238 ANNUAL REPOKTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



come to their attention, recommend to the United States Geographic 

 Board names for unnamed topographic features, and currently 

 gather new and more detailed data for inclusion upon the maps. 

 After sufficient information has been secured to warrant a revision, 

 new maps are prepared and published. 



RESEARCH. 



Forest research is revealing more clearly each year the gigantic 

 outline of our forest problems, and has begun in a small way to unravel 

 the myriad technical puzzles that confront us in the revolution from 

 timber mining to timber growing. Its broad aim is to obtain the 

 knowledge necessary for the best use of our forest land and of what 

 it can be made to grow. This calls for both technical and economic 

 research. The two are complementary. We must know what we 

 shall need to produce; and what we shall need depends on how we 

 utilize the products of our forests. It is impossible to deal with 

 production mdependently of utilization. Forestry, like agriculture 

 (of which it is a subdivision), must concern itself not merely with the 

 technique of production, but with the business of land management 

 and crop marketing, and the economic requirements and industrial 

 practices that integrally shape that business. 



Neither the purpose of the research work of the Forest Service nor 

 its practical importance and necessary scope can be understood 

 without recognition of these facts. A sound national policy of 

 forestry can not reach full fruition until far more is known about how 

 to grow timber under widely varying conditions, what our economic 

 and industrial requirements are, and by what methods of use these 

 requirements can most satisfactorily and with least waste be met. 

 In the course of about 75 years most of our enormous natural wealth 

 in virgin timber has been consumed or converted into other forms 

 of capital. With industrial progress our per capita consumption 

 of timber increased until, a few years ago, advancing prices and 

 depletion of supplies turned the tide. We are still living mainly on 

 our forest capital; and to meet our current needs we are not merely 

 draining the insufficient reservoir of remaining mature timber, but 

 also drawing heavily on growing stock that has not reached saw- 

 timber size. The accident of a sudden crisis less than three years 

 ago sent lumber prices temporarily skyward so fast that public 

 attention was sharply drawn to the situation and an inquiry ordered. 

 The crisis passed, but the inquiry made clear that the Nation had 

 experienced a brief preliminary symptom of the economic stringency 

 wnich must come as the full consequences of our past and present 

 course work out. The availability of accurate information is essential 

 to every effort in the whole slow process of restoring the balance 

 between timber use and timber growth. 



SILVICAL INVESTIGATIONS, 



Nowhere is there a greater need for knowledge of timber growing 

 than in the eastern United States, where the relatively dense popula- 

 tion, the enormous industrial demands for timber, and the large 

 areas of land best fitted for forests all unite to urge timber production 

 on a large scale. Here, where its results are most certain to be 

 immediately and widely applied, Federal forest research has but 



