EDITORIAL 



943 



future operations in forest management, and this paper 

 will serve as a starting point for a new era in silvicultural 

 practice in the spruce regions. 



Forrest H. Colby, Forest Commissioner of Maine, fol- 

 lowed with a discussion on slash disposal. The final 

 number was on the subject of "Forest Research," by 

 Prof. J. W. Tourney, of the Yale Forest School. 



The Congress passed resolutions favoring the exten- 

 sion of the operation of the Weeks law, the undertaking 

 of a timber census, the extension of regulation of the 

 management of private lands by insistence on proper fire 



protection and the adoption of measures which will in- 

 sure the protection of the land for timber production, the 

 passage of a bill by Congress extending aid to forest re- 

 search by States and urging the State of Massachusetts 

 to maintain a separate State Forestry Department. 



The meeting was conducted under the auspices of the 

 Boston Chamber of Commerce and the Massachusetts 

 Forestry Association. The proceedings will be pub- 

 lished, and will thus be made available to foresters and 

 the general public. 



EDITORIAL 



REORGANIZATION IN MASSACHUSETTS 



FORESTRY in Massachusetts is facing the problem 

 of reorganization. The Constitution provides that 

 all of the State's activities, now numbering some 

 110 departments, must be reorganized into not more than 

 20. The wisdom of such a provision is not a subject of 

 debate, since the matter is settled. It remains to deter- 

 mine what will become of State forestry in the scramble. 



The answer depends upon the attitude which the peo- 

 ple of Massachusetts take toward State forestry and 

 their estimate of its relative importance in the general 

 scheme of things. First, is forestry of sufficient impor- 

 tance in the economic welfare of the State to merit a sep- 

 arate organization as one of 20 departments? Second, if 

 not, what combination will give the best results for for- 

 estry and for the public ? 



The handicap under which forestry as a public policy 

 has suffered in this country is a surprising lack of fore- 

 sight and comprehension of what it means in the eco- 

 nomic life of the average man. Prices of wood products 

 go up at a rate faster than that of other commodities, 

 and the public grumbles and seeks for evidence of a lum- 

 ber trust, when the cause lies in the denuded hills at their 

 own doors and the freight bills on Oregon fir. Hind- 

 sight may be better than foresight. Many a bankrupt 

 can understand the causes for his failure after it happens. 

 We are steadily bankrupting our forest industries and 

 riotiously expending the inheritance of nature, which we 

 did not produce. Meanwhile there appears in our press 

 such articles as "Timber's Horn of Plenty," in the Liter- 

 ary Digest, which lulls our senses to sleep by remark- 

 able perversions of facts regarding the abundance of our 

 timber supplies. 



Three-fifths of the State's area unsuited for agricul- 

 ture, but capable of producing 2,000,000,000 feet of tim- 

 ber annually, and with manufacturing industries depend- 

 ent for their continuance on home-grown timber, and a 

 lumber industry capable of employing permanently 

 30,000 men ; with streams furnishing water power of 

 tremendous value to her chief industries, and dependent 

 absolutely on stream regulation through the maintenance 

 of forest cover; with the scourge of the gypsy and 

 brown-tail moths and the white pine blister rust calling 

 for the united efifprts of all organized forces to prevent 



the complete destruction of both forest and shade trees, 

 the State of Massachusetts still hesitates whether to put 

 State forestry as one of her 20 departments. Yet this 

 department is now nineteenth in point of appropriations 

 and number of employees among the 110 branches of the 

 present government. 



Perhaps it is because the work of this department has 

 scarcely begun, and for lack of actual demonstration of 

 results, that the department is looked upon as a minor 

 branch of the State's activities. In other words, fore- 

 sight is to be eliminated in this reorganization of Massa- 

 chusetts State Forestry, and the departments are to be 

 crvstallized in their present form. 



That is just the reason above all others which demands 

 a separate organization for State forestry. It is NOT 

 established — the tremendous need for rapid expansion is 

 clear to all who have true foresight. How is the average 

 citizen ever to be brought to realize his need and to sup- 

 port the economic program of reforestation, fire protec- 

 tion and regulated timber cutting unless the State De- 

 partment of Forestry is free to expand this educational 

 work and its demonstrations of practical results? And 

 if one thing has been clearly demonstrated in our State 

 governments, it is the fact that when forestry depart- 

 ments are subordinated as a minor branch of a large or- 

 ganization, the scope of the forestry work becomes lim- 

 ited to the ideas, not of the forester, who comprehends 

 the situation, but to some game warden, agricultural com- 

 missioner, or highway engineer, who provides first for 

 what he does comprehend and permits forestry to gather 

 the crumbs which fall from his table. 



The future of State forestry in Massachusetts is in the 

 balance. Pennsylvania's wonderful progress in forestry 

 followed a reorganization which created the Department 

 of Forestry as a separate organization in 1901. Massa- 

 chusetts cannot afford to overlook the task ahead, for 

 there will come a time when camouflage and evasion of 

 economic facts will no longer be accepted by the citizens 

 of the commonwealth, and they will ask, "Why are not 

 these things done, and what has the State Forestry De- 

 partment been doing to enlighten us and to protect our 

 welfare?" The answer will be: "In 1919 the citizens 



