I"OKi;ST DICSCKIPTIOXS 45 



The questions, of course, were worded so as to be purposeful and 

 ai)propriate to the region. We decided to break away from tlie com- 

 monly accei)ted forest descriptions that only ask such questions as soil 

 depth, moisture content of the soil (an old chestnut of a question 

 anyway), amount and kind of brush, herbaceous growth, and so on. 

 Very few indeed of the thousands upon thousands of such forest 

 descriptions that have been written in this coutUry have ever been 

 used to advantage. It is believed that a better plan is to ask directly 

 of the woods those questions to which answers are desired, rather than 

 to describe the characters belonging to the stand and then to attempt 

 later, in the offlce, to correlate these descriptions so as to answer the 

 silvicultural questions. A stand of timber is a complicated proposition ; 

 answers to c^uestions concerning its management are to be found in 

 numerous observations ; and many of these observations are not easily 

 described. How, for instance, can a man easily describe the distri- 

 bution of seedlings on the ground ? A report may state that there are 

 1 ,000 healthy seedlings per acre in a stand, and that they are found 

 in groups ; but yet this does not tell one who has not seen it wdiether 

 the reproduction on this piece should be supplemented by plantings. 

 Before deciding one wonders about size of groups, density, number 

 of seedlings in the group, and so on. And how can an area be 

 described so that one who has not seen it will know whether or not 

 it is physically plantable (except in extreme cases — as bare rock) ? 



Certainly the simpler way is to decide on the answer to the question 

 while one is standing on the ground and then to write down the 

 answer bluntly, with brief reasons. 



So we wanted of our forest questionary (or forest description) 

 several features, namely, first that the questions asked should be definite 

 ones, second that all the information desired should be obtained 

 through pertinently put questions, leaving as little as possible to 

 "remarks," third that the questions be appropriate to the region being 

 covered, fourth that all (juestions l)e purposeful to the solution of 

 the task at hand, i.e., that the questionary be as complete as possible 

 l)Ut be not overburdened with trivial queries, and, lastly, that the 

 questions be put so that all answers should be uniform in kind and 

 accuracy and easily applied to the problems at hand. 



These features had to do with the silviculture in the plan, i.e., the 

 collection of silvical facts and their co-ordination through contem- 

 plation of them, into definite, accurate statements, of methods to be 



