296 ANNUAL KEPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



forest officers as technical men include also leadership in informing the 

 public concerning the purposes and methods of the work, both in 

 order that the public may be able to judge intelligently whether or 

 not its property is being well handled and in order that wide appli- 

 cation of the principles of forest and range conservation may be 

 brought about off as well as on the forests. In short, the require- 

 ments along technical lines are no less important and exacting than 

 those which forest officers must possess as business men. 



To maintain a field force capable of giving the public the service 

 that it expects and should have has always been a primary concern 

 of the Forest Service and always will be. In many ways the task 

 is essentially the same as that which any large business organiza- 

 tion encounters in maintaining an efficient personnel. Were this all 

 that is involved there would be no particular reason for dwelling 

 on the subject. But the problem is not purely an internal one, for 

 the reason that it can not be adequately met without relief from condi- 

 tions that can only be dealt with through legislation. 



For years there has been a continual drain of experienced and 

 the most effective men, due to low pay. The Forest Service has been 

 a training school and recruiting ground for private enterprises. To 

 some extent this is bound always to be the case, and within reasonable 

 limits affords no ground for concern. It is not to be expected that 

 Government employment will hold permanently all whose retention 

 in the public service would be advantageous. But conspicuous 

 underpayment in comparison with the responsibilities involved and 

 what may be termed the going market value of the type of men and 

 kind of training required has really serious consequences. It is 

 uneconomical in the long run, for it takes both time and money to 

 select and train new men constantly for positions in which they can 

 not at once reach a full output; it impairs efficiency, for the same 

 reason ; and it makes much more difficult the maintenance of morale, 

 which can not but suffer if too large a part of the force is new, 

 while the enthusiasm and energy of older members are sapped by a 

 sense of injustice, lack of due recognition, and often struggle to make 

 ends meet. 



The essential remedy is the carrying through of reclassification of 

 all field positions along such lines that the salaries to be paid will 

 be adequate and just, and provision for the actual payment of such 

 salaries next year. 



The handicap imposed through inability to hold good men to the 

 degree necessary for efficiency (and in the long run for economy, 

 too) is made worse by the fact that the Forest Service is at present 

 unable to give field men such training in the technical features of 

 their work as they need to do that work properly. It is sometimes 

 assumed that when new men are taken on through appointment fol- 

 lowing a civil-service examination they must be fully qualified to 

 meet all the requirements of their jobs, and that additional special- 

 ized training beyond that gained in the course of the day's work need 

 not be given t'hem. The assumption is untrue. Not only is special- 

 ized training of a kind not to be obtained outside the service neces- 

 sary to fit recruits fully for their duties, but there is need also to fit 

 those in the lower ranks of the service for higher positions. Some- 

 thing broadly comparable with the methods of training and instruc- 

 tion provided in the Army should be permitted. The immediate 



