458 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



carried out on February 25, it is for the public to judge whetlier this 

 Association and its utterances still represent their best interests. 



That the American Forestry Association has already failed to 

 measure up to its responsibilities in defending public interests is the 

 conviction of an overwhelming majority of the leaders of public thought 

 and effort in forestry. Due to its failure, to the resentment of its 

 officers at the criticisms which this failure induced, and their deter- 

 mination not to brook any interference with its management or policies, 

 the Association now finds itself in active opposition to professional 

 foresters as a class, whose training in economics and experience in 

 public service have enabled them to sift the wheat from the chaff and 

 detect the difference between genuine effort at forest reform and 

 substitutes labelled "just as good." 



It is true that the Association has from time to time engaged in 

 campaigns to secure needed legislation. It is equally true that such 

 efforts have seldom been successful or eff'ective unless they were 

 entrusted to and conducted by trained foresters acting temporarily as 

 agents of the Association. One of the greatest fields of possible 

 activity of the Association is that of the proper organization of State 

 forestry. 



When Mr. Ridsdale was challenged in the board meeting on Feb-, 

 luary 25, 1921, he cited three instances of such participation. One, 

 that in Kentucky, failed. A second, Virginia, occurred in 1916 and 

 was brought to a successful issue by S. B. Dfetwiler, a forester. For 

 the third, the Secretary went back to Minnesota in 1916, and then 

 remembered that this writer had handled this case on the ground, 

 devoting two months to it, and succeeding in preventing the destruction 

 of the State Forestry Department. At the present time another and 

 equally dangerous attack is being launched on this department, but 

 Mr. Ridsdale did not publish an article on the subject submitted to 

 him for the March number. The failure to participate in Texas has 

 been noted. The Vermont fight was lost with no effective assistance 

 rendered. The Association in its present condition is practically 

 impotent to conduct such work effectively. 



In national affairs the Association has been equally futile. It par- 

 ticipated in an active manner in securing appropriations for experi- 

 ment stations in the East and has appeared at hearings and published 

 some literature in support of the appropriations for the Weeks law. 



