry Association, in case of a similar proposal in previous years, has consistently taken the position that the Federal forestry work should be centralized in the Department of Agriculture in association with agriculture and other activities in soil conservation and crop production, and

Whereas the proposed transfer would inevitably lead to the building up in the Department of the Interior of scientific and technical activities already provided for in the Department of Agriculture, involving unnecessary overlapping and duplication of effort: Be it

Resolved, That this meeting of the American Forestry Association record its vigorous protest against the proposed transfer either by congressional or administrative action, and request that a copy of this resolution be transmitted to the President of the United States.

The question of transferring the Forest Service back to the Department of the Interior has come up with added emphasis during the last 2 years. During that time at least 15 organizations of State-wide or national significance have taken a stand in opposition to the proposed transfer.

The following organizations have expressed themselves in opposition to any move which would result in the transfer of the Forest Service from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of the Interior: The Society of American Foresters; the National Grange; the American Farm Bureau Federation; the General Federation of Women's Clubs; the Garden Clubs of America; the Izaak Walton League of America, Inc., the Timber Products Bureau of the Spokane Chamber of Commerce, Spokane, Wash.; the Association of Land Grant Colleges; the Arkansas State Forestry Commission; the North Idaho Forestry Association, Lewiston, Idaho; Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce; Massachusetts Forest and Park Association; the Association for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests; the Georgia Forestry Association; the North Carolina Forestry Association: Nederland Fish and Game Club; Nederland, Colo.; the Association of State Foresters, Tallahassee, Fla...

The question of whether or not any economy would be effected by transferring the Forest Service to the Department of the Interior has

come up. We are thoroughly convinced that rather than effecting economy it would entail an added expense.

Reference has been made by at least two previous witnesses to the farm woodlands of the country. Not less than 127,000,000 acres of farm woodlands are owned by the farmers, and be it remembered that the administration and development of farm woodland involves the same type of forestry and forestry law and science as does the administration of the national forests. Should the national forests be transferred to another department the Department of Agriculture would still have to maintain a forestry bureau in order to give service to the citizens of the country who are owners of these farm woodlands. Let me emphasize that—

Forestry is an applied science so intimately related to agriculture as to be classed as one of its branches. Because both agriculture and forestry are concerned with the production of crops from the soil, because the technique of the management of forests and other soil crops have the same underlying bases, because the economic and social problems of each are so intimately interwoven, and because national planning must combine forestry with agriculture for a successful system of land use, the one should be kept closely in touch with the other.

At the foundation of forestry are soil science, plant science, meteorology, animal husbandry, zoology, and land economics. These are represented in the Department of Agriculture by the Bureaus of Chemistry and Soils, Agricultural Engineering, Plant Industry, Animal Husbandry, Weather Bureau, Biological Survey, Entomology and Plant Quarantine, Agricultural Economics, and Forest Service. Their activities are all interwoven within the Department to establish a wellrounded foundation for the effective management of land.

That is taken from an article in the November 1934 issue of American Forests, by Henry S. Graves, president of the American Forestry Association.

That article was published more than a year ago but it still holds good. I have crossed out some of the introductory material that does not apply to this particular bill, and, with your permission, thinking it will add to this committee's information, I want to submit this [indicating] article by Mr. Graves for inclusion in the record.

Mr. GRISWOLD. I do not see the good in submitting some newspaper remarks or magazine article that we have no chance to cross-examine on as to the basis of the information. I am willing to let it go in, but I think it simply clutters up the record.

Mr. RICH. I think the witnesses themselves should say what they think. I think it is ridiculous to permit the insertion of magazine articles by other than the witnesses themselves.

Mr. GASQUE. Is there objection to the request of the witness that he be allowed to insert the article by Henry S. Graves in the record? Mr. GRISWOLD. I object.

Mr. QUINN. The same statement has been filed, has it not?

Mr. WHITTINGTON. He filed a few paragraphs only. I think we agreed that the witnesses might file supplemental statements. I think the standing of a professor of forestry of Yale is such that he could help us.

Mr. GASQUE. Objection has been heard.

Mr. RICH. I do not think that he is any different than any other member of the committee When we permit witnesses to come before the committee to make their statements and then give them a right to submit a lot of material they fill up the record with a lot of other people's ideas. I think my colleague (Mr. Griswold) is right. On the other hand we are not here to censor this witness more than