FOEEST SERVICE. 315 



practice, and the time when they will be needed is not 20 years away, 

 but immediately. As shown by this year's jump in the volume of 

 business, the demand for national forest timber is coming in a rush, 

 and the service must be prepared to meet it with plans, methods, and 

 trained men. 



To take care of the growing volume of sales will require more 

 and more preliminary timber surveys and management plans. Sales- 

 must be based on careful examinations covering large areas, so that 

 mature and deteriorating timber may be cut at the earliest prac- 

 ticable time, the national properties developed in the most business- 

 like way, and the cream of the timber, which is most desired by op- 

 erators, not skimmed off without utilizing the less valuable species 

 or less accessible portions of the stand. New operations can not be 

 located where a perpetual supply of raw material will be assured 

 without careful study of all economic and silvicultural factors, so 

 as to keep the manufacturing capacity within the producing power 

 of the soil. The application of sound technical methods to secure 

 regrowth to the full timber-producing capacity of the soil will be 

 necessary on a larger and larger area each year, and an increasing 

 intensity of protection of the regenerating areas from fire, insects, 

 and disease. 



The current business is already taxing the service to the utmost. 

 Less than 15 per cent of the 1,733 field men who are directly re- 

 sponsible for the cuttings on the national forests are trained for- 

 esters. Of the 143 super \dsors who are in charge of the national 

 forests only 60 are forest-school graduates, and of the deputy super- 

 visors, only 8. To put into practice the sound technical methods 

 that are essential to secure the results expected of the national- forest 

 administration, there must be a material increase in the number of 

 trained foresters. 



To build up a sufficient corps of qualified and experienced sales 

 officers, systematic training while in the service is also essential. In 

 the past the volume of the sales work has not been so large and the 

 demand of other lines of work has not been so great but that men 

 could obtain the requisite training in the course of their employ- 

 ment. This condition no longer holds. To keep pace with current 

 timber sales, the whole organization has been speeding up, and now 

 there is neither time nor opportunity to train new men in the old 

 way. Stations or camps for the training of timber-sales officers 

 are entirely practicable, since the service has competent and expe- 

 rienced men available to impart the training required. This work 

 should be gone at systematically through group training at instruc- 

 tion camps. 



