676 



CONSERVATION 



a sufficient force of trained men to 

 carry on the work we are still far be- 

 hind. For a proper administration of 

 the forests larger appropriations and 

 more trained men are needed in both 

 the National Government and the state 

 governments. More men are needed to 

 carry on research work, work in edu- 

 cation, work to bring the forests into 

 a state of sustained productiveness, 

 work to reforest the denuded forest 

 lands, and work to guard the forests 

 against fire and trespass. 



the field that is open to the great ma- 

 jority of trained men. 



For obvious reasons instruction in all 

 fields has developed more and more 

 toward the laboratory method, and 

 especially is this true in technical edu- 

 cation. No technical school to-day 

 would think of graduating men who 

 have not had a thorough opportunity 

 to work with the actual materials that 

 form the constructive elements of their 

 profession. Perhaps there is no other 

 branch of education in which the neces- 



Forest Growth Near Manitou 



A number of schools for preparing 

 men for these tasks have been estab- 

 lished. Many of them restrict their 

 field to special studies intended only to 

 meet specific local needs. A few have 

 complete courses for training profes- 

 sional foresters, and these are doing an 

 exceptionally high grade of work. The 

 majority of graduates take up their 

 work with a showing of ability seldom 

 met in the man just out of a technical 

 school. It is unfortunate that up to 

 the present time so little really adequate 

 instruction has been given in the West, 



sity of solving the fundamental prob- 

 lems in the field is so great as it is in 

 forestry. The laboratory of the for- 

 ester is the field — the forest, the log- 

 ging camp, the saw mill the lumber 

 yard, and generally the field that uses 

 forest products of any kind for raw 

 material. 



Of the 166,785,926 acres of National 

 Forests over 162,000,000 are located in 

 the Rocky Mountains and on the Pa- 

 cific Coast. Of the professional men 

 employed by the Forest Service over 

 fifty per cent, are located in the West, 



