REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 91 



stable policy and attain the final goal, forest administration must 

 be developed along technical lines. 



During the nearly seven years that the Forests have been under 

 my control I have built up a technical staff. This I regard as the 

 fundamental achievement that has been attained. The immediate 

 work ahead when the Forests came under my control was that of 

 organizing an administrative system to provide for protection of the 

 Forests, while opening them at once to as many kinds of use as possi- 

 ble. This immediate work, however, was undertaken with the pur- 

 pose not of providing a temporary makeshift, but with an attack at 

 once on the underlying problems of constructive development. Per- 

 manent foundations have been laid down. 



The same necessity for a technical administration applies quite as 

 strongly to the control of grazing through range management as to 

 forest management. Unlike the National Forest timber, the National 

 Forest range is already in practically full demand. "When the Forests 

 were created abuse of the range had gone much further than abuse of 

 the timber. Because of the extent to which deterioration had taken 

 place, because there was immediate demand for most of the forage, and 

 because the forage crop is produced and harvested each year, oppor- 

 tunity for realizing immediate results through constructive adminis- 

 tration was greater in the case of range management than in that 

 of forest management. The objects sought were (1) the protection 

 and conservative use of the range itself; (2) promotion of the best 

 permanent welfare of the live-stock industry; and (3) protection of 

 the settler and home builder against unfair competition in use of 

 the range. The results which have been already obtained are a strik- 

 ing example of what practical conservation means. The work of the 

 year in range management will be set forth later. I wish now, how- 

 ever, to call attention to the fact that all of this work has been accom- 

 plished through technical administration and could not have been 

 accomplished without it. The technical knowledge required to han- 

 dle grazing questions satisfactorily has been developed along with 

 that required for timberland management and is applied by the same 

 technical staff. To a large extent the two sets of problems interlock 

 and must be handled together. 



In developing technical methods of administering the Forests 

 material assistance has been obtained by drawing on the expert 

 knowledge possessed by various branches of the department besides 

 the Forest Service. The Biological Survey is aiding gi-eatly in the 

 work of reforestation bv devising methods for the control of rodents, 

 which interfere formidably with the success of reforestation through 

 seed sowing; is assisting in improvement of the range by the elimina- 

 tion of prairie dogs, which cause a heavy annual loss in the forage 

 crop; and has contributed to the work of lessening losses to live 



