590 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



confronted tomorrow with the responsibiHty for drawing up a plan of 

 management for all the forest lands of the United States, it would be 

 put to a severe test, just as was the case at the time of the placing of 

 the National Forests under forest management. 



The Forest Service found it necessary to establish eight or nine ex- 

 periment stations to solve the technical problems that immediately arose 

 in marking timber, in working out methods of brush disposal, methods 

 to secure natural reproduction, methods of artificial reforestation, and 

 similar problems. If the profession, therefore, is not to be content with 

 merely securing some kind of growth on cut-over land, no matter how 

 inferior it may be as compared with the original stand, but desires to 

 be able to secure forest growth of the highest economic utility, it must 

 set itself at once to the task of securing more fundamental facts upon 

 which to base its practice on the vast area of privately owned timber 

 land. 



The only way in which such data can be obtained is by long-con- 

 tinued, painstaking, scientific research. They cannot be obtained in a 

 year or in a few years, as in the case of agricultural investigations, 

 which deal with annual or biennial crops, but require long periods. 



Is it not time that such research be started on a very much larger 

 scale than has been undertaken hitherto, in order that when the man- 

 date comes we foresters shall not be found lacking? 



Whfre the Lumbermen Stand 



The first American Lumber Congress, which met at Chicago from 

 April 14 to 16, is unanimously described by the lumber-trade journals 

 as the most important meeting of lumbermen that ever occurred in the 

 United States. Because of the large attendance of representatives 

 from all branches of the lumber industry, its deliberations may fairly 

 be regarded as indicating the present state of mind of the lumbermen 

 of the country. 



From the standpoint of those interested in the conservation of our 

 forest resources, the most noteworthy feature of the conference was 

 its very evident apathy as to the future supply of the raw material on 

 which the entire lumber industry is based. It is a significant fact that 

 of the thirty-odd speakers the only two who alluded, even indirectly, to 

 this vital problem were representatives of the Federal Government. 

 These were H. S. Graves, of the U. S. Forest Service, and W. S. Cul- 

 bertson, of the U. S. Tariflf Commission. Mr. Graves' speech, which 

 was printed in full in the April issue of the Journal, was a clear-cut 



