EXISTING LAW REPORTED BILL (H. R. 8037) (b) Postmasters of the fourth class shall be held and considered inferior officers under the Federal Constitution, and shall be appointed by the Postmaster General. Whenever a vacancy occurs in any office of postmaster of the fourth class for which the annual compensation is $500 or more (except offices in Alaska, Canal Zone, Guam, Hawaii, Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Samoa), the Postmaster General shall request the Civil Service Commission to hold an open competitive examination to test the fitness of applicants to fill such vacancy, and the Civil Service Commission shall certify the results thereof to the Postmaster General, who shall appoint one of the three highest eligibles to fill the vacancy. No person appointed to a vacancy in the office of postmaster of the fourth class as the result of an open competitive examination shall be removable except for cause as provided in the civil-service laws. (c) The Postmaster General shall notify the General Accounting Office of all occurrences of vacancies in, and appointments to, all offices of postmaster. о 75TH CONGRESS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 3d Session { REPORT No. 2102 ADDING CERTAIN LANDS TO THE TRINITY NATIONAL FOREST, CALIF. APRIL 7, 1938.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed Mr. ENGLEBRIGHT, from the Committee on the Public Lands, submitted the following REPORT [To accompany H. R. 8165] The Committee on the Public Lands, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 8165) to add certain lands to the Trinity National Forest, Calif., report favorably thereon with the recommendation that the bill do pass the House with the following amendment: Page 1, line 11, after the word "meridian" insert a colon and the following: Provided, That said lands shall not be subject to location or entry under the mineral laws or laws of the United States. The favorable report of the Secretary of Agriculture is herein below set forth in full and made a part of this report. SEPTEMBER 2, 1937. Hon. RENÉ L. DEROUEN, Chairman, House Committee on the Public Lands, House of Representatives. DEAR MR. DEROUEN: Your request for report on H. R. 8165, to add certain lands to the Trinity National Forest, Calif., is received. The above-designated bill would add 3,159.19 acres of land to the Trinity National Forest, Calif. Of this area 2,270.35 acres are in public ownership. Seventeen and one-half acres are embraced in the Weaverville town site and 871.34 acres are privately owned. The entire area lies on the watershed of Weaver Creek, adjoining the town of Weaverville. It consists of the upper end of a plateaulike basin in which the town is located. The area is cut by several branches of the stream, all of which come together within the town of Weaverville. About 500 acres of the tract have been placer mined, beginning in 1850 and continuing to about 25 years ago. The area originally was largely timbered with yellow pine and Douglas fir, but has since been cut over, mined, or burned. Reproduction is coming in on the placer ground as well as the other areas, and while not fully reestablished, the H. Repts., 75-3, vol. 2-17 new growth is extremely important as a ground covering and has a high value for watershed-protection purposes. Fire has done considerable damage in places, retarding reproduction of timber and undergrowth. Protection from fire and careful management will do much to restore the area to a proper condition. The area is nonagricultural. No part is cultivated. Grazing values are very low, and no use is made of the lands for this purpose. Mineral values have been important in the past, but experienced miners now recognize that those values have been entirely exhausted. The area has a high value for public use chiefly for the protection of the town water supply, flood control, and aesthetic purposes. The town of Weaverville, with a population of about 1,200, is dependent upon the waters of Weaver Creek as are also a number of small farms and gardens. Sedimentation is serious on many of these small farms. The stream beds are now filled with placer-mining debris to a point where further heavy deposits of sediment will result in overflowage that would destroy many of the farms and result in serious damage to the town of Weaverville. Due to the fact that the tract lies at the lower snow elevations where snow contains heavy water and where a few degrees change in temperature results in storms changing from snow to rain, denudation of the forest cover will result in uncontrollable flood conditions. It has already been found necessary for the Forest Service to construct, at a cost of several thousand dollars, flood-control channels to divert the water from the forest headquarters in the town of Weaverville. The factor which makes the addition particularly urgent at this time is the proposed rerouting of the Redding-Eureka State Highway to cross the southwestern portion of the area. With the opening up of this highway it is probable that a large number of itinerants will flock to the area for speculative purposes only to add eventually to an already serious problem of relief, fire hazard, and sanitation. If incorporated within the national forest, use of the area would be subject to sufficient regulation to protect the Weaverville water supply and prevent undesirable occupancy. For these above reasons it is the view of this Department that the areas described in the bill H. R. 8165 should be added to the national forest. It is therefore recommended that the bill be enacted. Upon reference of the matter to the Bureau of the Budget, as required by Budget Circular 336, the Acting Director thereof advised the Department of Agriculture, under date of August 26, 1937, that there would be no objection by that office to the submission of our proposed report to Congress. Sincerely, 75TH CONGRESS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 3d Session REPORT No. 2103 ADDING CERTAIN LANDS TO THE OCHOCO NATIONAL FOREST, OREG. APRIL 7, 1938.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed Mr. HILL of Washington, from the Committee on the Public Lands, submitted the following REPORT [To accompany H. R. 9523] The Committee on the Public Lands, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 9523) to add certain lands to the Ochoco National Forest, Oreg., report favorably thereon with the recommendation that the bill do pass the House with the following amendment: Page 2, line 14, strike out "9 to 16" and insert in lieu thereof the following "16 to 23". Page 2, line 14, strike out "19 to 36" and insert in lieu thereof "26 to 36". The favorable reports of the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior are hereinbelow set forth in full and made a part of this report: Hon. RENÉ L. DEROUEN, Chairman, Committee on the Public Lands, House of Representatives. MARCH 21, 1938. DEAR MR. DEROUEN: Acknowledgment is made of your request of February 18, 1938, for a report from this Department on H. R. 9523, a bill to add certain lands to the Ochoco National Forest, Oreg. The legislation proposed by the bill is of unusual importance because its major purpose is to stabilize and perpetuate the economic life of Prineville and other dependent communities and industries. It is a consecutive step under which the natural entity of forest and range management, now partially in Federal ownership, can be managed on a permanent basis under which it will not only contribute a continuous supply of timber equivalent to its greatest potentialities, but also will establish and maintain permanently other resource values within the area which are also a part of the local economy. Prineville, Oreg., with a present population of 1,200, is the only incorporated town within Crook County, Oreg. In the past, agricultural production combined with the livestock industry has furnished the major source of income, but limitations of water supply for irrigation, and range depletion due to heavy use, and at one time promiscuous burning, seem to have precluded appreciable expansion along these lines. However, within the Blue Mountains, which lie immediately to the east and north of Prineville, there are large, virgin stands of merchantable ponderosa pine which, if properly managed under the well-known sustained-yield principle, ultimately should make it possible not only to maintain the present population, but to provide additional, permanent employment for possibly two or three times the present population. But the forest lands and resources nearest to Prineville, having been appropriated under various public land laws prior to the creation of the Ochoco National Forest, are now largely in private ownership. One of the largest owners in this locality is the Ochoco Timber Co. with an acreage of approximately 83,000 acres supporting over 1,000,000,000 board feet of merchantable timber. Of the total acreage owned by this company, 28,600 acres are within the boundaries of the Ochoco National Forest, the remainder west of, but immediately adjoining, the national forest. The privately owned lands within the boundaries of the national forest are intermingled with national forest lands, and the timber on privately owned forest lands is all within the Prineville working circle, a natural unit of timber operation. Due to that fact, the timber resources now in Federal ownership largely will be influenced by the use of intermingled or related privately owned timber. If both the privately owned and publicly owned timber is handled under sound unified plans and principles of management, sustained yield will be practicable, industry can be maintained, and the economic life of the dependent community cannot only be safeguarded but enlarged. If, however, the private timber is first harvested separately, and without regard to the permanency of the community, the capacity of the national forest stumpage thereafter to maintain a permanent economy equal to the potentialities of the entire unit will be greatly impaired, and its economic value may be greatly reduced. Hence, it will be greatly to the public interest, through a cooperative arrangement or otherwise, to bring about unified administration of both private and public timber resources. About 2 years ago the Ochoco Timber Co. was in an acute financial condition which ultimately compelled it to resort to the provisions of section 77-b of the Federal Bankruptcy Act. To meet such a situation the company planned an early and complete exploitation of its timber holdings, partly by independent operation, and partly by sale to other operating nonowner companies. Its general plan was complete liquidation of its entire timber resources within the vicinity of Prineville in a period of approximately 10 years. If this plan were carried out it would defeat the concept of sustained-yield management, and Prineville, after a relatively brief period of excessive activity, would face a serious economic situation. Recognizing that fact, the people generally, and particularly the city officials, the county officials, interested agencies, and individuals have urged constructive action by the Federal Government to forestall the inevitable calamitous results. Tentative negotiations with the Ochoco Timber Co., largest owner of private timber resources, developed an understanding that if the company could turn a part of its holdings into cash by sale to the United States, under the provisions of the act of March 1, 1911 (36 Stat. 961), thus placing it in a position to conduct its operations on the sustained-yield basis, the company in turn would enter into a formal agreement with the United States to so manage the remainder of its holdings as not only to avert the possibility of destructive liquidation but to contribute greatly to the type of forest-resource management obviously most to the public interest. The National Forest Reservation Commission, during several successive sessions, extending over a period of more than a year, considered the proposal in detail. Subsequently, the proposal was reduced to a provision that if the United States purchased one unit of the company's holdings situated within the exterior boundaries of the Ochoco National Forest, totaling 20,985 acres and supporting 262,165,000 board feet of merchantable ponderosa pine for a consideration of $288,000, the company would enter into an agreement to manage its other related holdings, amounting to approximately 63,000 acres, under a sustained-yield agreement with the United States, thus guaranteeing the constructive management of about 83,000 acres of land ard almost 1,000,000,000 board feet of timber. This agreement was approved by the National Forest Reservation Commission on December 16, 1937, and is now in process of consummation. The general plan is to further consolidate the national forest area through the acquisition, by excharge, of land owned by the Ochoco Timber Co. outside of the present boundaries of the national forest, as such lands are cut over under Forest Service managment by methods which will leave them in the best possible condition for future growth. The legislation proposed by H. R. 9523 is designed |