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Title: The Training of a Forester
Author: Gifford Pinchot
Release Date: February 23, 2010 [EBook #31367]
Language: English
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THE TRAINING OF A FORESTER
[Illustration: A FOREST RANGER LOOKING FOR FIRE FROM A NATIONAL FOREST
LOOKOUT STATION _Page 32_]
THE TRAINING OF A FORESTER
BY
GIFFORD PINCHOT
WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration]
PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1914
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY, 1914
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.
To
OVERTON W. PRICE
FRIEND AND FELLOW WORKER
TO WHOM IS DUE, MORE THAN TO ANY OTHER MAN, THE
HIGH EFFICIENCY OF THE UNITED STATES FOREST SERVICE
PREFACE
At one time or another, the largest question before every young man is,
"What shall I do with my life?" Among the possible openings, which best
suits his ambition, his tastes, and his capacities? Along what line
shall he undertake to make a successful career? The search for a life
work and the choice of one is surely as important business as can occupy
a boy verging into manhood. It is to help in the decision of those who
are considering forestry as a profession that this little book has been
written.
To the young man who is attracted to forestry and begins to consider it
as a possible profession, certain questions present themselves. What is
forestry? If he takes it up, what will his work be, and where? Does it
in fact offer the satisfying type of outdoor life which it appears to
offer? What chance does it present for a successful career, for a career
of genuine usefulness, and what is the chance to make a living? Is he
fitted for it in character, mind, and body? If so, what training does he
need? These questions deserve an answer.
To the men whom it really suits, forestry offers a career more
attractive, it may be said in all fairness, than any other career
whatsoever. I doubt if any other profession can show a membership so
uniformly and enthusiastically in love with the work. The men who have
taken it up, practised it, and left it for other work are few. But to
the man not fully adapted for it, forestry must be punishment, pure and
simple. Those who have begun the study of forestry, and then have
learned that it was not for them, have doubtless been more in number
than those who have followed it through.
I urge no man to make forestry his profession, but rather to keep away
from it if he can. In forestry a man is either altogether at home or
very much out of place. Unless he has a compelling love for the
Forester's life and the Forester's work, let him keep out of it.
G. P.
CONTENTS
PAGE
WHAT IS A FOREST? 13
THE FORESTER'S KNOWLEDGE 18
THE FOREST AND THE NATION 19
THE FORESTER'S POINT OF VIEW 23
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF FORESTRY 27
THE WORK OF A FORESTER 30
THE FOREST SERVICE 30
THE FOREST SUPERVISOR 46
THE TRAINED FORESTER 50
PERSONAL EQUIPMENT 63
STATE FOREST WORK 84
THE FOREST SERVICE IN WASHINGTON 89
PRIVATE FORESTRY 106
FOREST SCHOOLS 114
THE OPPORTUNITY 116
TRAINING 123
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
A FOREST RANGER LOOKING FOR FIRE FROM A NATIONAL
FOREST LOOKOUT STATION _Frontispiece_
STRINGING A FOREST TELEPHONE LINE 32
FOREST RANGERS SCALING TIMBER 43
WESTERN YELLOW PINE SEED COLLECTED BY THE FOREST
SERVICE FOR PLANTING UP DENUDED LANDS 47
A FOREST EXAMINER RUNNING A COMPASS LINE 59
BRUSH PILING IN A NATIONAL FOREST TIMBER SALE 95
FOREST RANGERS GETTING INSTRUCTION IN METHODS OF
WORK FROM A DISTRICT FOREST OFFICER 105
FOREST SERVICE MEN MAKING FRESH MEASUREMENTS IN
THE MISSOURI SWAMPS 136
THE TRAINING OF A FORESTER
WHAT IS A FOREST?
First, What is forestry? Forestry is the knowledge of the forest. In
particular, it is the art of handling the forest so that it will render
whatever service is required of it without being impoverished or
destroyed. For example, a forest may be handled so as to produce saw
logs, telegraph poles, barrel hoops, firewood, tan bark, or turpentine.
The main purpose of its treatment may be to prevent the washing of soil,
to regulate the flow of streams, to support cattle or sheep, or it may
be handled so as to supply a wide range and combination of uses.
Forestry is the art of producing from the forest whatever it can yield
for the service of man.
Before we can understand forestry, certain facts about the forest itself
must be kept in mind. A forest is not a mere collection of individual
trees, just as a city is not a mere collection of unrelated men and
women, or a Nation like ours merely a certain number of independent
racial groups. A forest, like a city, is a complex community with a life
of its own. It has a soil and an atmosphere of its own, chemically and
physically different from any other, with plants and shrubs as well as
trees which are peculiar to it. It has a resident population of insects
and higher animals entirely distinct from that outside. Most important
of all, from the Forester's point of view, the members of the forest
live in an exact and intricate system of competition and mutual
assistance, of help or harm, which extends to all the inhabitants of
this complicated city of trees.
The trees in a forest are all helped by mutually protecting each other
against high winds, and by producing a richer and moister soil than
would be possible if the trees stood singly and apart. They compete
among themselves by their roots for moisture in the soil, and for light
and space by the growth of their crowns in height and breadth. Perhaps
the strongest weapon which trees have against each other is growth in
height. In certain species intolerant of shade, the tree which is
overtopped has lost the race for good. The number of young trees which
destroy each other in this fierce struggle for existence is prodigious,
so that often a few score per acre are all that survive to middle or old
age out of many tens of thousands of seedlings which entered the race of
life on approximately even terms.
Not only has a forest a character of its own, which arises from the fact
that it is a community of trees, but each species of tree has peculiar
characteristics and habits also. Just as in New York City, for example,
the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Hungarians, and the Chinese
each have quarters of their own, and in those quarters live in
accordance with habits which distinguish each race from all the others,
so the different species of pines and hemlocks, oaks and maples prefer
and are found in certain definite types of locality, and live in
accordance with definite racial habits which are as general and
unfailing as the racial characteristics which distinguish, for example,
the Italians from the Germans, or the Swedes from the Chinese.
The most important of these characteristics of race or species are those
which are concerned with the relation of each to light, heat, and
moisture. Thus, a river birch will die if it has only as much water as
will suffice to keep a post oak in the best condition, and the warm
climate in which the balsam fir would perish is just suited to the
requirements of a long leaf pine or a magnolia.
The tolerance of a tree for shade may vary greatly at different times of
its life, but a white pine always requires more light than a hemlock,
and a beech throughout its life will flourish with less sunshine or
reflected light than, for example, an oak or a tulip tree.
Trees are limited in their distribution also by their adaptability, in
which they vary greatly. Thus a bald cypress will grow both in wetter
and in dryer land than an oak; a red cedar will flourish from Florida to
the Canadian line, while other species, like the Eastern larch, the
Western mountain hemlock, or the big trees of California, are confined
in their native localities within extremely narrow limits.
THE FORESTER'S KNOWLEDGE
The trained Forester must know the forest as a doctor knows the human
machine. First of all, he must be able to distinguish the different
trees of which the forest is composed, for that is like learning to
read. He must know the way they are made and the way they grow; but far
more important than all else, he must base his knowledge upon that part
of forestry which is called Silvics, the knowledge of the relation of
trees to light, heat, and moisture, to the soil, and to each other.
The well-trained Forester must also know the forest shrubs and at least
the more important smaller forest plants, something of the insect and
animal life of his domain, and the birds and fish. He must have a good
working knowledge of rocks, soils, and streams, and of the methods of
making roads, trails, and bridges. He should be an expert in woodcraft,
able to travel the forest safely and surely by day or by night. It is
essential that he should have a knowledge of the theory and the practice
of lumbering, and he should know something about lumber markets and the
value of lumber, about surveying and map making, and many other matters
which are considered more at length in the Chapter on Training. There
are as yet in America comparatively few men who have acquired even
fairly well the more important knowledge which should be included in the
training of a Forester.
THE FOREST AND THE NATION
The position of the forest in the housekeeping of any nation is unlike
that of any other great natural resource, for the forest not only
furnishes wood, without which civilization as we know it would be
impossible, but serves also to protect or make valuable many of the
other things without which we could not get on. Thus the forest cover
protects the soil from the effects of wind, and holds it in place. For
lack of it hundreds of thousands of square miles have been converted by
the winds from moderately fertile, productive land to arid drifting
sands. Narrow strips of forest planted as windbreaks make agriculture
possible in certain regions by preventing destruction of crops by
moisture-stealing dry winds which so afflict the central portions of our
country.
Without the forests the great bulk of our mining for coal, metals, and
the precious minerals would be either impossible or vastly more
expensive than it is at present, because the galleries of mines are
propped with wood, and so protected against caving in. So far, no
satisfactory substitute for the wooden railroad tie has been devised;
and our whole system of land transportation is directly dependent for
its existence upon the forest, which supplies more than one hundred and
twenty million new railroad ties every year in the United States alone.
The forest regulates and protects the flow of streams. Its effect is to
reduce the height of floods and to moderate extremes of low water. The
official measurements of the United States Geological Survey have
finally settled this long-disputed question. By protecting mountain
slopes against excessive soil wash, it protects also the lowlands upon
which this wash would otherwise be deposited and the rivers whose
channels it would clog. It is well within the truth to say that the
utility of any system of rivers for transportation, for irrigation, for
waterpower, and for domestic supply depends in great part upon the
protection which forests offer to the headwaters of the streams, and
that without such protection none of these uses can be expected long to
endure.
Of the two basic materials of our civilization, iron and wood, the
forest supplies one. The dominant place of the forest in our national
economy is well illustrated by the fact that no article whatsoever,
whether of use or ornament, whether it be for food, shelter, clothing,
convenience, protection, or decoration, can be produced and delivered to
the user, as industry is now organized, without the help of the forest
in supplying wood. An examination of the history of any article,
including the production of the raw material, and its manufacture,
transportation, and distribution, will at once make this point clear.
The forest is a national necessity. Without the material, the
protection, and the assistance it supplies, no nation can long succeed.
Many regions of the old world, such as Palestine, Greece, Northern
Africa, and Central India, offer in themselves the most impressive
object lessons of the effect upon national prosperity and national
character of the neglect of the forest and its consequent destruction.
THE FORESTER'S POINT OF VIEW
The central idea of the Forester, in handling the forest, is to promote
and perpetuate its greatest use to men. His purpose is to make it serve
the greatest good of the greatest number for the longest time. Before
the members of any other profession dealing with natural resources, the
Foresters acquired the long look ahead. This was only natural, because
in forestry it is seldom that a man lives to harvest the crop which he
helped to sow. The Forester must look forward, because the natural
resource with which he deals matures so slowly, and because, if steps
are to be taken to insure for succeeding generations a supply of the
things the forest yields, they must be taken long in advance. The idea
of using the forest first for the greatest good of the present
generation, and then for the greatest good of succeeding generations
through the long future of the nation and the race--that is the
Forester's point of view.
The use of foresight to insure the existence of the forest in the
future, and, so far as practicable, the continued or increasing
abundance of its service to men, naturally suggested the use of
foresight in the same way as to other natural resources as well. Thus it
was the Forester's point of view, applied not only to the forest but to
the lands, the minerals, and the streams, which produced the
Conservation policy. The idea of applying foresight and common-sense to
the other natural resources as well as to the forest was natural and
inevitable. It works out, equally as a matter of course, into the
conception of a planned and orderly development of all that the earth
contains for the uses of men. This leads in turn to the application of
the same principle to other questions and resources. It was foreseen
from the beginning by those who were responsible for inaugurating the
Conservation movement that its natural development would in time work
out into a planned and orderly scheme for national efficiency, based on
the elimination of waste, and directed toward the best use of all we
have for the greatest good of the greatest number for the longest time.
It is easy to see that this principle (the Forester's principle, first
brought to public attention by Foresters) is the key to national
success.
Forestry, then, is seen to be peculiarly essential to the national
prosperity, both now and hereafter. National degradation and decay have
uniformly followed the excessive destruction of forests by other
nations, and will inevitably become our portion if we continue to
destroy our forests three times faster than they are produced, as we are
doing now. The principles of forestry, therefore, must occupy a
commanding place in determining the future prosperity or failure of our
nation, and this commanding position in the field of ideas is naturally
and properly reflected in the dignity and high standing which the
profession of forestry, young as it is, has already acquired in the
United States. This position it must be the first care of every member
of the profession to maintain and increase.
In the long run, no profession rises higher than the degree of public
consideration which marks its members. The profession of forestry is in
many ways a peculiarly responsible profession, but in nothing more so
than in its vital connection with the whole future welfare of our
country and in the obligation which lies upon its members to see that
its reputation and standing, which are the measures of its capacity for
usefulness, are kept strong and clear.
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF FORESTRY
In the United States, forestry is passing out of the pioneer phase of
agitation and the education of public opinion, and into the permanent
phase of the practice of the profession. The first steps in forestry in
this country, as in any other where the development and destruction of
natural resources has been rapid, were necessarily directed mainly to
informing the public mind upon the importance of forestry, and to
building up national and State laws and organizations for the protection
of timberlands set aside for the public benefit. The right to be heard
with respect by the men who were already in control of the larger part
of our total forest wealth had to be won, and has been won. What is
more, in the teeth of the bitterest opposition of private special
interests, the right of the public to first consideration in the
protection and development of the forest and of all the resources it
contains had to be asserted and established. That has now been done.
In the United States these steps in the movement for the wise use of the
forest have been taken mainly in the last dozen or fifteen years, during
which the Federal forest organization has grown from an insignificant
division of less than a dozen men to the present United States Forest
Service, of more than three thousand members. During this period, also,
forestry, both as a profession and as a public necessity, has won
enduring public recognition, and at the same time more public timberland
has been set aside for the public use and to remain in the public hands
than during all the rest of our history put together. To-day the
National Forests are reasonably safe in the protection of public
opinion, not against all attack, it is true, but against any successful
attempt to dismember and turn them over to the special interests who
already control the bulk and the best of our forests. The public has
accepted forestry as necessary to the public welfare, both in the
present and in the future; State forest organizations are springing up;
forestry has won the right to be heard in the business offices as well
as in the conventions of the private owners of forest land; and the
time for the practice of the profession has fully come.
THE WORK OF A FORESTER
What does a Forester do? I will try to answer this question, first, with
reference to the United States Forest Service, and later as to the
numerous other fields of activity which are opening or have already
opened to the trained Forester in the United States.
THE FOREST SERVICE
The United States Forest Service is responsible both for the general
progress of forestry, so far as the United States Government is
concerned, and for the protection and use of the National Forests. These
National Forests now cover an area of one hundred and eighty-seven
million acres, or as much land as is included in all the New England
States, with New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland,
Virginia and West Virginia. The head of the Service, whose official
title is "Forester," is charged with the great task of protecting this
vast area against fire, theft, and other depredations, and of making all
its resources, the wood, water, and grass, the minerals, and the soil,
available and useful to the people of the United States under
regulations which will secure development and prevent destruction or
waste.
The United States Forest Service consists, first, of a protective force
of Forest Guards and Forest Rangers, who spend practically the whole of
their time in the forest; second, of an executive staff of Forest
Supervisors and their assistants, who have immediate charge of the
handling of the National Forests; and third, of an administrative staff
divided between headquarters in Washington and the six local
administrative offices in the West, where the National Forests mainly
lie.
The work of a Forest Ranger is, first of all, to protect the District
committed to his charge against fire. That comes before all else. For
that purpose, the Ranger patrols his District during the seasons when
fires are dangerous, or watches for signs of fire from certain high
points, called fire-lookouts, or both. He keeps the trails and fire
lines clear and the telephone in working order, and sees to it that the
fire fighting tools, such as spades, axes, and rakes, are in good
condition and ready for service. If he is wise, he establishes such
relations with the people who live in his neighborhood that they become
his volunteer assistants in watching for forest fires, in taking
precautions against them, and in notifying him of them when they do take
place. [Illustration: STRINGING A FOREST TELEPHONE LINE]
Fighting a forest fire in some respects is like fighting a fire in a
city. In both, the first and most necessary thing is to get men and
apparatus to the site of the fire at the first practicable moment. For
this purpose, fire-engines and men are always ready in the city, while
in the forest the telephones, trails, and bridges must be kept in
condition, and the forest officers must be ready to move instantly day
or night.
It is far better to prevent a forest fire from starting than to have to
put it out after it has started; but in spite of all the care that can
be exercised with the means at hand, many fires start. Each year the
Forest Service men extinguish not less than three thousand fires, nearly
all of them while they are still small. At times, however, when the
woods are very dry and the wind blows hard, in spite of all that can be
done, a fire will grow large enough to be dangerous not only to the
forest but to human life. Thus in the summer of 1910, the driest ever
known in certain parts of the West, high winds drove the forest fires
clear beyond the control of the fire fighters, many of whom were
compelled to fight for their own lives.
The worst of these fires were in Montana and Idaho, where the whole
power of the Forest Service was used against them. The Forest Rangers,
under the orders of their Supervisors, immediately organized or took
charge of small companies of fire fighters, and began the work of
getting them under control. But so fierce was the wind and so terrible
the heat of the fires and the speed with which they moved, that in many
places it became a question of saving the lives of the fire fighters
rather than of putting out the fires. As a matter of fact, nearly a
hundred of the men temporarily employed to help the Government fire
fighters lost their lives, and many more would have died but for the
courage, resource, and knowledge of the woods of the Forest Rangers.
Take, for example, the case of Ranger Edward C. Pulaski, of the Coeur
d'Alene National Forest, stationed at Wallace, Idaho. Pulaski had charge
of forty Italians and Poles. He had been at work with them for many
hours, when the flames grew to be so threatening that it became a
question of whether he could save his men. The fire was travelling
faster than the men could make their way through the dense forest, and
the only hope was to find some place into which the fire could not come.
Accordingly Pulaski guided his party at a run through the blinding smoke
to an abandoned mine he knew of in the neighborhood. When they reached
it, he sent the men into the workings ahead of him, hung a wet blanket
across the mouth of the tunnel, and himself stood there on guard. The
fierce heat, the stifling air, and their deadly fear drove some of the
foreigners temporarily insane, and a number of them tried to break out.
With drawn revolver Pulaski held them back. One man did get by him and
was burned to death. Many fainted in the tunnel. The Ranger himself,
more exposed than any of his men, was terribly burned. He stood at his
post, however, for five hours, until the fire had passed, and brought
his party through without losing a single man except that one who got
out of the tunnel, although his own injuries were so severe that he was
in the hospital for two months as a result of them. The record of the
Forest Service in these terrible fires is one of which every Forester
may well be proud.
The Ranger must protect his District, not only against fire but against
the theft of timber and the incessant efforts of land grabbers to steal
Government lands. To prevent the theft of timber is usually not
difficult, but it is far harder to prevent fake homesteaders, fraudulent
mining men, and other dishonest claimants from seizing upon land to
which they have no right, and so preventing honest men from using these
claims to make a living.
In the past, this problem has presented the most serious difficulties,
and still occasionally does so. There is no louder shouter for "justice"
than a balked habitual land thief with political influence behind him.
To illustrate the kind of attack upon the Forest Service to which
fraudulent land claims have constantly given rise, I may cite the
statements made during one of the annual attempts in the Senate to break
down the Service. One of the Senators asserted that in his State the
Forest Service was overbearing and tyrannical, and that in a particular
case it had driven out of his home a citizen known to the Senator, and
had left him and his family to wander houseless upon the hillside, and
that for no good reason whatsoever.
This statement, if it had been true, would at once have destroyed the
standing of the Service in the minds of many of its friends, and would
have led to immediate defeat in the fight then going on. Fortunately,
the records of the Service were so complete, and the knowledge of field
conditions on the part of the men in Washington was so thorough, that
the mere mention of the general locality of the supposed outrage by the
Senator made it easy to identify the individual case. The man in
question, instead of being an honest settler with a wife and family, was
the keeper of a disreputable saloon and dance hall, a well-known
law-breaker whom the local authorities had tried time and again to
dispossess and drive away. But by means of his fraudulent claim the man
had always defeated the local officers. When, however, the officers of
the Forest Service took the case in hand, the situation changed and
things moved quickly. The disreputable saloon was promptly removed from
the fraudulent land claim by means of which the keeper of it had held
on, and this thoroughly undesirable citizen either went out of business
or removed his abominable trade to some locality outside the National
Forest.
The actual facts were fully brought out in the debate next day, remained
uncontradicted, and saved the fight for the Forest Service. The whole
incident may be found at length in the Congressional Record.
The Forest Ranger is charged with overseeing and regulating the free use
of timber by settlers and others who live in or near the National
Forests. Last year (1912) the Forest Service gave away without charge
more than $196,000 worth of saw timber, house logs, fencing, fuel, and
other material to men and women who needed it for their own use. Usually
it is the Ranger's work to issue the permits for this free use, and to
designate the timber that may be cut. For this purpose, he must be well
acquainted with the kinds and the uses of the trees in his District, and
it is most important that he should know something of how their
reproduction can best be secured, in order that the free use may be
permitted without injury to the future welfare of the forest.
A Ranger oversees the use of his District for the grazing of cattle,
sheep, and other domestic animals. He must acquaint himself with the
brands and marks of the various owners, and should be well posted in the
essentials of the business of raising cattle, sheep, and horses. The
allotment of grazing areas is one of the most difficult problems to
adjust, because the demand is almost always for much more range than is
available and the division of what range there is among the local owners
of stock often presents serious difficulties, in which the Ranger's
local knowledge and advice is constantly sought by his superior officer.
There is a wise law, passed at the request of the Forest Service, under
which land in the National Forests which is shown to be agricultural may
be entered under the homestead law, and used for the making of homes.
This law is peculiarly hard to carry out because the ceaseless efforts
of land grabbers to misuse it demand great vigilance on the part of the
Forest Officers. In many cases it is the Ranger who makes the report
upon which the decision as to the agricultural or non-agricultural
character of the land is based, although in other cases the
examinations to determine whether the land is really agricultural in
character are made by Examiners especially trained for this duty.
Serious controversies into which politics enter are often caused by the
efforts of speculators and others, under pretext of this law, to get
possession of lands chiefly valuable for their timber.
The building and maintenance of trails, telephone lines, roads, bridges,
and fences in his District is under the charge of the Ranger, and in
many cases Rangers and Forest Guards are appointed by the State as
Wardens to see to it that the game and fish laws are properly enforced.
Next to the protection of his District from fire, the most important
duty of the Ranger has to do with the sale of timber and the marking of
the individual trees which are to be cut. The reproduction of the forest
depends directly on what trees are kept for seed, or on how the
existing young growth is protected and preserved in felling and swamping
the trees which have been marked for cutting, and in skidding the logs.
The disposal of the slash must be looked after, for it has much to do
with forest reproduction, and with promoting safety from fire. Then, the
scaling of the logs determines the amount of the payment the Government
receives for its timber, and there are often regulations governing the
transportation of the scaled logs whose enforcement is of great
consequence to the future forest.
[Illustration: FOREST RANGERS SCALING TIMBER]
Nearly all of these duties the Ranger may perform in certain cases
without supervision, if his judgment and training are sufficient, but
the marking especially is often done under the eye or in accordance with
the directions of the technical Forester, whose duty it is to see that
the future of the forest is protected by enforcing the conditions of
sale.
These are but a part of the duties of the Ranger, for he is concerned
with all the uses which his District may serve. The streams, for
example, may be important for city water supply, irrigation, or for
waterpower, and their use for these purposes must be under his eye.
Hotels and saw-mills on sites leased from the Government may dot his
District here and there. The land within National Forests may be put to
a thousand other uses, from a bee ranch on the Cleveland Forest in
southern California to a whaling station on the Tongass Forest in
Alaska, all of which means work for him.
The result of all this is that the Ranger comes in contact with city
dwellers, irrigators, cattlemen, sheepmen, and horsemen, ranchers,
storekeepers, hotel men, hunters, miners, and lumbermen, and above all
with the settlers who live in or near his District. With all these it is
his duty to keep on good terms, for well he knows that one man at
certain times can set more fires than a regiment can extinguish, and
that the best protection for his District comes from the friendly
interest of the men who live in it or near it.
A Forest Guard is in effect an assistant to the Ranger, and may be
called upon to carry out most of the duties which fall upon a Ranger.
The foregoing short statement will make it clear that preliminary
experience as a Ranger may be of the utmost value to the man who
proposes later on to perform in the Government Service the duties of a
trained Forester. It is becoming more and more common, and fortunately
so, for graduates of forest schools to begin their work in the United
States Forest Service as Rangers or Forest Guards. The man who has done
well a Ranger's work, like the graduate of an engineering school who,
after graduation, has entered a machine shop as a hand, has acquired a
body of practical information and experience which will be invaluable to
him in the later practice of his profession, and which is far beyond the
reach of any man who has not been trained in the actual execution of
this work on the ground and in actual daily contact with the
multifarious uses and users of the forest.
THE FOREST SUPERVISOR
[Illustration: WESTERN YELLOW PINE SEED COLLECTED BY THE FOREST SERVICE
FOR PLANTING UP DENUDED LANDS]
The Supervisor is the general manager of a National Forest. The
responsibility for the protection, care, and use of it falls upon him,
under the direction of the District Forester. The Supervisor is
responsible for making the use of his forest as valuable and as
convenient as possible for the people in and around the area of which he
has charge. He deals with the organizations of forest users, such as
local stock associations, and issues permits for grazing live stock in
the forest. Permits for cutting small amounts of timber are granted by
him, and he advertises in the papers the sale of larger amounts and
receives bids from prospective purchasers; keeps the accounts of his
forest; and makes regular reports on a variety of important subjects,
such as the personnel of his forest force, the permanent improvements
made or to be made, the permits issued for regular and special uses of
the forest and for free use of timber and forage, the number and kinds
of predatory animals killed, the amount of forest planting accomplished,
and the expense and losses from forest fires. He has general oversight
of the roads, trails, and other improvements on his forest; and prepares
plans for the extension of them. In particular, he directs, controls,
and inspects the work of the Ranger and Guards, and in general, he
attends to the thousand and one matters which go to adjusting the use of
the forest to the needs of the men who use it, and on which depends
whether the forest is well or badly thought of among the people whose
coöperation or opposition have so much to do with making its management
successful or otherwise.
The Supervisor spends about half his time in the office and half in the
field, inspecting the work of his men and consulting with them, meeting
local residents or associations of local residents who have propositions
to submit for improving the service of the forest to them, or for
correcting mistakes, or who wish to lay before the Supervisor some one
of the numberless matters in which the forest affects their welfare. The
usefulness of the Supervisor depends as much upon his good judgment, his
ability to meet men and do business with them, and his knowledge of
local needs and local affairs, as it does upon his knowledge of the
forest itself. As in the case of every superior officer, his attitude
toward his work, his energy, his good sense, and his good will are or
should be reflected in the men under him, so that his position is one of
the greatest importance in determining the success or failure of each
National Forest, and hence of the Forest Service as a whole. More and
more of the trained Foresters in the Service are seeking and securing
appointments as Forest Supervisors because of the interest and
satisfaction they find in the work. Such men handle both the
professional and business sides of forest management. Many of their
duties, therefore, are described in the succeeding chapter.
The position of Supervisor is in many respects the most desirable a
trained Forester can occupy in the Forest Service, and the most
responsible of the field positions.
THE TRAINED FORESTER
To each forest where timber cutting has become important there are
assigned one or more Forest Assistants or Forest Examiners. These are
professionally trained Foresters. They are subordinate upon each forest
to the Supervisor as manager, but it is their work which has most to do
with deciding whether the Forest Service in general is to be successful
or is to fail in the great task of preserving the forest by wise use.
The Forest Assistant secures his position with the Service by passing an
examination devised to test his technical knowledge and his ability.
After he has served two years as Forest Assistant the quality and
quantity of his work will have determined his fitness to continue in
the employ of the Government. If he is unfit he may be dropped, for
there are many young and ambitious men ready to step into his place. If
he makes good he is promoted to the grade of Forest Examiner and is put
definitely in charge of certain lines of professional work; always, of
course, under the direction of the Supervisor, of whom he becomes the
adviser on all problems involving technical forestry.
The most important tasks of the trained Forester on a National Forest
are the preparation of working plans for the use of the forest by
methods which will protect and perpetuate it as well, and the carrying
out of the plans when made. This is forestry in the technical sense of
the word. It involves a thorough study of the kinds of timber, their
amount and location, their rate of growth, their value, the ease or
difficulty of their reproduction, and the methods by which the timber
can be cut at a profit and at the same time the reproduction of the
forest can be safely secured. A working plan usually includes a
considerable number of maps, which often have to be drawn in the first
place from actual surveys on the ground by the Forest Examiner. These
maps contain the information secured by working-plan studies, and are of
the first necessity for the wise and skilful handling of the forest.
They often constitute, also, most important documents in the history of
its condition and use.
On many of the National Forests the need for immediate use of the timber
is so urgent and so just that there is no time to prepare elaborate
working plans. Timber sales must be made, and made at once; but they
must be made, nevertheless, in a way that will fully protect the future
welfare of the forest. Whether working plans can be prepared or not, a
most important duty of the technical Forester is to work out the
conditions under which a given body of timber can be cut with safety to
the forest, especially with safety to its reproduction and future
growth. The principal study for a timber sale will usually include an
examination of the general features and condition of the forest, and the
determination of the diameter down to which it is advisable to cut the
standing trees, a diameter which must be fixed at such a size as will
protect the forest and make the lumbering pay. It will include also an
investigation, more or less thorough and complete, as the conditions
warrant, of the silvical habits of one or more of the species of trees
in that forest. The areas which form natural units for the logging and
transportation of the timber must be worked out and laid off, and
careful estimates, or measurements, of the amount of standing timber and
of its value on the stump must be made, as well as of the cost of
moving it to the mill or to the railroad.
The Forest Examiner must also consider, in many cases, the building of
logging roads or railroads, timber slides, etc., and must make a careful
study of the material into which the trees to be cut can best be worked
up, and of the value of such material in the market. Most of all,
however, he must study, think over, and decide what he will recommend as
to the conditions which are to govern the logging conditions by which
the protection of the forest is to be insured. These conditions, fixed
by his superiors upon the report of the Forest Examiner, determine
whether an individual timber sale is forestry or forest destruction.
This is the central question in the administration of the National
Forests from the national point of view.
The principal objects of the conditions laid down for a timber sale are
always the reproduction of the forest and its safety against fire.
Natural reproduction from self-sown seed is almost invariably the result
desired; and so the question of the seed trees to be left, and how they
are to be located or spaced, is fundamental, unless there is ample young
growth already on the ground. In the latter case this young growth must
not be smashed or bent by throwing the older trees on top of it, or
against it, and the young saplings bent down by the felled tops must be
promptly released.
In order to avoid danger to the young growth already present or to be
secured, as well as to protect the older trees from fires, the slash
produced in lumbering, the tops lopped from the trees up to and beyond
the highest point to which the lumbermen are required to take the logs,
must be satisfactorily disposed of--either by scattering it thinly over
the ground, by piling and burning, or often by piling alone.
These and many other conditions of sale must be studied out in a form
adapted to each particular case, and must be discussed with the men who
propose to buy, who often have wise and practical suggestions to make.
Similar questions on a less important scale present themselves and must
be answered in the matter of small timber sales, and of timber given
without charge under free-use permits to settlers and others.
When the terms of a contract of sale have been worked out and accepted
and the timber has been sold, then the Forest Assistant has charge of
the extremely interesting task of marking the trees that are to be cut,
in accordance with these terms. Usually this is done by marking all the
trees which are to be felled, but sometimes by marking only the trees
which are to remain.
The marking is usually done by blazing each tree and stamping the
letters "U. S." upon the blaze with a Government marking axe or hatchet.
It must be done in such a way that the loggers will have no excuse
either for cutting an unmarked tree or leaving a marked tree uncut, or
_vice versa_, as the case may be. The marking may be carried out by the
Rangers and Forest Guards under supervision of the Forest Assistant, or
in difficult situations he may mark or direct the marking of each tree
himself. Marking is fascinating work.
Later, while the logging is under way, the Forest Examiner will often
inspect it to see that the terms of the sale are complied with, that the
trees cut are thrown in places where they will not unduly damage either
young growth or the larger trees which are to remain, and that the other
conditions laid down for the logging in the contract of sale are
observed. The scaling of the logs to determine the amount of payment to
the Government will many times be under his supervision, although in the
larger sales this work, as well as the routine inspection of the
logging, is usually carried out by a special body of expert lumbermen,
who often bring to it a much wider knowledge of the woods than the men
in actual charge of the lumbering.
In nearly every National Forest there are areas upon which the trees
have been destroyed by fire. Many of these are so large or so remote
from seed-bearing trees that natural reproduction will not suffice to
replace the forest. In such localities planting is needed, and for that
purpose the Forest Examiner must establish and conduct a forest nursery.
The decision on the kind of trees to plant and on the methods of raising
and planting them, the collection of the seed, the care and
transplanting of the young trees until they are set out on the site of
the future forest, forms a task of absorbing interest. Such work often
requires a high degree of technical skill. It is likely to occupy a
larger and larger share of the time and attention of the trained men of
the Forest Service.
[Illustration: A FOREST EXAMINER RUNNING A COMPASS LINE]
The Forest Assistant's or Examiner's knowledge of surveying makes it
natural for him to take an important part in the laying out of new roads
and trails in the forest, or in correcting the lines of old ones, and
there is little work more immediately useful. The forest can be
safeguarded effectively just in proportion to the ease with which all
parts of it can be reached. Forest protection may be less technically
interesting than other parts of the Forester's work, but nothing that he
does is more important or pays larger dividends in future results.
In addition to his studies of the habits and reproduction of the
different trees for working plans or timber sales, or simply to increase
his knowledge of the forest, the Forest Examiner is often called upon to
lay out sample plots for ascertaining the exact relation of each species
to light, heat, and moisture, or for studying its rate of growth. He may
find it necessary to determine the effect of the grazing of cattle or
sheep on young growth of various species and of various ages, or to
ascertain their relative resistance to fire. In general, what time he
can spare from more pressing duties is very fully occupied with adding
to his silvical knowledge by observation, with studies of injurious
insects or fungi, of the reasons for the increase or decrease of
valuable or worthless species of trees in the forest, the innumerable
secondary effects of forest fires, the causes of the local distribution
of trees, or with some other of the thousand questions which give a
never-failing interest to work in the woods.
The protection of a valuable kind of tree often depends upon the ability
to find a use for, and therefore to remove, a less-valuable species
which is crowding it out, for as yet the American Forester can do very
little cutting or thinning that does not pay. Just so, the protection of
a given tract against fire may depend upon the ability to use, and
therefore to remove, a part or the whole of the dead and down timber
which now makes it a fire trap. For such reasons as these, the uses of
wood and the markets for its disposal form exceedingly important
branches of study for the Forest Examiner, who will usually find that
his duties require him to be thoroughly familiar with them.
It is more and more common to find each Forest Officer--Ranger, Forest
Examiner, or Supervisor--combining in himself the qualities and the
knowledge required to fill any or all of the other positions. The
professionally trained man who develops marked executive ability is
likely to become a Supervisor, just as a Ranger, with the necessary
training and experience, who may wish to devote himself to silvical
investigations may be transferred to that work. The point is that each
man has individual opportunity to establish and occupy the place for
which he is best fitted.
The success of the technical Forester, like that of the Ranger, and
indeed of nearly every Government Forest Officer, in whatever position
or line of work, will very frequently depend on his good judgment and
practical sense, the chief ingredient of which will always be his
knowledge of local needs and conditions, and his sympathetic
understanding of the local point of view. This does not mean that the
local point of view is always to control. On the contrary, the Forest
Officer must often decide against it in the interest of the welfare of
the larger public. But the desires and demands of the users of the
forest should always be given the fullest hearing and the most careful
consideration. To this rule there is no exception whatsoever.
PERSONAL EQUIPMENT
Forestry differs from most professions in this, that it requires as much
vigor of body as it does vigor of mind. The sort of man to which it
appeals, and which it seeks, is the man with high powers of observation,
who does not shrink from responsibility, and whose mental vigor is
balanced by physical strength and hardiness. The man who takes up
forestry should be little interested in his own personal comfort, and
should have and conserve endurance enough to stand severe physical work
accompanied by mental labor equally exhausting.
Foresters are still few in numbers, and the point of view which they
represent, while it is making immense strides in public acceptance, is
still far from general application. Therefore, Foresters are still
missionaries in a very real sense, and since they are so few, it is of
the utmost importance that they should stand closely together.
Differences of opinion there must always be in all professions, but
there is no other profession in which it is more important to keep these
differences from working out into animosities or separations of any
kind. We are fortunate above all in this, that American Foresters are
united as probably the members of no other profession. This _esprit de
corps_ has given them their greatest power of achievement, and any man
who proposes to enter the profession should do so with this fact clearly
in mind.
The high standard which the profession of forestry, new in the United
States, has already reached, its great power for usefulness to the
Nation, now and hereafter, and the large responsibilities which fall so
quickly on the men who are trained to accept it--all these things give
to the profession a position and dignity which it should be the first
care of every man who enters it to maintain or increase.
To stand well at graduation is or ought to be far less the object of a
Forester's training than to stand well ten or twenty years after
graduation. It is of the first importance that the training should be
thorough and complete.
A friend of mine, John Muir, says that the best advice he can give young
men is: "Take time to get rich." His idea of getting rich is to fill
his mind and spirit full with observations of the nature he so deeply
loves and so well understands; so that in his mind it is not money which
makes riches, but life in the open and the seeing eye.
Next to those basic traits of personal character, without which no man
is worth his salt, the Forester's most important quality is the power of
observation, the power to note and understand, or seek to understand,
what he sees in the forest. It is just as essential a part of the
Forester's equipment to be able to see what is wrong with a piece of
forest, and what is required for its improvement, as it is necessary for
a physician to be able to diagnose a disease and to prescribe the
remedy.
Silvics, which may be said to be the knowledge of how trees behave in
health and disease toward each other, and toward light, heat, moisture,
and the soil, is the foundation of forestry and the Forester's first
task is to bring himself to a high point of efficiency in observing and
interpreting these facts of the forest, and to keep himself there. It
should be as hard work to walk through the forest, and see what is there
to be seen, as to wrestle with the most difficult problem of
mathematics. No man can be a good Forester without that quality of
observation and understanding which the French call "the forester's
eye." It is not the only quality required for success in forestry, but
it is unquestionably the first.
Perhaps the second among the qualities necessary for the Forester is
common sense, which most often simply means a sympathetic understanding
of the circumstances among which a man finds himself. The American
Forester must know the United States and understand its people. Nothing
which affects the welfare of his country should be indifferent to him.
Forestry is a form of practical statesmanship which touches the national
life at so many points that no Forester can safely allow himself to
remain ignorant of the needs and purposes of his fellow citizens, or to
be out of touch with the current questions of the day. The best citizen
makes the best Forester, and no man can make a good Forester unless he
is a good citizen also.
The Forester can not succeed unless he understands the problems and
point of view of his country, and that is the reason why Foresters from
other lands were not brought into the United States in the early stages
of the forest movement. At that time practically no American Foresters
had yet been trained, and the great need of the situation was for men to
do the immediately pressing work. Foresters from Germany, France,
Switzerland, and other countries could have been obtained in abundant
numbers and at reasonable salaries. They were not invited to come
because, however well trained in technical forestry, they could not have
understood the habits of thought of our people. Therefore, in too many
cases, they would have failed to establish the kind of practical
understanding which a Forester must have with the men who use, or work
in, his forest, if he is to succeed. It was wiser to wait until
Americans could be trained, for the practising Forester must handle men
as well as trees.
One of the most difficult things to do in any profession which involves
drudgery (and I take it that no profession which does not involve
drudgery is worth the attention of a man) is to look beyond the daily
routine to the things which that routine is intended to assist in
accomplishing. This is peculiarly true of forestry, in which, perhaps
more than in any other profession, the long-distance, far-sighted
attitude of mind is essential to success. The trees a Forester plants he
himself will seldom live to harvest. Much of his thought about his
forest must be in terms of centuries. The great object for which he is
striving of necessity can not be fully accomplished during his lifetime.
He must, therefore, accustom himself to look ahead, and to reap his
personal satisfaction from the planned and orderly development of a
scheme the perfect fruit of which he can never hope to see.
This is one of the strongest reasons why the Forester, whether in public
or private employment, must always look upon himself as a public
servant. It is of the first importance that he should accustom himself
to think of the results of his work as affecting, not primarily himself,
but others, always including the general public. It is essential for a
Forester to form the habit of looking far ahead, out of which grows a
sound perspective and persistence in body and mind.
One of the greatest football players of our time makes the distinction
between a player who is "quick" and a player who is "soon." In his
description, the "quick" player is the man who waits until the last
moment and then moves with nervous and desperate haste in the little
time he has left. The man who is "soon," however, almost invariably
arrives ahead of the man who is "quick," because he has thought out in
advance exactly where he is going and how to get there, and when the
moment comes he does not delay his start, makes no false motions, and
thereby makes and keeps himself efficient. Forestry is preëminently a
profession for the "soon" man, for it is the steady preparation long in
advance, the well-thoughtout plan well stuck to, which in forestry
brings success.
In my experience, men differ comparatively little in mere ability, in
the quality of the mental machine, through which the spirit works. Nine
times out of ten, it is not ability which brings success, but
persistence and enthusiasm, which are usually, but not always, the same
as vision and will. We all have ability enough to do the things which
lie before us, but the man with the will to keep everlastingly at it,
and the vision to realize the meaning and value of the results for which
he is striving, is the man who wins in nearly every case. This is true
in all human affairs, but it is peculiarly true of the Forester and his
task, the end of which lies so far ahead.
In a class below me at Phillips-Exeter Academy was a boy who had just
entered the school. His great ambition was to play football, and he
came to the practise day after day. His abilities, however, were
apparently not on the same plane with his ambitions, and his work was so
ridiculously poor that he became the laughing stock of the whole school.
That, however, troubled him not at all. What held his mind was football.
Undiscouraged and undismayed, he kept on playing football until in his
last year he became captain of the Exeter football team.
Every man of experience has known many similar cases. It is clear, I
think, that the master qualities in achievement are neither luck nor
mere ability, but rather enthusiasm and persistence, or vision and will.
In a peculiar sense the Forester depends upon public opinion and public
support for the means of carrying on his work, and for its final
success. But the attention which the public gives or can give to any
particular subject varies, and of necessity must vary, from time to
time. Under these circumstances, it is inevitable that the Forester must
meet discouragements, checks, and delays, as well as periods of smooth
sailing. He should expect them, and should be prepared to discount them
when they come. When they do come, I know of no better way of reducing
their bad effects than for a man to make allowance for his own state of
mind. He who can stand off and look at himself impartially, realizing
that he will not feel to-morrow as he feels to-day, has a powerful
weapon against the temporary discouragements which are necessarily met
in any work that is really worth while. Progress is always in spirals,
and there is always a good time coming. There is nothing so fatal to
good work as that flabby spirit under which some weak men try to hide
their inefficiency--the spirit of "What's the use?"
It has been the experience of every Forester, as he goes about the
country, to be told that a certain mountain is impassable, that a
certain trail can not be travelled, that a certain stream can not be
crossed, and to find that mountain, trail, and stream can all be passed
with little serious difficulty by a man who is willing to try. Most
things said to be impossible are so only in the mind of the man whose
timidity or inertness keeps him from making the attempt. The whole story
of the establishment and growth of the United States Forest Service is a
story of the doing of things which the men who did them were warned in
advance would be impossible. Usually the thing which "can't be done" is
well worth trying.
Perhaps I ought to add that I am not urging the young Forester to
disregard local public opinion without the best of reasons, or to rush
his horse blindly into the ford of a swollen stream. Good sense is the
first condition of success. I am merely saying that in ninety-nine cases
out of a hundred, when a thing ought to be done it can be done, if the
effort is made with that idea in mind.
All this is but one way of saying that the Forester should be his own
severest taskmaster. The Forester must keep himself up to his own work.
In no other profession, to my knowledge, is a man thrown so completely
on his own responsibility. The Forester often leads an isolated life for
weeks or months at a time, seeing the men under whom he works only at
distant intervals. Because he is so much his own master, the
responsibility which rests upon him is peculiarly his own, and must be
met out of the resources within himself.
The training of a Forester should lead him to be practical in the right
sense of that word, which emphatically is not the sense of abandoning
standards of work or conduct in order to get immediate results. The
"practical" men with whom the Forester must do his work--lumbermen,
cattlemen, sheepmen, settlers, forest users of all kinds--are often by
very much his superiors in usable knowledge of the details of their
work. Their opinions are entitled to the most complete hearing and
respect. There is no other class of men from whose advice the Forester
can so greatly profit if he chooses to do so. He is superior to them, if
at all, only in his technical knowledge, and in the broader point of
view he has derived from his professional training. It is of the first
importance that the young Forester should know these men, should learn
to like and respect them, and that he should get all the help he can
from their knowledge and practical experience. The willingness to use
the information and assistance which such men were ready to give has
more than once meant the difference between failure and success.
The young Forester, like other young men, is likely to be impatient. I
do not blame him for it. Rightly directed, his impatience may become one
of his best assets. But it will do no harm to remember, also, that the
human race has reached its present degree of civilization and
advancement only step by step, and that it seems likely to proceed in
very much the same way hereafter. As a general rule, results slowly and
painfully accomplished are lasting. The results to be achieved in
forestry must be lasting if they are to be valuable.
In general, the men with whom the Forester deals can adopt, and in many
cases, ought to adopt, a new point of view but slowly. To fall in love
at first sight with theories or policies is as rare as the same
experience is between persons. As a rule, an intellectual conviction,
however well founded, must be followed by a period of incubation and
growth before it can blossom into a definite principle of action, before
the man who holds it is ready to work or fight in order to carry it out.
There is a rate in the adoption of new ideas beyond which only the most
unusual circumstances will induce men's minds to move. Forestry has gone
ahead in the United States faster than it ever did in any other land. If
it proceeds a little less rapidly, now that so much of the field has
been won, there will be no reason for discouragement in that.
AS A SUBORDINATE OFFICER
Necessarily the young Forester will begin as a subordinate. How soon he
will come to give orders of his own will depend on how well he executes
the orders of his superior. In particular, it will depend on whether he
requires to be coddled in doing his work, or whether he is willing and
able to stand on his own feet. The man for whom every employer of men is
searching, everywhere and always, is the man who will accept the
responsibility for the work he has to do--who will not lean at every
point upon his superior for additional instructions, advice, or
encouragement.
There is no more valuable subordinate than the man to whom you can give
a piece of work and then forget about it, in the confident expectation
that the next time it is brought to your attention it will come in the
form of a report that the thing has been done. When this master quality
is joined to executive power, loyalty, and common sense, the result is a
man whom you can trust. On the other hand, there is no greater nuisance
to a man heavily burdened with the direction of affairs than the
weak-backed assistant who is continually trying to get his chief to do
his work for him, on the feeble plea that he thought the chief would
like to decide this or that himself. The man to whom an executive is
most grateful, the man whom he will work hardest and value most, is the
man who accepts responsibility willingly, and is not continually under
his feet.
AS A SUPERIOR OFFICER
The principles of effective administrative work have never, so far as I
know, been adequately classified and defined. When they come to be
stated one of the most important will be found to be the exact
assignment of responsibility, so that whatever goes wrong the
administrative head will know clearly and at once upon whom the
responsibility falls. This is one of the reasons why, as a rule, boards
and commissions are far less effective in getting things done than
single men with clear-cut authority and equally clear-cut
responsibility. Another principle, so well known that it has almost
become a proverb, is to delegate everything you can, to do nothing that
you can get someone else to do for you. But the wisdom of letting a good
man alone is less commonly understood. It is sometimes as important for
the superior officer not to worry his subordinate with useless orders as
it is for the subordinate not to harass his superior with useless
questions.
Let a good man alone. Give him his head. Nothing will hold him so
rigidly to his work as the feeling that he is trusted. Lead your men in
their work, and above all make of your organization not a monarchy,
limited or unlimited, but a democracy, in which the responsibility of
each man for a particular piece of work shall not only be defined but
recognized, in which the credit for each man's work, so far as possible,
shall be attached to his own name, in which the opinions and advice of
your subordinates are often sought before decisions are made; in a word,
a democracy in which each man feels a personal responsibility for the
success of the whole enterprise.
The young Forester may be years removed from the chance to apply these
principles in practice, but since no superior officer can put them into
fruitful effect without the coöperation of his subordinates, it is well
that they should be known at both ends of the line.
A PUBLIC SERVANT
I repeat that whether a Forester is engaged in private work or in public
work, whether he is employed by a lumberman, an association of
lumbermen, a fishing and shooting club, the owner of a great estate, or
whether he is an officer of a State or of the Nation, by virtue of his
profession he is a public servant. Because he deals with the forest, he
has his hand upon the future welfare of his country. His point of view
is that which must control its future welfare. He represents the planned
and orderly development of its resources. He is the representative also
of the forest school from which he graduates, and of his profession.
Upon the standards which he helps to establish and maintain, the welfare
of these, too, directly depends.
STATE FOREST WORK
The work of the States in forestry is still in the pioneer stage, and
the work of a State Forester must still bear largely on the creation of
a right public sentiment in forest matters. In State forestry the need
for agitation has by no means passed. It is often the duty of the State
Forester to prepare or endeavor to secure the passage of good State
forest laws, or to interpose against the enactment of bad laws. In
particular, much of his time is likely to be given to legislation upon
the subjects of forest fires and forest taxation. Upon the latter there
is as yet no sound and effective public opinion in many parts of the
United States, and legislatures and people still do not understand how
powerful bad methods of forest taxation have been and still are in
forcing the destructive cutting of timber by making it impossible to
wait for the better methods of lumbering which accompany a better
market. I have known the taxes on standing timber to equal six per cent.
a year on the reasonable value of the stumpage.
Thirteen States have State Forests with a total area altogether of
3,400,000 acres. Of these New York has the largest area. Its State
Forests cover 1,645,000 acres, partly in the Adirondacks and partly in
the Catskills; Pennsylvania comes next with nine hundred and eighty-four
thousand acres; and Wisconsin third, with about four hundred thousand
acres.
Twenty-nine States make appropriations for forest work. Excluding
special appropriations for courses in forestry at universities,
colleges, and schools, the total amount spent for this purpose is about
$1,340,000. Pennsylvania has the largest appropriation,--three hundred
and twenty-eight thousand dollars, in addition to which a special
appropriation of two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars has been
devoted to checking the chestnut blight. Minnesota comes second with two
hundred and thirty-three thousand dollars; New York third with about
one hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars, and Wisconsin next with
ninety-five thousand dollars.
Thirty-three States have State forest officers, of whom fifteen are
State Foresters by title, while the majority of the remainder perform
duties of a very similar nature.
Eleven States are receiving assistance from the Federal Government under
the Weeks law, which authorizes coöperation for fire protection,
provided the State will furnish a sum equal to that allotted to it from
the National fund, with a limit of ten thousand dollars to a single
State.
For purposes of reforestation, ten States maintain forest nurseries.
During the year 1912 they produced in round numbers twenty million young
trees, of which fourteen million were distributed to the citizens of
these ten States.
In some States the waterpower question falls within the sphere of the
State Forester, as well as other similar Conservation matters, while it
has usually been made his duty to assist private timberland owners in
the handling of their holdings, whether these be the larger holdings of
lumber companies or the farmers' woodlots. In many States the State
Forester is made responsible for the enforcement of the State forest
fire laws, and for the control and management of a body of State fire
wardens, who may or may not be permanently employed in that work. The
enforcement of laws which exempt timberlands or lands planted to timber
from taxation, or limit the taxation upon them, are also usually under
his supervision.
The work of forestry in the various States being on the whole much less
advanced than it is in the Nation, the State Forester must still occupy
himself largely with those preliminary phases of the work of forestry
through which the National Forest Service has already passed. Much
progress, however, is being made, and we may fairly count not only that
State forest organizations will ultimately exist in every State, but
that the State Foresters will exert a steadily increasing influence on
forest perpetuation in the United States.
THE FOREST SERVICE IN WASHINGTON
A description of what a Forester has to do which did not include the
work of the Government Foresters at the National Capital would
necessarily be incomplete. The following outline may, therefore, help to
round out the picture.
The Washington headquarters of the Forest Service are directly in charge
of the Forester and his immediate assistants. The Forester has general
supervision of the whole Service. It is he who, with the approval of the
Secretary of Agriculture, determines the general policy which is to
govern the Service in the very various and numerous matters with which
it has to deal. He keeps his hand upon the whole machinery of the
Service, holds it up to its work, and in general is responsible for
supplying it with the right spirit and point of view, without which any
kind of efficiency is impossible.
The Forester prepares the estimates, or annual budget, for the
expenditures of the Service, and appears before Committees of Congress
to explain the need for money, and otherwise to set forth or defend the
work upon which the Service is engaged. His immediate subordinates spend
a large part of their time in the field inspecting the work of the
Service and keeping its tone high. Their reports to the Forester keep
him thoroughly advised as to the situation on all the National Forests,
so that he may wisely meet each question as it comes up, and adjust the
regulations and routine business methods of the Service to the
constantly changing needs of the people with whom it deals.
Being responsible for the personnel of the Forest Service, the Forester
recommends to the Secretary of Agriculture, by whom the actual papers
are issued, all appointments to it, as well as promotions, reductions,
and dismissals. Under his immediate eye also is the very important and
necessary work of making public the information collected by the Service
for the use of the people. Since 1900, 370 publications of the Service
have been issued, with a total circulation of 11,198,000 copies.
The publications of the United States Forest Service include by far the
most and the best information upon the forests of this country which has
until now been assembled and printed. Hence, the prospective student of
forestry can do nothing better than to write to The Forester,
Washington, D. C. (which is the correct address), for the annotated
catalogue of these publications which is sent free to all applicants,
and then to secure and study such of the bulletins and circulars as best
meet his individual needs. If he looks forward to entering the United
States Forest Service, he should not fail to get also the Use Book, the
volume of directions and regulations in accordance with which the
National Forests are protected, developed, and made available and useful
to the people of the regions in which they lie.
The dendrological work of the Service, which has to do with forest
distribution, the identification of tree species and other forest
botanical work, is also under the immediate supervision of the Forester,
and the Chief Lumberman reports directly to him.
In addition to the work which falls immediately under the eye of the
Forester, and which used to, but does not now, include the legal work
necessary to support and promote the operations of the Service, there
are seven principal parts, or branches, in the work of the Washington
headquarters. The first of these is the Branch of Accounts, whose work I
need not describe further than to say that the Service has always owed a
very large part of its safety against the bitter attacks of its enemies
to the accuracy, completeness, and general high quality of its
accounting system.
The second branch, that of Operation, has charge of the business
administration both of the National Forests and of the other work of
the Forest Service. Here the business methods which are necessary to
keep the organization at a high state of efficiency are formulated, put
in practice, and constantly revised, for it is only by such revision
that they can be kept, as they are kept, at a level with the very best
practice of the best modern business. There are very few Government
bureaus of which this can be said. The Branch of Operation is
responsible for the adoption and enforcement of labor-saving devices in
correspondence, in handling requisitions, and in the filing and care of
papers generally, and for the supply of stationery, tools, and
instruments, and the renting of quarters,--in a word, for the whole of
the more or less routine transaction of business which is essential to
keep so large an organization at the highest point of efficiency.
[Illustration: BRUSH PILING IN A NATIONAL FOREST TIMBER SALE]
The office work needed in the mapping of the National Forests, with
all their resources, boundaries, and interior holdings, is in charge of
the Branch of Operation. So is the immense amount of drafting which is
necessary in the other work of the Service, and the photographic
laboratory in which maps are reproduced and where permanent photographic
records of the condition of the forest are made.
The third branch, that of Silviculture, is the most important of all. It
has oversight of the practice of forestry on all the National Forests,
and of all scientific forest studies in the National Forests and
outside. It is here that the conditions in the contracts under which the
larger timber sales are made are finally examined and approved, and here
are found the inspectors whose duty it is not only to see that the work
is well done, but to labor constantly for improvements in methods as
well as in results. Here centres the preparation of forest working
plans, and the knowledge of lumber and the lumber markets.
The Branch of Silviculture has charge also of National coöperation for
the advancement of forestry with the several States, and in particular
for fire protection under the Weeks law. This form of coöperation has
made the knowledge and equipment of the Forest Service available for the
study of State forest resources and forest problems, and much of the
progress in forestry made by the States is directly due to it.
Under the Branch of Silviculture, the Office of Forest Investigations
brings together all that is known of the nature and growth of trees in
this country, and to some extent in other countries also, conducts
independent studies of the greatest value in developing better methods
of securing the reproduction of important forest trees, and computes
the enormous number of forest measurements dealing with the stand and
the rate of growth of trees and forests that are turned in by the
parties engaged in forest investigation in the field. Under the Office
of Forest Investigations, studies in forest distribution and in the
structure of wood are carried on, and it includes the Library of the
Forest Service, by far the most complete and effective forest library in
the United States.
The fourth branch, that of Grazing, supervises the use of the National
Forests for pasture. Over the greater part of the West, this was the
first use to which the forests were put, and an idea of its magnitude
may be gathered from the fact that every year the National Forests
supply feed for about a million and a half cattle and horses, and more
than fourteen million sheep. It is no easy task to permit all this live
stock to utilize the forage which the National Forests produce, and yet
do little or no harm to the young growth on which the future of the
forest depends. To exclude the grazing animals altogether is impossible
and undesirable, for to do so would ruin the leading industry in many
portions of the West. Consequently, many of the most difficult and
perplexing questions in the practical administration of the National
Forests have occurred in the work of the Branch of Grazing, and have
there been solved, and many of the most bitter attacks upon it have
there been met.
The fifth branch, that of Lands, has to do with the questions which
arise from the use of the land in the National Forests for farming or
ranching, mining, and a very wide variety of other purposes, and with
the exceedingly numerous and intricate questions which arise because
there are about 21,100,000 acres of land within the boundaries of the
National Forests whose title has already passed from the Government. The
boundaries of the National Forests also are constantly being examined to
determine whether they include all the land, and only the land, to be
contained within them, and whether they should be extended or reduced.
The first permits for the use of waterpower sites on Government land
were issued by the Forest Service, and the policy which is just being
adopted by the Interior Department and other Government organizations in
their handling of waterpower questions was there first developed. These
permits are prepared in the Branch of Lands. The first steps toward
deterring men who attempt in defiance of the law to get possession of
lands claimed to be agricultural or mineral within the National Forests
are taken here, but the final decision on these points rests with the
Department of the Interior. The examination of lands to determine
whether they are agricultural in character, and therefore should be
opened to settlement, is directed from this Branch.
The uses to which National Forest lands are put are almost unbelievably
various. Barns, borrow pits, botanical gardens, cemeteries and churches,
dairies and dipping vats, fox ranches and fish hatcheries, hotels,
pastures, pipe lines, power sites, residences, sanitaria and
school-houses, stores and tunnels, these and many others make up, with
grazing and timber sales, the uses of the National Forests, for which
already more than half a million permits have been issued. This work
also falls to the Branch of Lands.
The sixth branch, that of Forest Products, is concerned with the whole
question of the uses of wood and other materials produced by the forest.
Its principal work is conducted through the Forest Products Laboratory,
in coöperation with the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Here timber
is tested to ascertain its strength, the products of wood distillation
are investigated, wood pulp and paper studies of large reach are carried
on, the methods of wood preservation and the results of applying them
are in constant course of being examined, and the diseases of trees and
of wood are studied in coöperation with the Bureau of Plant Industry of
the United States Department of Agriculture. The consumption of wood,
and the production of lumber and forest products, are also the subject
of continuous investigation, and various necessary special studies are
undertaken from time to time. At the moment, an effort is under way to
find new uses and new markets for wood killed by the chestnut blight in
the northeastern United States.
The seventh branch has to do with the study, selection, and acquisition
of lands under the Weeks law, in accordance with which eight million
dollars was appropriated for the purchase of forest lands valuable for
stream protection, with particular reference to the Southern
Appalachians and the White Mountains of New England. The examination of
the amount of merchantable timber on lands under consideration for
purchase, the study of the character of the land and the forest, and the
survey of the land keep a numerous body of young men very fully
occupied. Their task is to see that none but the right land is
recommended for acquisition by the Government, that the nature and value
of the lands selected shall be most thoroughly known, and that the
constant effort to make the Government pay unreasonable prices or
purchase under unfavorable conditions shall as constantly be defeated.
The same branch takes charge of the lands as soon as they have been
acquired.
The foregoing description of the work which is done in Washington by the
Forest Service may help to make clear the great variety of tasks to
which a Forester may be required to set his hand, and emphasizes the
need of a broad training not strictly confined to purely technical
lines. It would be defective as a description, however, and would fail
to show the spirit in which the work is done, if no mention were made of
the Service Meeting, at which the responsible heads of each branch and
of the work of the Forester's office meet once a week to discuss every
problem which confronts the Service and every phase of its work. This
meeting is the centre where all parts of the work of the Service come
together and arrange their mutual coöperation, and it is also the spring
from which the essential democracy of the organization takes its rise.
The Service Meeting is the best thing in the Forest Service, and that is
saying a great deal.
It must not be imagined that the maintenance of Forest Service
headquarters in Washington indicates that the actual business of
handling the National Forests is carried on at long range. In order to
avoid any such possibility the six District offices were organized in
1908. These are situated at Missoula, Denver, Albuquerque, Portland,
Ogden, and San Francisco. Each of the District offices is in charge of a
District Forester, who directs the practical carrying out of the
policies finally determined upon in Washington, after consultation with
the men in the field. The execution of all the work, the larger features
of which the Washington office decides and directs (and the details of
which it inspects), is the task of the District Forester. The District
Forester's office is necessarily organized much on the same general
lines as the Washington headquarters. Thus, the subjects of accounts,
operation, silviculture, grazing, lands, and forest products are all
represented in the District offices. In addition, a legal officer is
necessarily attached to each District office, and each District Forester
has in his District one or more forest experiment stations, employed
mainly in studying questions of growth and reproduction; and three
forest insect field stations, maintained in coöperation with the Bureau
of Entomology, are divided among the six Districts.
[Illustration: FOREST RANGERS GETTING INSTRUCTION IN METHODS OF WORK
FROM A DISTRICT FOREST OFFICER]
While the work of the Washington office is mainly that of guiding the
work of the National Forests along broad general lines, through
instructions to the District Foresters, the office of each District
Forester deals directly with the Forest Supervisors, and so with the
handling of the National Forests. A multitude of questions which the
Supervisors can not answer are decided in the District office instead,
as was formerly the case, of being forwarded to Washington for disposal
there, with the consequent aggravating and needless delay. The
establishment of the District offices has made the handling of the
National Forests far less complicated and far more prompt, and has
brought it far closer than ever before to the actual users,--that is,
has made it far more quickly and accurately responsive to their needs.
PRIVATE FORESTRY
As yet, the practice of forestry by private owners, except for fire
protection, has made but little progress in the United States, although
without doubt it will be widely extended during the next ten or fifteen
years. The concentration of timberland ownership in the United States
has put a few men in control of vast areas of forest. Many of them are
anxious to prevent forest destruction, so far as that may be practicable
without interfering with their profits, and for that purpose Foresters
are beginning to be employed. Until now the principal tasks of Foresters
employed by lumbermen have been the measurement of the amount of lumber
in the standing crop of trees, and the protection of forest lands from
fire. Here and there the practice of a certain amount of forestry has
been added, but this part of the work of the private Forester employed
by lumbermen has not been important. It is likely, however, to increase
with some rapidity before long. In the meantime, the private Forester
must usually be willing to accept a good many limitations on the
technical side of his work.
It is essential for the Forester thus employed to have or promptly to
acquire a knowledge of practical lumbering, that is, of logging,
milling, and markets, and for the forest student who expects to enter
this work to give special attention to these subjects.
Already about 170 graduates of forest schools are in private employ, a
considerable proportion of which number are employed by large lumbermen.
The time is undoubtedly coming, and I hope it may come soon, when forest
destruction will be legally recognized as hostile to the public welfare,
and when lumbermen will be compelled by law to handle their forests so
as to insure the reproduction of them under reasonable conditions and
within a reasonable time. The idea is neither tyrannical nor new. In
democratic Switzerland, private owners of timberland are restrained by
law from destroying the forests upon which the welfare of that mountain
region so largely depends, and if they disobey, their forest lands are
replanted by the Government at the owners' expense.
Another opening for Foresters in the employ of lumbermen is through the
forest fire protective associations. Of these, two stand out most
conspicuously at the present time, one the Northwestern Conservation and
Forestry Association, the other the Oregon Forest Fire Association. Each
has as its executive officer a trained Forester whose knowledge of the
woods not only makes him exceedingly useful to his employers, but also,
when combined with the Forester's point of view, enables him to be of
great value in protecting the general interest in the forest.
The object and methods of one of the associations is described by its
Secretary as follows:
"A field hitherto narrow but continually broadening, and offering much
opportunity for those with peculiar qualifications, is the management of
the coöperative forest work carried on by timber owners in many
localities, often jointly with State and Government. This movement
originated in the Pacific Northwest, where it still has the highest
development, but is extending to the Lake States, New England, and
Canada.
"As a rule the primary object of these coöperative associations is fire
prevention and their local managers must have demonstrated ability to
organize effective patrol systems, build telephone lines, apply every
ingenuity to supplying and equipping their forces, and, above all, to
handle men in emergencies. But in most cases the association of forest
owners to this end has led also to progress in many other matters
inseparable from improvement, such as study of reforestation
possibilities, forest legislation, educating lumberman and public in
forest preservation, and the extension of coöperation in all these as
well as in fire prevention from private to State and federal agencies.
"The development of such activities is already employing several highly
paid men who can command the confidence, not only of forest owners, but
also of the public and of public officials. Advisers in legislative as
well as technical forestry matters and particularly proficient in all
that pertains to forest protection, their usefulness lies as much
outside their own association as within them, and to be successful they
must be skilful organizers and campaigners. It is these men who have
developed to its highest extent the adaptation to forestry propaganda of
modern publicity and advertising methods.
"As a rule, however, these may be described as graduate positions,
filled by men of experience and acquaintance with the several agencies
involved, rather than by newly fledged Foresters. A practical knowledge
of protection problems is essential."
Forestry associations offer a different, but often a most fascinating
field, of work for the trained Forester. There are at present 39 such
associations. The work which they offer has much in common with the
duties of a State Forester.
Fish and game associations are beginning to employ Foresters, realizing
that the wise handling of the forests may well go hand in hand with the
care of the game and fish which the forest shelters and protects.
Eventually nearly all such associations which control any considerable
body of land in timbered regions may be expected to utilize the services
of trained Foresters of their own.
In addition to the work for lumbermen and for associations of various
kinds, land owners in considerable variety have begun to employ
Foresters. Among these are coal and coke companies, iron companies, wood
pulp and paper companies which are beginning to look after their supply
of timber; powder, arms, and ammunition companies, hydraulic and water
companies; a great corporation engaged in the manufacture of matches;
and a number of railroads, including the Delaware and Hudson, the
Illinois Central, and the Pennsylvania. In addition to the need for
cross ties, railroads are among the largest consumers of lumber. The
Foresters who work for them are largely occupied with growing the wood
supplies which the railroads need, and nursery practice often occupies a
very large share of their attention.
FOREST SCHOOLS
Since the first one was founded in 1898, the number of forest schools in
the United States has increased so rapidly as to create a demand for
forest instructors which it has been exceedingly difficult to fill.
Indeed, the increase in secondary forest schools, or schools not of the
first grade, has doubtless been more rapid than the welfare of the
profession or the sound practice of forestry required, and the brisk
demand for teachers has led some men to take up the task of instruction
who were not well fitted for it.
There are in this country to-day 23 forest schools which prepare men for
the practice of forestry as a profession, and 51 schools which devote
themselves to general instruction in forestry or to courses for Forest
Rangers and Forest Guards. The approximate number of teachers in all
forest schools is at present 110, and this number will doubtless be
still further increased by the addition of new forest schools or the
expansion of old ones, while a certain number of places will be made
vacant by the retirement of men who find themselves better fitted for
other lines of work.
The teaching staff at three of the principal forest schools of the
country is as follows:
At School A, 5 men give their whole time to forest instruction, and 14
give courses in the forest school.
Schools B and C have each 4 men who give their whole time to the work;
and 4 and 20 respectively who give lectures or individual courses.
In addition to the work for lumbermen, associations, railroads, and
others just mentioned, an increasing number of Foresters are required to
care for the forests on large landed estates in different parts of the
country. Work of this kind is at present restricted almost entirely to
the East, and especially to New England, where several firms of
consulting Foresters give to it the larger portion of their time. Some
of the men thus employed are as fully occupied with the tasks of the
professional Forester as any of the men in the Government service, while
others give a part of their attention to the general management of the
property, or to the protection and propagation of game and fish.
THE OPPORTUNITY
GOVERNMENT SERVICE
There is no more useful profession than forestry. The opportunity to
make himself count in affairs of public importance comes earlier and
more certainly to the Forester than to the member of any other
profession. The first and most valuable, therefore, of the incentives
which lead the Forester to his choice is the chance to make himself of
use to his country and to his generation.
But if this is the first matter to be considered in deciding upon a
profession, it is by no means the last, and the practical considerations
of a fair return for good work, bread and butter for a man and his
family, the certainty or uncertainty of employment,--such questions as
these must have their full share of attention.
There are in the United States Forest Service 1059 Forest Guards, 1247
Forest Rangers, 233 Supervisors, and Deputy Supervisors, and 115 Forest
Assistants and 177 Forest Examiners who, as already explained, are the
technical men in charge of practical forestry on the National Forests.
The six District offices together include in their membership about 50
professional Foresters, and about 65 more are attached to the
headquarters at Washington, so that allowing for duplications there are
about 335 trained Foresters in the United States Forest Service.
The number of new appointments to the Forest Service in the different
permanent grades varies from year to year but may be said to be
approximately as follows: Rangers, 240 new appointments; Forest
Assistants, 35; other technical positions, 10. All appointments as
Supervisor are by promotion from the lists of Forest Rangers or Forest
Examiners.
The yearly pay of the Forest Guard, who, like the Ranger, must be a
citizen of the State in which his work lies, is from $420 to $900.
Forest Rangers, who enter the Service through Civil Service examination,
receive from $1100 to $1500 per annum. Forest Supervisors, practically
all of whom are men of long experience in forest work, receive from
$1600 to $2700 per annum. Forest Assistants enter the Forest Service
through Civil Service examination at a salary of $1200 per annum, and
are promoted to a maximum salary of $2500 per annum, as Forest
Examiners. Professional Foresters at work in the District offices are
recruited mainly from among the Forest Assistants and Examiners. They
receive from $1100 to $3200 yearly. The technical men in charge at
Washington get from $1100 to $5000 per annum, which last is the pay of
the Forester, at the head of the Service.
STATE SERVICE
The pay of the State Foresters, or other trained Foresters in charge of
State work, ranges from $1800 to $4000, and that of their technical
assistants from $1000 to $2500. Out of the total number, only 2 are
directly in charge of their own work, responsible only to the Governor
and the Legislature, while 19 act as subordinates for State forest
commissions or commissioners, who in the majority of cases are political
appointees. In striking contrast with the United States Forest Service,
politics has so far been a dangerous, if not a dominating, influence in
the forest work of most of the States which have undertaken it.
Like the National Forests, the State Forests already in existence will
create an increasing demand for the service of technical Foresters.
Indeed, as similar forests are acquired by most of the States which are
now without them, as undoubtedly they will be, the extent of the
opportunity for professionally trained Foresters in State work is
certain to grow.
PRIVATE WORK
At present, the demand for Foresters in private work is far less
pressing and the opening is far less attractive than it will be in the
not distant future. The number of men that will be required for this
work will depend on the development of legislation as well as upon the
desire of the private owners, lumbermen and others, to protect and
improve their property. The time is coming, and coming before long, when
all private owners of forests in the mountains, or on steep slopes
elsewhere, will be required by law to provide for their protection and
reproduction. When that time arrives, the demand for Foresters in
private work will increase to very large dimensions, and will probably
do so far more rapidly than Foresters can be trained to supply it.
The pay of Foresters in private work, whether in the employ of
lumbermen, railroads, shooting and fishing clubs, the proprietors of
large private estates, or other forest owners, has so far been somewhat
better than that for similar services in Government employ. This money
difference in favor of private employment is, in my judgment, likely to
continue, and eventually the pay of consulting Foresters of established
reputation employed in passing upon the value of forests offered as
security for investments, or in estimating the standing timber for
purchasers or sellers, or in other professional work of large business
importance, will certainly reach very satisfactory figures.
TEACHING
Approximately 110 Foresters are engaged in teaching in the United States
to-day. Their pay varies from about $1000 to about $3000, and is likely
to increase rather more rapidly than that of other professional
teachers, since less of them are available. It is not likely, however,
that the number of openings in teaching forestry will be large within
the next ten years.
TRAINING
The length of time which his training is to take and the particular
courses of instruction which he shall pursue are to the young man
contemplating the study of forestry matters of the first importance. The
first thing to insist on in that connection is that the training must be
thorough. It is natural that a young man should be eager to begin his
life work and therefore somewhat impatient of the long grind of a
thorough schooling. But however natural, it is not the part of wisdom to
cut short the time of preparation. When the serious work of the trained
Forester begins later on, there will be little or no time to fill the
gaps left at school, and the earnest desire of the young Forester will
be that he had spent more time in his preparation rather than less. In
this matter I speak as one who has gathered a conviction from personal
experience, and believes he knows.
It would be useless to attempt to strike an average of the work
prescribed and the courses given at the various forest schools. I shall
describe, therefore, not an average system of instruction but one which,
in the judgment of men entitled to an opinion, and in my own judgment,
is sound, practical, and effective.
Forest schools may roughly be divided between those which do not prepare
men for professional work in forestry, and those which do. The latter
may be divided again into undergraduate schools and graduate schools.
Most of the former offer a four-year undergraduate course, and their
students receive their degrees at the same time as other members of the
University who entered at the same time with them. The graduate schools
require a college degree, or its equivalent in certain subjects, before
they will receive a student. The men who have completed their courses
have usually, therefore, pursued more extensive and more advanced
studies in forestry, are better trained, and are themselves older and
more ready to accept the responsibilities which forestry brings upon
them. For these reasons, the graduate school training is by far the more
desirable, in my opinion.
The subjects required for entrance to a graduate forest school should
include at least one full year in college botany, covering the general
morphology, histology, and physiology of plants, one course each in
geology, physics, inorganic chemistry, zoölogy, and economics, with
mathematics through trigonometry, and a reading knowledge of French or
German. Some acquaintance with mechanical drawing is also desirable but
not absolutely necessary. Other courses which are extremely desirable,
if not altogether essential, are mineralogy, meteorology, mechanics,
physical geography, organic chemistry, and possibly calculus, which may
be of use in timber physics.
One or two forest schools begin their course of training for the first
year in July instead of in October, in order to give their students some
acquaintance with the woods from the Forester's standpoint before the
more formal courses begin. The result of this plan is to give increased
vividness and reality to all the courses which follow the work in the
woods, to make clear the application of what is taught, and so to add
greatly to the efficiency of the teaching.
In addition to this preliminary touch with the woods, any wise plan of
teaching will include many forest excursions and much practical field
work as vitally important parts of the instruction. This outdoor work
should occur throughout the whole course, winter and summer, and in
addition, the last term of the senior year may well be spent wholly in
the woods, where the students can be trained in the management of
logging operations and milling, and can get their final practice work in
surveying and map-making, in preparing forest working plans, estimating
timber, laying out roads and trails, making plans for lumber operations,
and other similar practical work. Several of the best forest schools
have adopted this plan.
The regular courses of a graduate forest school usually cover a period
of two years. They should fit a student for nearly every phase of
professional work in forestry, and should give him a sound preparation
not merely for practical work in the woods, but also for the broader
work of forest organization in the Government Service in the United
States and in the Philippines, and in the service of the States; for
handling large tracts of private forest lands; for expert work in the
employ of lumbermen and other forest owners; for public speaking and
writing; for teaching; and for scientific research.
Every well equipped forest school will have a working library of books,
pamphlets, and lumber journals published here and abroad, an herbarium
at least of native trees and shrubs and of the more important forest
herbs, together with a collection of forest tree fruits and seeds, and
specimens of domestic and foreign timbers. Exhibits showing the uses of
woods and the various forms of tools used in lumbering, as well as the
apparatus for laboratory work and surveying, and forest instruments for
work in the field, are often of great value to the student.
What should a young man learn at a forest school? Doubtless there will
be some variation of opinion as to the exact course of study which will
best fit him for the work of a Forester in the United States. The
following list expresses the best judgment on the subject I have been
able to form:
DENDROLOGY:
The first step in forestry is to become acquainted with the various
kinds of trees. The coming Forester must learn to identify the woody
plants of the United States, both in summer and in winter. He must
understand their shapes and outward structures, and where they are
found, and he must begin his knowledge of the individual habits of
growth and life which distinguish the trees which are important in
forestry.
FOREST PHYSIOGRAPHY:
Trees grow in the soil. It is important to know something of the origin
of soils and their properties and values, and of the principal soil
types, with special reference to their effect upon plant distribution
and welfare. The origin, nature, value, and conservation of humus, that
most essential ingredient of the forest floor; the field methods of
mapping soil types; the rock types most important in their relation to
soils, how they are made up, how they make soil, and where they
occur--something should be learned of all this. Finally, under this
head, the student ought to get a usable knowledge of the physiographic
regions of the United States, their boundaries, geologic structure,
topography, drainage, and soils,--all this naturally with special
reference to the relation between these basic facts and the forest.
SILVICULTURE:
Silviculture is the art of caring for forests, and therefore the
backbone of forestry. It is based upon Silvics, which is the knowledge
of the habits or behavior of trees in their relations to light, heat,
and moisture, to the air and soil, and to each other. It is the facts
embraced in Silvics which explain the composition, character, and form
of the forest; the success or failure of tree species in competition
with each other; the distribution of trees and of forests; the
development of each tree in height, diameter, and volume; its form and
length of life; the methods of its reproduction; and the effect of all
these upon the nature and the evolution of the city of trees, and upon
forest types and their life histories.
This is knowledge the Forester can not do without. Silvics is the
foundation of his professional capacity, and as a student he can better
afford to scamp any part of his training rather than this. A man may be
a poor Forester who knows Silvics, but no man can be a good Forester who
does not.
The practice of Silviculture has to do with the treatment of woodlands.
The forest student must learn the different methods of reproducing
forests by different methods of cutting them down, and the application
of these methods in different American forest regions. There are also
many methods of cutting for the improvement of the character and growth
of forests, as well as for utilizing material that otherwise would go to
waste, before the final reproduction cuttings can be made. The ways in
which forests need protection are equally numerous, and of these by far
the most important in our country have to do with methods of preventing
or extinguishing forest fires.
Well managed forests are handled under working plans based on the
silvical character and silvicultural needs of the forest, as well as
upon the purpose set by the owner as the object of management, which is
often closely related to questions of forest finance. The student should
ground himself thoroughly in the making of silvicultural working plans,
and the more practice in making them he can get, the better. So, too,
with the marking of trees in reproduction and improvement cuttings under
as many different kinds of forest conditions as may be possible.
The artificial reproduction of forests is likely to occupy far more of
the Forester's attention in the future than it has in the past. Hence
the collection of tree seeds, their fertility and vitality as affecting
their handling, the best methods of seeding and planting, and the
lessons of past failures and successes, with the whole subject of
nursery work and the care of young plantations, must by no means be
overlooked.
Much incidental information on the subject of forest protection will
come to the student in the course of his studies, but special attention
should be given to learning which of the species of forest insects are
most injurious to forest vegetation, how their attacks are made, how
they may be discovered, and the best ways by which such attacks can be
mitigated or controlled. So also the diseases of timber trees will repay
hard study. The principal fungi which causes such diseases should be
known, how they attack the trees, and what are the remedies, as well as
(although this is far less important) the way to treat tree wounds and
the correct methods of pruning.
FOREST ECONOMICS:
Forest Economics is a large subject. It deals with the productive value
of forests to their owners, and with the larger question of their place
in the economy of the Nation. It considers their use as conservers of
the soil and the streams; their effect on climate, locally, as in the
case of windbreakers, and on a larger scale; and their contribution to
the public welfare as recreation grounds and game refuges. It includes a
knowledge of wastes from which the forests suffer, and the consequent
loss to industry and to the public, and in this it does not omit the
effects of forest fires. Statistics of forest consumption; the relation
of the forest to railroads, mines, and other wood-using industries; its
effect upon agriculture, stock raising, and manufacturing industries;
and its effect upon the use of the streams for navigation, power,
irrigation, and domestic water supply; all these are important. The
student should consider also the forest resources of the United States,
their present condition, and the needs they must be fitted to supply.
FOREST ENGINEERING:
Forest engineering is steadily becoming more and more necessary to the
Forester. He must have a working knowledge of the use of surveying
instruments; the making of topographic surveys; the office work required
of an engineer; the making of topographic maps; the location of trails,
roads, and railroads; and the construction of bridges, telephone lines,
cabins, and fences, together with logging railroads, slides, dams, and
flumes.
FOREST MENSURATION:
[Illustration: FOREST SERVICE MEN MAKING FRESH MEASUREMENTS IN THE
MISSOURI SWAMPS]
Forest mensuration, the art of measuring the contents and growth of
trees and forest stands, is of fundamental importance. The principles
and methods of timber estimating, the actual measurement of standing
timber, log rules, the making of stem analyses to show the increase of a
tree in diameter, height, and volume, the construction of tables of
current and mean annual growth per acre and per tree, and the methods of
using the information thus formulated,--all these are necessarily of
keen interest to the man who later on will have to apply his knowledge
in the practical management of woods.
FOREST MANAGEMENT:
Forest management is concerned with the principles involved in planning
the handling of forests. Questions of the valuation of forests form a
most essential part of it,--such questions as the cost of growing timber
crops, the value of land for that purpose, the value of young timber,
the valuation of damage to the forest, and the legal status of the
damage and the remedy.
Business principles are as necessary in the management of forests as in
the management of mills or farms. These business principles work out in
different forms of forest policy adapted to the needs of different kinds
of owners, such as lumbermen and the Government. What the young Forester
has learned about growth and yield, about timber estimates and forest
statistics, and many other matters, all finds its application in forest
management. He must also consider the methods and principles for
regulating the cut of timber, or for securing sustained annual yields.
All this forms the basis for the preparation of working plans for the
utilization of forests under American economic and silvicultural
conditions, not only without injury, but with benefit, to their
continued productiveness.
The subjects of forest surveying and working plans are intimately
related. Maps are indispensable in the practical work of making a forest
working plan. Topographic mapping, timber estimating, forest
description, and the location of logging roads, trails, and fire lines,
together with Silvics and a knowledge of growth and yield--these and
many other subjects enter into the making of a practical working plan to
harvest a forest crop and secure a second growth of timber. The student
should get all the practice he can in marking timber for cutting under
such a plan.
The young Forester must make himself familiar with the administration of
the National Forests. He must know how the business of the forest is
handled, how it is protected against fire, how the timber is sold, how
claims and entries are dealt with under the public land laws, how land
in the National Forests is used to make homes, how trespass is
controlled, how the livestock industry on the National Forests is
fostered and regulated, and how the extremely valuable watersheds they
contain are safeguarded and improved.
THE PRACTICE OF FORESTRY:
The practice of forestry is necessarily different in different kinds of
forests and under different economic conditions. All that the Forester
knows must here be applied, and applied in workable fashion, not only to
the forest, but to the men who use the forest. This is peculiarly true
of the practice of forestry in National and State Forests everywhere.
FOREST PRODUCTS:
Under this general subject, the forest student must acquaint himself,
through the microscope, with the minute anatomy of the woody stem of
coniferous and broadleaf trees, and the occurrence, form, structure, and
variability of the elements which make it up. He should become familiar
with the methods of classifying the economic woods of the United States,
both under the microscope and with the unassisted eye, and for this
purpose should know something of their color, gloss, grain, density,
odor, and resonance both as aids to identification and as to their
importance in giving value to the wood; the defects of timber; its
moisture content, density, shrinking, checking, warping; and the effect
of all these upon its uses.
The chemical composition of wood and of minor forest products, such as
tannins and dye stuffs, is important; the properties governing the fuel
value and the other values of wood must be studied, as well as the
methods of using these properties in the making of charcoal and wood
pulp, in wood distillation, the turpentine industry, in tanning and
dyeing, and in other industries.
A field of great importance is the relation between the physical
structure and the mechanical properties of wood. A student should inform
himself concerning the standard methods of testing the properties of
structural timber, by bending, compression, shearing, torsion, impact,
and the hardness and tension tests, with their relation to heat and
moisture, and the methods of seasoning, the use of preservatives, and
the effect of the rate of application of the load.
Woods vary as to their durability. It is important, therefore, to know
about the causes of decay, the decay-resisting power of various woods,
the relation of moisture content to durability, why the seasoning of
wood is effective, the theory and the commercial methods of wood
preservation, and its relation to the timber supply.
LUMBERING:
Lumbering the Forester should know more than a little about, as how to
organize lumber operations, the equipment and management of logging and
milling in various forest regions, the manufacture, seasoning, and
grading of the rough and finished lumber, cost keeping in a lumber
business, methods of sale, market requirements at home and abroad,
prices, the relation of the lumber tariff to forestry, lumber
associations, timber bonds, and insurance. The practical construction of
logging equipment, such as aerial tramways, log slides, dams, and
flumes, is of peculiar importance, and so are the conditions and changes
of the lumber market.
Experience on the land of some operating lumber company is of great
value. It should include a study of logging methods, log scaling, waste
in logging, the equipment and handling of the mill, the sawing and care
of rough and finished lumber, its grading, and so far as possible an
acquaintance with wood working plants of various kinds, and with the
operations of turpentine orcharding. Studies along these lines may with
advantage be almost indefinitely extended to include, for example the
utilization of steam machinery for logging, the improvement of streams
for driving logs, and other similar questions.
FOREST LAW:
The Forester must have at least a slight acquaintance with forest law,
both State and National. It is important to know something of the
general principles of classifying the public lands, of State laws for
fire protection, the development of forest policies in the various
States as legally expressed, and the important laws which govern the
creation and management of State forest reserves.
Forest taxation, State and local, which has, when excessive, so much to
do with hastening forest destruction, is one of the most important
questions which can engage the attention of the Forester.
Under the subject of Federal Forest Law, it is not sufficient for the
student to acquaint himself with those laws alone which govern the
forests. He must also have some knowledge of the creation of a forest
policy out of the public land policy of the United States, some
acquaintance with the public land laws. A good working knowledge of the
laws and regulations governing the National Forests is indispensable,
and the student should at least know where to find the more important
court decisions by which they are interpreted.
FOREST HISTORY:
The history of forestry in Europe has a certain importance in throwing
light on our own forest history and its probable development, and this
is especially true of the history of the administration of Government
forest lands and of education in forestry.
The history of forestry in the United States, however, is far more
important. The Forester must know the story of the growth and change of
National Forest organizations, the Forest Officers and their duties, the
cost, size, and effectiveness of the Government Forest Service at
different times, the Civil Service regulations under which it is
recruited, and other similar matters. It is important likewise for him
to become thoroughly saturated with an intimate knowledge of the
development of forestry in public opinion in the United States, its
extension to the other natural resources through the conservation
policy, and the relation of the Forester's point of view thus expressed
to the present welfare and future success of the Nation.
It is not always possible for the forest student to become a woodsman
before entering his profession, but it is most desirable. A Forester
must be able to travel the forest alone by day and by night, he should
be a good fisherman and a good hunter (which is far more important than
to be a good shot), and deeply interested in both fish and game. The
better horseman he is the better Forester he will be, and especially if
he can pack and handle pack horses in the woods. So that whether the
young Forester begins with a practical knowledge of woodcraft or not, he
must not fail to acquire or improve it, for without it he will endanger
the whole success of his career.
Some knowledge of first aid to the injured is likely to be of great and
sudden value to a man so much of whose life must be spent in the woods,
at a distance from medical aid. The time spent in getting information on
this subject will be anything but wasted.
ENGLISH:
The ability to write and to speak good, plain, understandable English is
a prime requisite in the Forester's training. It is a part of education
frequently neglected, especially by those in engineering or scientific
pursuits; yet its importance for the Forester is very large. As already
pointed out, the Forester is on the firing line of the conservation
movement; he is pioneering in a new profession. For this reason he will
often need to explain his stand and convert others to his beliefs. In
addition, he must make available to others the results he secures from
the study of new facts. A usable command of his own language will stand
him in good stead, whether he needs to talk face to face with another
man, or from a platform to a concourse of people, or to put into
readable printed form the results of his observations or his thinking.
When the young Forester has completed the courses of his school training
in America, the question may be raised whether he should supplement his
training by study abroad. I am strongly of opinion that he should do so
if he can. Study abroad is not indispensable for the American Forester,
but it can do him nothing but good to see in practical operation the
methods of forestry which have resulted from the long experience of
other lands, and especially to become familiar with the effect of sound
forestry on the forest.
+-----------------------------------------------+
| Transcriber's Note: |
| |
| Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the |
| original document have been preserved. |
| |
| Typographical errors corrected in the text: |
| |
| Page 135 windbrakes changed to windbreaks |
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