276 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



reach their maximum effectiveness without the closest co-ordination 

 of thought and effort. 



Species, the wood structure of which make them especially desirable 

 for a given product of value, for example, whether that product be 

 lumber for airplane parts or lead pencils, news print paper, or ethyl 

 alcohol, will naturally be valued on that special property to the extent 

 to which it is commercially profitable in relation to some other form 

 of utilization. It is on that basis that timber prices, under normal 

 conditions, will more and more be sifted down by supply and demand. 

 This fund of information with respect to the properties of wood will 

 enable foresters more intelligibly to direct forest utilization and forest 

 production, not necessarily for highest returns financially, but for 

 greatest benefits from the standpoint of our broad national require- 

 ments of forest supplies. 



Within a little more than half a century our forest utilization has 

 advanced from the production of rough boards and planks, crudely 

 manufactured, to a versatile list of products including lumber of in- 

 numerable patterns, designs and finishes, veneers, plywood, paper, 

 naval stores, fibre boards, ethyl alcohol, tannic acid, fibre silk and a 

 long list of minor products. Today research and industry are moving 

 forward more strongly than ever before in the development of new 

 uses of forest products and in the improvement of utilization practice. 

 Every development and improvement in this field is of concern to the 

 forester because of its possible influence on the practice of forestry 

 broadly or upon forest industries within his locality. This influence 

 works primarily through market values which, in turn, affects stumpage 

 values and often alters forest industries and forest utilization broadly 

 and locally. Unless, therefore, a forester is thoroughly familiar with 

 market and utilization movements, both present and potential as re- 

 flected by research, he will be badly handicapped in rendering the 

 most proficient forest administration. 



Apart from its broad and basic bearing on forest administration, 

 research in forest products is an inseparable part of field or silvicultural 

 research and practice, and cannot be successfully separated from it. 

 The study of the microscopic wood structure of longleaf pine in rela- 

 tion to resin flow, which showed how to conserve the living timber and 

 raise the quality of the product obtained from it, would not have been 

 successful and the practice of a whole industry would not have been 

 altered, without the co-operative participation of foresters, chemists 



