EDITORIAL 



THE SUMMER CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE WHITE PINE BLISTER 



AS a direct result of the policj' of education and in- 

 formation adopted by the American Forestry As- 

 sociation and others, Congress passed the additional 

 appropriation of $300,000 required for the work of sup- 

 pressing the white pine blister disease. This action was 

 taken at a time when bills calling for immense appropri- 

 ations for national defense were under consideration, and 

 the appropriation was secured in spite of assurances from 

 Congressmen that it would be impossible to obtain it. 

 The result is a vindication of the policy of publicity, with- 

 out which, in a democratic form of government, we can- 

 not hope to achieve anj-'thing worth while. 



But the real task lies before us. Appropriations alone 

 will not exterminate the disease — and it is by no means 

 certain that the effort will succeed, no matter how con- 

 scientiously the work is handled. One thing has been 

 pitilessly demonstrated — that the policy of suppressing 

 information and belittling the danger has not gotten us 

 anywhere. By this act of Congress we now stand com- 



mitted to a thorough and widespread effort to stamp out 

 the infection. This season will probably show whether or 

 not it is too late. All that the agents of the United States 

 Government can do in expending this appropriation is to 

 scout for and reveal the presence of diseased pines or cur- 

 rants. It is up to the states and to individuals to destroy 

 the infected trees and plants, and if this cooperation is 

 not forthcoming, all efforts elsewhere will fail. 



The work of preventing the spread of the disease will 

 be greatly aided by the enlarged powers granted to the 

 Federal Horticultural Board to declare quarantines in 

 tree and plant diseases bj^ districts, states or sections 

 of the country under which they may prevent absolutely 

 the shipment of currants or gooseberry bushes or white 

 pines into the Rocky Mountain section. So far, no 

 cases of infection have been reported west of Miimesota. 

 Such a quarantine may save the immensely valuable 

 western white pine and the sugar pine of California from 

 ultimate destruction. 



NATIONAL PARK LEGISLATION 



THE biU to create the Grand Canyon National Park 

 failed of passage in the last Congress for lack of 

 time. This bill, as drawn, excludes from the pro- 

 posed park lands chiefly valuable for commercial grazing 

 and timber, and not part of the Canyon itself. It should be 

 reintroduced and passed at the first opportunity. But 

 we protest against permitting the development of water- 

 power within the Park, and will continue to strive for the 

 principle of exclusion from National Park areas of all forms 

 of commercial exploitation — a danger which is not 

 properly safeguarded in the recent law establishing a 

 National Park Service. 



Of the numerous bills introduced in this Congress to 

 create new National Parks, only one was passed, which 

 establishes the Mount McKinley National Park in Alaska. 

 In this matter, Congress has acted with commendable dis- 

 cretion. The merits of the Mount McKinley Park project 

 were unquestioned. As America's highest peak, possessing 

 scenery of unsurpassed grandeur, the setting aside of this 

 mountain as one of our National Parks fully maintains 

 the standard set by the Yosemite, the Yellowstone and the 

 Sequoia. This cannot be said of any of the other park 

 projects, which have met at least temporary defeat. It 

 is to be hoped that most of them will not be revived. 



PRIMARY EDUCATION IN FORESTRY 



IT has been thought by some that the development of 

 forestry on a large scale in Germany is due to the fact 



that an autocratic form of government enables the 

 rulers to impose upon the unresisting masses public 

 measures of common benefit, while in a democratic coun- 

 try the instability of government and the influence of 

 individual opinion will prevent the consistent develop- 

 ment of any great constructive forestry policy. 



What, then, shall we say of forestry in republican France , 

 where both science and practice have been developed to fully 

 as great an efficiency and with equal benefits to the people ? 



That stability of poUcyin forestry is necessary goes with- 

 out saying. Trees cannot be grown unless the land on which 

 they are produced is protected and managed for long pe- 

 riods under intelligent supervision for that definite purpose. 

 Otherwise the forest will be destroyed by unregulated 

 limibering, fires, insects, disease, and grazing, or by the 

 clearing of much land for indifferent and unprofitable 

 agricultiare that had better be devoted to forest production. 

 242 



What we do not yet realize fully is that forestry in 

 Imperial Germany rests on the same basis as it does in 

 republican France, and on which it must eventually de- 

 pend in this country — a thorough education of children 

 in the grade schools in the first principles of forestry, and 

 its true place in the economic life of the nation. 



As the twig is bent, the tree is inclined. If the right 

 conception of forestry is implanted in the mind of the 

 child, his attitude towards it for the rest of his life will 

 be equally free from that destructive bent which makes 

 vandals of half-grown boys, and the equally unreasoning 

 sentimental attitude of protection expressed in the poem 

 "Woodman, spare that tree," which would deny the value 

 and use of wood products to the community. 



Some of the greatest difficulties that the advocates of 

 rational State and National forest policies encounter are 

 created by the attitude and opinions of influential men 

 who are profoundly ignorant of forest economics, and in a 

 spirit of cocksure self-assertion sometimes appear as 



