ABSTRACT
For nearly 100 years, private forestry in the United States has been materially and increasingly affected by public programs of various kinds. Public programs which affect private forest owners may be an incentive to desired action (the carrot) or a constraint against undesired action (the stick). To put it differently, they may rely on persuasion or upon compulsion. Some programs may indeed have both incentive and constraint. Public programs may be federal or state, or even local, although relatively few are the latter. Some may affect all forests, both public and private; or may affect all privately owned forests, whether owned by forest industry or by nonindustrial private owners; and others may be directed only at the latter group. Programs of broad applicability may nevertheless affect nonindustrial private forest owners more or less severely than they affect others.
