256 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



The average educated person whom one meets today has a lay- 

 man's knowledge of the sciences. He or she knows something of 

 engineering, of agriculture, of geology, of botany of irrigation. 

 Mentionforesty. They are lost in the woods. They know it deals with 

 trees and possibly birds and buzzing bees, et cetera. What do 

 you think forestry is? 



Forestry is many things to many minds. To one it is the care 

 or shade trees, to another the manufacture of lumber, to anoiher 

 the planting of trees. In a measure they are all right. Forestry does 

 in "City Forestry" divide the honors with arborculture in the care 

 of street trees. Planting is a part of forestry, likewise lumbering or 

 the harvesting of forest products. They are, however, only parts of 

 the greater subject. It should be a part of a liberal education to get 

 these part co-ordinated. 



Forestry is agriculture in heroic mold. The farmer aims to raise 

 perfect crops of wheat, corn and alfalfa — the forester aims to raise 

 perfect crops of trees. The farmer judges his success b.v tiae number 

 of bushels to the acre, the forester by the number of feet of wood board 

 measure. Neither is satisfied with nature's product as to quality or 

 quantity. Both aim to supply a nation's need, that one for food, 

 the other for wood. The period between seed time and harvest being 

 the major difference. Forestry in the truest sense is, then, the 

 establishing, cultivating and reproducing of forests. Tree farming or 

 silviculture is the forester's art. 



This, says the academic student (if he has read this far), is for 

 foresters. What has such knowledge to do with my liberal education? 

 What is forestry to me? 



If the technical art of forest culture as I have tried to describe 

 it, were all, the question would be well asked. But this is not all. 

 The forest problem is so far reaching that it effe'its every citizen. The 

 cost of wood products, the regulation of stream flo\v as it bears on 

 manufacture, on water supply, on public health, on a meat supply 

 and on soil conservation are all bound up with this problem. 



It has its political aspects. What is forestry to you as a good 

 citizen? Strange as it may seem this new idea of scientific forest 

 management has been bitterly opposed by othsrvs^iso intelligent public 

 leaders. This very question of how we shall handle our public forests 

 has been the policy "de resistance" in the great conservation move- 

 ment. A movement so pregnant with new ideas that i.3 has become 

 a great political issue, split a powerful political party and become 

 the rallying cry of a new party. Is a knowledge of forest conservation 

 of any value to you who will soon align yoarseiE with one of the 

 political parties? 



A general knowledge of the subject will teach you something 

 of the relation of forest cover to srteam flow; how this same cover 

 will affect the quantity and quality of the water supply of the town 

 in which you live. It will teach you how mach or how little it will 



