io6 



ARBORICULTURE 



While ignorantly opposing the plant- 

 ing of Catalpa speciosa, the Forestry 

 Burean offers no suhstitute. and simply 

 demoralizes the people who would plant 

 trees, and the railways and corporations 

 of lumber men whom they can influence. 



The Bureau plants no trees of conse- 

 quence, and what few it has ]ilanted have 

 cost the Government enormous sums of 

 money. 



REASON FOR THIC ANTAGONISM. 



The well-known ambition of the head 

 of the Forestry Bureau to control every 

 organization and individual who is en- 

 gaged in the work of forest restoration 

 and thus claim the honor of everything 

 done in this line. Also to increase the 

 army under his directions and provide 

 them with work at high salaries, by 

 crowding out and absorbing independent 

 foresters and organizations and thus se- 

 cure control of all Government, State 

 and private forestry work. 



The Forestry Bureau maintains a 

 "Press Bureau,'' through which it se- 

 cures the publication of press items in 

 the country papers of America, lauding 

 the acts and policies of the Bureau with 

 the view to creating public opinion in 

 its favor. Some of these newspapers 

 may be surprised to learn of the inside 

 workings of the authorities in their ef- 

 forts to prevent forest tree planting. 



The Bureau employs several inexperi- 

 enced youths, just out of college, with 

 an overflowing surplus of theory, and a 

 corresponding paucity of experience, who 

 are sent out to instruct mature men, 

 born and brought up in the forest, and 

 familiar with every tree and shrub, if 

 not acquainted with their Latin nomen- 

 clature, how to manipulate forest opera- 

 tions so as to provide paying jobs for 

 the greatest number of Government em- 

 ployees for the largest period of time at 



the joint expense of the Government and 

 the timber owners. 



The extreme difficulty of arousing a 

 public sentiment favorable to the plant- 

 ing of trees, and of inducing the great 

 railways and lumbering companies to in- 

 vest funds in large enterprises which 

 comprehend the planting of forests, is 

 made far more difficult by the antagon- 

 ism of the Government. 



While sc'c'cral million frees have been 

 planted by and through the influence of 

 the International Society of Arboricul- 

 ture, yet there can be no doubt but these 

 millions would have been greatly multi- 

 plied but for such violent opposition 

 from the Government authorities. 



It is impossible to conceive how such 

 universal antagonism among officials in 

 the United States Forestry service could 

 be possible without the direction of 

 some one high in authority in the Bu- 

 reau, while on the contrary a single word 

 uttered by the head of the Bureau would 

 most efifectively check such efforts by 

 the subordinates if he so desired. 



Every principal clerk or head of a di- 

 vision is de facto the Government, and 

 his acts bind the Government to such 

 policy as he may dictat-j, until it may 

 be overruled by a Cabinet officer or the 

 President. 



Hence Pinchot's domination and dic- 

 tation that forests shall not be planted is 

 in fact a declaration of the Government, 

 and decides its policy. 



"To denude a State like Vermont of 

 the forests is like the act of a spend- 

 thrift who, coming into his father's for- 

 tune, prudently saved for over a half cen- 

 tury, runs through it in a decade, and 

 has neither means nor character on which 

 to found a new prosperity. No crop at 

 the end of life is bad farming. — Joseph 

 A. DeBocr. 



