THE FORESTER. 181 



The publication of a compilation of State laws dealing with for- 

 estry in all of its phases was begun. Many requests for information 

 regarding such laws have been received from State legislatures and 

 administrative officers, forestry associations, forest schools, and 

 others interested in practical forest conservation. The compilation 

 of State legislation on these subjects will aid materially in develop- 

 ing the principles of State forest laws and indicating the forms of 

 legislation which are most successful in various fields of State forest 

 work. 



RESEARCH. 



On June 1, 1915, the lines of investigative work were brought under 

 one direction by the establishment of the Branch of Research. Dur- 

 ing the previous three years the various studies and investigations 

 were correlated by means of investigative committees, but the es- 

 tablishment of a separate branch was deemed advisable to make such 

 correlation more complete and at the same time to segregate investiga- 

 tive work from administrative work in accordance with the policy 

 established for the department. It was further the purpose of this 

 change to give the research work and personnel fullest recognition 

 and to develop and strengthen research as a coordinate division of 

 the Service. The Service activities transferred, with the organiza- 

 tions necessary to conduct them, were: Silvicultural investigations, 

 including the Office of Forest Investigations in Washington and the 

 direction through the District organization of the experiment sta- 

 tions ; investigations of forest products, including the Forest Products 

 Laboratory at Madison, the Office of Industrial Investigations in 

 Washington, and through the District organization the Offices of 

 Forest Products in the Districts ; economic studies of the lumber and 

 other wood-using industries and studies of methods, cost, and effi- 

 ciency ; fire protective studies ; and statistical investigations. 



NATIONAL FOREST INVESTIGATIONS. 



Most of the investigations and experimental work conducted on 

 the National Forests have been concentrated at or carried on under 

 the direction of the eight experiment stations now in existence. The 

 practical value of these stations for solving problems which require 

 painstaking care has been fully demonstrated. As the work becomes 

 more thorough and problems more complex, field examinations can 

 no longer supply all the information wanted for investigative proj- 

 ects. The general scope of the forest investigations followed practi- 

 cally the same lines as in 1914, the relative importance of various 

 lines being only slightly changed by a decrease in reforestation ex- 

 periments. 



Continued studies in artificial methods of seed extraction established 

 that when lodgepole pine cones are stored for one year it is possible 

 to obtain one-half of the seed by air drying alone and the remainder 

 with about one-third of the heat required when the cones are green. 

 The tests with lodgepole pine have tended to reemphasize the im- 

 portance of collecting seed near where it is to be used. I'he study of 

 the effect of the source of Douglas fir seed upon the stock produced 

 brought out that the collecting of cones should be confined to a 

 locality as cold as or colder than the proposed planting site; that 

 cones should not be collected from trees growing in shallow, gravelly, 



