REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 235 



States in the protection from fire of lands on the watersheds of 

 navigable streams) are discharged in 34 States of the Union and in 

 Alaska. The printed results of its investigations are among the 

 publications sold in largest numbers by the superintendent of public 

 documents, while the Department of Agriculture printed for distribu- 

 tion without charge, between July 1, 1897, and June 30, 1912, a total 

 of 12,001,450 copies of Forest Sendee publications. 



In mere size, therefore, as indicated by expenditures, the Division 

 of Forestry of 1897 compares with the Forest Service of 1913 in 

 about the ratio of 1 to 200, and as indicated by personnel in the ratio 

 of 1 to 372. An announcement in the annual report of the division 

 for the fiscal year 1897 formed the point of departure for this great 

 expansion. A radical change in the character of the work planned 

 was then made. This change may be put in a word: The field of 

 activities was shifted from the desk to the woods. 



Private owners of woodlands were offered an opportunity to obtain 

 practical advice and assistance looking toward the introduction of 

 forest management on their holdings. The response was immediate, 

 and swiftly swelled. The area for which such advice had been asked 

 by the close of the fiscal year 1898 was nearly 1,000,000 acres; of 1900, 

 nearly 2,500,000 acres; of 1905, nearly 11,000,000 acres. Examina- 

 tions actually made had. in 1905, covered about 4,000,000 acres. Eight 

 years of work had fairly launched the forest movement. 



The offer of advice to forest owners had for its ends investigation, 

 demonstration, and education. Forest management is first of all a 

 matter of practice, just as is the management of a farm. Both 

 farmer and forester must base their practice on knowledge, and to 

 that end knowledge must be gathered. Nevertheless, the final object 

 is not to learn, but to do. In order to advise and assist owners who 

 were contemplating forest management, the Division of Forestiy 

 had first to create a body of knowledge on which to base both plans 

 of procedure having definite objects in view and estimates of the 

 yield which might be expected under these plans; and, further, it had 

 to devise practicable methods for carrying out these plans and to 

 calculate what carrying them out would cost. In other words, it had 

 to create a science, develop a technique, and work out business con- 

 clusions all at once. It succeeded because the fact was firmly grasped 

 that the forester must not be primarily a scientist, but a director of 

 operations. As capacity along this line was developed it was pro- 

 posed to demonstrate to individual jn-ivate owners how to make 

 forestry pay, and thus to secure educational examples which other 

 owners might follow. 



As it proved, the greatest result gained was the gathering and train- 

 ing of a coi>ps of technical foresters (nullified by the character of their 



