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cerning our American forests, upon which the practice of scien- 

 tific forestry depends, vastly more has been gathered during 

 the last seven years than previously from the time Columbus 

 landed. lii t8q8 the Division of Forestry had hardly ap- 

 proached the specific problems of forest management in the 

 United States, and had developed no efficient methods of at- 

 tacking them. The records now on file are based on the meas- 

 urements of millions of individual trees. Commercial tree 

 studies looking toward management have been prosecuted for 

 32 important species. AVorking plans have been prepared in 

 28 States, and field vvork has been conducted in every State 

 and Territory in the United States, and in Porto Rico, Alaska, 

 and the Philippines. 



The scientific knowdedge gathered in the field has taken form 

 in a rapidly growing literature of the subject, and has fur- 

 nished the basis for a S3'stem of professional education. Today 

 there is scarcely more occasion for the American to go abroad 

 to study forestry than to study medicine or law. 



Besides creating a science of American forestry, the Forest 

 Service has worked out the methods of operation by wdiich 

 forestry may be put in practice. It found in existence a fully 

 developed system of lumbering, which had brought efficiency 

 and economy of labor to the highest point, but was often 

 wasteful of material and regarded forests as simply so much 

 standing timber to be cut. Men taught to regard cheap logs 

 at the mill as the supreme test and sole end of good lumbering, 

 justly proud of their proficiency in a highly specialized indus- 

 try, and impatient of restraint, could not be expected to wel- 

 come with cordiality changes for a purpose whose utility they 

 were necessarily slow to recognize. To work a reform it was 

 necessary to begin with existing conditions and improve them 

 instead of criticising them. Had not the Forest Service taken 

 the lead in finding out just how^ practical rules for conserva- 

 tive lumbering might be laid down and carried out forestry 

 could not have reached the point at which it now stands in the 

 United States. 



In the field of economic tree planting the same story is re- 

 })eated .^nd shows definite, important, and permanent results. 

 It is true that in 1808 farmers throughout the Middle West, 

 where tree planting finds its largest field of economic useful- 

 ness, were already alive to their need of planted timber. But 



