1 88 BOARD. OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



The chief value of these forests lies in their influence on 

 the water supply and the protection they afiford to the irriga- 

 tion interests of the farmer. They should therefore be under 

 the most careful management and be protected from fire and 

 excessive lumbering. As their chief value is derived from 

 their protection of the mountain slopes, they should be kept 

 as dense as possible, and where large openings have already 

 been made in them by fires and lumbering, provision should 

 eventually be made to restore them to their original state. 

 But in many cases the people living in and near the reserves 

 require a great deal of wood and timber for lumber, mine 

 props, ties, and fuel. Unless these forests are well managed, 

 excessive lumbering is sure to take place to the detriment of 

 the forest conditions. These reserves should be placed under 

 the management of experts who understand how a forest may 

 be profitably lumbered, and, at the same time stocked with 

 desirable species. 



But the forester in charge must not be a mere theorist. 

 No theorist, pure and simple, can ever undertake successfully 

 the management of the Western forest reserves, or, in fact, 

 any other timber tract in this country. Foresters, in our 

 sense of the word, are not pure theorists, although they are 

 often so called. They have in view a certain end, namely, 

 the continuous production of timber, and they know that the 

 productiveness of any given forest cannot be maintained un- 

 less certain provisions are made. These provisions are based 

 on a scientific knowledge of the life of trees and forests, but 

 because a man has such scientific knowledge it is not fair to 

 assume that he is a mere theorist, nor that he is not in every 

 way a practical man. A forester must be a practical woods- 

 man or he can never make his forest pay. This is especially 

 true in the West where the conditions are unfavorable, much 

 of the timber is inaccessible, and the margin of profit in lum- 

 bering is small. The experts who should be placed in charge 

 of the forest reserves should be men who thoroughly under- 

 stand lumbering and who also imderstand the laws govern- 

 ing the growth and development of trees and forests and the 

 methods by which forests can be cut and reproduced at the 

 least possible expense. 



Questions which involve not only practical business con- 

 siderations, but also require a scientific training for their solu- 



