RELATION OF RESEARCH TO FOREST MANAGEMENT ^ 



By Howard F. Weiss 



C. F. Burgess Laboratories, Madison, Wis. 



Broadly speaking, the object of research is to increase knowledge. 

 Without increased knowledge there can be no progress. Therefore, 

 it is fair to state that research is the foundation of progress. If you 

 do not believe in research you will not believe in progress. I think 

 it is the failure to appreciate this welded relationship that is causing 

 certain forms of human activity to lag so far behind others. 



However, the object of this paper is not to criticise the lumber in- 

 dustry. It is to point out the relation of research to forest manage- 

 ment. This is a hard job because we have had little or no forest 

 management in this country, only forest exploitation. 



Without wishing to be unduly critical or pessimistic, it is my belief 

 that we will continue to have forest exploitation so long as it is possible 

 to buy stumpage for less than the cost of growing it. If this position 

 is correct, then the way to bring about forest management is to give to 

 stumpage a value greater than the cost of growing it. 



There are two ways in which this might be accomplished. The first 

 is to cut, burn down, kill with disease or otherwise destroy our forests. 

 Then the demand for stumpage will be so much greater than the supply 

 that it will pay to grow trees, and undoubtedly forest management will 

 be practiced. From all indications we are pursuing this policy at 

 present quite vigorously. This policy is aiding the practice of forest 

 management, but it is also annihilating one of our great national re- 

 sources and robbing our nation of its wealth. In this program re- 

 search plays little or no part. 



The second method of bringing about the practice of forest manage- 

 ment is to create such a demand for the products of the forest that the 

 price received for these products will more than equal the cost of pro- 

 ducing them. In such a program research can play a most prominent 

 part. If this proposal is accepted research can then be made a direct 

 aid to forest management. I will elabprate on this proposal and 

 amplify it later. 



' Read before the Madison Section of the Society of American Foresters, 

 May 10, 1920. 



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