12 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



Forestry as a Profession. 



Dr. C. A. Schenck, director of the Bilt- 

 more Forest School, has asked me, as a re- 

 cent graduate of the school, to write a 

 few words concerning forestry from the 

 standpoint of the young man entering upon, 

 or thinking of entering upon, the profession 

 of forestry as a life work. 



The word "forestry" itself has a certain 

 intrinsic charm. It immediately brings to 

 mind shady woods and bright flowers and 

 sparkling brooks. Thus it is no wonder that 

 today a great many young men who are 

 fond of out-of-door life are asking such 

 questions as: "What is a forester and what 

 are his duties?" "What would I learn if 

 I went to a forest school?" "After having 

 finished my work there, what opportunity 

 would there be for me to do something 

 worth while and, incidentally, to keep the 

 wolf from the door?" These three points I 

 will briefly consider. 



First — A forester is a man who knows 

 how to manage and administer land, which 

 is valuable chiefly for its forest products, in 

 such a way as to make it yield the best re- 

 turns for the owner. If it is best for the 

 owner to clear the land and then forfeit it 

 for non-payment of taxes, it is the part of 

 the forester to do so; on the other hand, if 

 it is best for the owner to treat the land con- 

 servatively, that is, in such a way as not 

 only to obtain present returns, but to insure 

 future returns, then it is the part of the for- 

 ester to apply the principles of conservative 

 forestry. 



Second — Many persons seem to have the 

 idea that the energies of the student at a 

 forest school are entirely confined to learn- 

 ing how to distinguish the different species 

 of trees and how to plant young trees. I 

 cannot do better towards clearing up this 

 misconception than to give the following 

 outline of courses, which are taken from the 

 catalogue of the Biltmore Forest School: 



I. Botany of herbaceous plants. 



II. Dendrclogy, or botany of trees. 



III. Silviculture ; the raising and tending of 

 forest trees (a consideration of bow to obtain 

 certain results in the woods by a combination of 

 natural and artificial means). 



IV. Forest Geology; soils and their relation 

 to the tree and to the forest. 



V. Forest Entomology ; a study of the Insects 

 of the forest. 



VI. Forest Pathology; tree diseases andthtlr 

 prevention. 



VII. Forest Zoology ; especially dealing with 

 the role played by the mammals and birds in 

 the forest. 



VIII. Mathematics; a brief review of plane 

 and solid geometry, advanced algebra and plane 

 trigonometry. 



IX. Forest Mensuration; methods of estimat- 

 ing timber, determining rate of growth, and so 

 on. 



X. Surveying. 



XI. Forest Management; the preparation of 

 working plans for forest land. 



XII. Forest Utilization and Technology ; prob- 

 lems of lumbering and milling, transportation, 

 refinement of the raw forest products, and so on. 



XIII. Forest Finance; business principles as 

 applied to forestry. 



XIV. Forest Economics ; the science of eco- 

 nomics as related to forest Industries. 



XV. Forest rrotection ; dangers from and 

 methods of preventing forest fires, tree diseases, 

 insect plagues, storms, and so on. 



XVI. Forest Law; principally a study of the 

 law of real property and contracts. 



XVII. Forest Policy; influences of the forest 

 upon the welfare of the community ; governmen- 

 tal duties and the development of forestry in 

 the various states of the Union. 



XVIII. The Forest Work of the Federal Gov- 

 ernment. 



XIX. Irrigation and Its Interdependence with 

 Forestry. 



XX. Propagation of Fish and Game. 



A regular part of the course is field work, 

 in which the lectures are illustrated in a 

 practical way. Half of the student's time 

 is thus spent in the woods, in actual contact 

 with problems of lumbering, reforestation, 

 road-building, etc. 



Third — Now, admitting that the student 

 has worked faithfully, the all-important 

 question arises: How can he apply the 

 knowledge that he has gained and who is 

 willing to pay him for applying it? 



There are two distinct courses which a 

 graduate of a forest school may follow: he 

 may either engage in private work, or he 

 may enter the forest service of the United 

 States, either with the idea of remaining 

 permanently in the service, or of taking up 

 private work when the opportunity is of- 

 fered, there being many applications to 

 Washington on the part of private forest 

 land owners for foresters to manage their 

 property. 



Since lumbermen own the greatest part 

 of the woodland of our country, the young 

 forester must be able to do something for 

 which the lumberman is willing to pay him. 

 Now, why do not the lumbermen welcome 

 forestry with open arms? It is because nine 

 out of every ten lumbermen believe that the 

 forester is a sentimental crank, who wants 

 to keep him from logging his trees in order 

 to preserve intact the beauties and benefits 

 of the primeval woods. This is, however, 

 not the case. "Well," say the lumbermen, 

 "if this is not the case, pray either leave 

 us in peace or tell us how you can be of as- 

 sistance to us." It is evident that as long 

 as there is enough timber land in the United 

 States which can be bought at a price lower 

 than the cost of raising that same timber 

 by applying the principles of conservative 

 forestry, just so long will lumbermen con- 

 tinue to buy land, to "skin" it and then 

 discard it, or, even preferably, to buy stump- 

 ago, without any interest whatever in the 

 land. That this condition still prevails at 

 present is no doubt true. How long it will 

 continue to prevail remains to bo seen. 



Now, since the greatest proportion of our 

 wooded lands is owned by lumbermen, and 

 since lumbermen contend that it does not pay 

 to apply the principles of consen'ative for- 

 estry, how can the forester earn his bread and 

 butterf The answer is that the forester him- 



self must, above all else, be a practical 

 lumberman. This end he can accomplish 

 only by practical experience in the mill and 

 in the woods. What the forester learns at 

 school, will help him in many ways to be- 

 come a successful lumberman, even though 

 for the present the principles of conserva- 

 tive forestry are entirely subordinate to the 

 principles of band saws and steam niggers. 

 Furthermore, the lumberman who knows 

 something of forestry will be able, in great 

 measure, to mitigate the harm done by the 

 present all-too-frequent methods of reckless 

 logging. 



Aside from lumbering, there are many 

 large industries, such as pulp mills, match 

 manufactories, wagon works and railroads, 

 which require a steady supply of the same 

 kind of timber, and it is to them that the 

 principles of conservative forestry particu- 

 larly appeal. Extensive pure stands of tim- 

 ber are pretty rare these days and it re- 

 quires the supervision of a forester to insure 

 their "preservation through wise use." 



The work of the forest service of the 

 United States furnishes an opportunity for 

 carrying into effect the principles of con- 

 servative forestry. The life of the govern- 

 ment is a great deal longer than that of a 

 lumberman, and it is thus to its advantage 

 rather to insure the perpetuity of its forest 

 resources than to get the best money returns 

 within the next thirty or forty years. The 

 forest problems which the United States 

 government has to solve are important ones, 

 which affect the welfare of the entire coun- 

 try. President Eoosevelt has rightly said 

 that the forest problem is one of the 

 most vital internal questions of the United 

 States. It will take our very best intellects, 

 trained in the principles of forestry, to solve 

 this problem and the men who will solve it, 

 will be the graduates of the forest schools 

 who enter the forest service of the United 

 States, 



The young man who is thinking of taking 

 up forestry as a profession need not fear 

 that there will be no chance for him to 

 apply his talents. No matter whether the 

 young forester enters the lumber business, 

 other jjrivate employment, or the forest 

 service of the United States, he may rest as- 

 sured that there is an opportunity awaiting 

 him to accomplish something worth doing 

 and that his efforts will be duly rewarded. 

 The delightful part of it is that forestry in 

 thi-s country is something entirely new. 

 There are no old ruts which the present day 

 American forester can follow, even if ho 

 wanted to. We are confronted by new con- 

 ditions and must solve them in our own way, 

 Walter J. Mosenth.m., 



JIiuhIp Adams, the great actress. Is having a 

 foiost (if bini'lt locust trees planted on her estate 

 near Uonkoiiitoma, L. I. She recently placed 

 an order for 200,000 trees with a western 

 grower, after studying thoroughly the various 

 kinds of locnsl. Already 22,000 saplings have 

 been received iiiid planted. The land Is to be 

 worked systemntlcully and everything done to 

 foster the growth of the trees. Miss Adams lie- 

 ilcving that the locusts' reputed slow growth can 

 lie hastened somewhat liy proper culllvailon. 



