FORESTS ARE FOR PEOPLE: The Heritage of Our National Forests

Part tour-guide, part history, part rhapsody, part study of the ways and means by which the ideals of multiple use and sustained yield are realized; but part of the trouble for reference or casual reading is lack of differentiation among all these moods and materials even within chapters -- though a sub-topical index is mitigating. The authors, both very much present first-personally, have more time than many an audience will: What Is a Forest? ""We found almost as many answers as we did forests. . . "" -- which at first are obscured by the conifers and other trees; under a photograph (black-and-white like the rest), ""By mid-fall, the green of the quakies has changed to purest gold and warm peach, and they paint the mountainsides with glowing color and change forest roads to tunnels of gold."" Chapters on camping experiences, Wilderness, Trails and Roads, Fun in Winter are dispensable compared to strong specifics about Watersheds (water as a ""crop,"" controllable, indeed increasable), the Superior Tree Program. and Timber-r-r-r-! Charles Coombs' High Timber still recommends itself. however, as dries Montgomery Atwater's The Forest Rangers (1969), and on the wildlife question there are numberless fine, fuller treatments. This is appreciative and extended enough to encompass not only the facts but also the ramifications of America's forestry projects; yet unless the Woods' impressions, lingering descriptions, and lethargic prose are welcomed, a crisper and more direct approach will be preferred.