This law officially mandated the management of national forests to "best meet the needs of the American people." The forests were to be used not primarily for economic gain, but for a balanced combination of "outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, and wildlife and fish purposes."

The Multiple Use Act emerged from a strong history of diverse uses of the federal reserves. Early settlers assumed access to and free use of public lands. The text of the Organic Act of 1897 mandated that public forest reservations were to be established to improve and protect forests and water flow . The Act of February 28, 1899 strengthened use policy by providing for recreational use of the reserves.

When the reserves were transferred from the General Land Office to the Bureau of Forestry, the Secretary of Agriculture signed a letter (actually written by Gifford Pinchot ) dictating formal forest policy: "all the resources of the forest reserves are for use... you will see to it that the water, wood, and forage of the reserves are conserved and wisely used."

The first use of the term "multiple use" appears to be in two Forest Service reports of 1933. The chief Copeland's Report reaffirmed that the "principle to govern the use of land...is multiple-purpose use. It emphasized that "the peculiar and highly important multiple use characteristics of forest land [are] five major uses—timber production, watershed protection, recreation, production of forage, and conservation of wildlife."

• Mandated a balanced consideration between all the forest uses
• Formulated sustained yield management for all forest products and services
• Identified the mulitple uses of the public forest reserves:
  
  1. Water
  2. Wood
  3. Wildlife
  4. Grazing and
  5. Recreation

See the entire text of the Multiple Use/Sustained Yield Act

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