294 AISTNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMEiSTT OF AGRICULTTJRE. 



already examined are certain to be discovered, but it is already 

 known that over 400,000 horsepower, in units up to 32,000 horse- 

 power, awaits development. The Forest Service has in ipreparation 

 a companion bulletin which will likewise make readily available 

 the data on the timber resources tributary to these water powers. 



The steady development of the use of the Alaskan national for- 

 ests is in keeping with the Alaskan program enunciated by President 

 Harding this summer. After he had personally investigated condi- 

 tions in the Territory, he summarized his conclusions in a speech 

 at Seattle, expressing his conviction that Alaska is growing nor- 

 mally, with the kinds of population, industries, and social conditions 

 which will bring a permanent prosperity rather than a temporary 

 boom with quick exhaustion. He recognized that the development 

 of Alaska is an economic process, and, that the rate of development 

 depends on the world's markets for the products of the Territory. 

 No panacea, he declared, can bring sudden or magical industrial 

 development. He considered Alaska as an integral part of the 

 United States, to be developed in harmony with our political and 

 social traditions and in harmony with our national policies as to 

 natural resources, and was convinced that under the wise applica- 

 tion of those policies a considerable part of the Territory should 

 be ready for statehood at no distant time. President Harding pro- 

 nounced himself in favor of a continuation of sympathetic admin- 

 istration of Federal affairs in the Territory, with the local officers 

 given as much authority and responsibility as possible in carrying 

 out the coordinated general policies of the National Government. 

 He specifically approved the present policies for the development 

 of industries based on national forest timber, since they offer every 

 reasonable encouragement to capital and involve limitations only to 

 the extent necessary to insure permanency and the sustained pro- 

 ductivity of the forests. Concerning the present form of timber 

 contract offered prospective pulp and paper manufacturers he said: 

 " I venture, with some knowledge of conditions in paper-making 

 countries, to state that no better contract, indeed none so good, can 

 be secured in any of them." 



THE PERSONNEL OF THE FOREST SERVICE. 



It is necessary again, as in several previous reports, to call atten- 

 tion to the nature and importance of the problem that the Forest 

 Service still encounters in the matter of personnel. This problem 

 concerns particularly the field force. For the efficient discharge of 

 its public responsibility in national forest administration the service 

 must have a capable, trustworthy, and trained corps of forest officers. 

 Not only must they be carefully selected and specially qualified for 

 unusual, exacting, and varied tasks, but they must also, as a body, 

 possess enough experience to give continuity and stability of policy, 

 and they must be thoroughly imbued with the spirit of public service. 



The work of administration simply can not be carried on in the 

 long run without a forest personnel of suitable make-up. If it is a 

 shifting, unseasoned force, if its members do not measure up to high 

 standards in ability and character, if they have not been well trained 

 for their specific tasks, and if their morale is not kept up, the whole 

 national forest enterprise is impaired. 



It is not merely that a field force lacking in competence, experience, 

 or fidelity and enthusiasm will be relatively ineffective, nor is it 



