158 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



in addition to silvicultural management, must be accomplished. There 

 is in addition a wider and a still more important field, which is that 

 of leadership — leadership of thought and action in all the communities 

 whose interests are touched by the National Forests. The real execu- 

 tive must have the faculty for impressing people with his sincerity, 

 his integrity, and, above all, his real ability in the performance of the 

 work to which he is assigned. He must be able to imbue the people 

 with whom he comes in contact with a sympathetic and comprehen- 

 sive understanding of the aims and purposes of the Forest Service, 

 the methods by which he purposes to accomplish such aims and pur- 

 poses, and the reasons for the procedure which is being followed and 

 which touches the lives or interests of all residents of the near-by 

 communities. A forest officer who can do this is bound to succeed, 

 and one who cannot is almost certainly doomed to failure. 



Idealism has its proper place in National Forest administration, but 

 its importance should not be unduly magnified. The administration 

 of a forest is a business undertaking, and, as in any other business 

 undertaking, success is gauged and demonstrated by the preponderance 

 of benefit over effort. Everything done must have a purpose; every- 

 thing done must justify itself by the return of some beneficial result 

 which clearly is in excess of the energy and money required to ac- 

 complish it. There should, of course, be proper thought given to the 

 future, but the needs of the future should be finely balanced against 

 the needs of the present, so that neither need will be unnecessarily 

 sacrificed for the other. There should be no thought that time will 

 adjust or cover over mistakes of the present. 



These, then, are some of the aspects of National Forest administration 

 which must present themselves to every man aspiring to an administra- 

 tive or executive position. How well equipped is the average technically 

 trained forester to meet these requirements within the ten-year period 

 following the granting of his degree? In the great majority of in- 

 stances he comes from a wholly different environment, where different 

 ideals, different codes of conduct and morals, different traditions, dif- 

 ferent points of view, have prevailed for generations and combine to 

 create an atmosphere wholly dissimilar to that in which the man will 

 be compelled to work. The men with whom he has been brought in 

 contact during his earlier career were of a wholly different type and 

 character from the men with whom he will be thrown in contact in 

 the practice of his profession. He comes out fully conversant with 

 the theory of scientific forestry and finds that it conflicts with the 



