378 JOURNAI, OF FORKSTRY 



our technical forestry graduates fall short in many so-called practical, 

 every-day features of forest management and in the matter of mental 

 and physical adjustment to their new environment. 



His first two points can only be proved by a tabulation of statistics. 



His position regarding the third item shows a rather narrow view- 

 point, both in what forest management consists of and in what a tech- 

 nically trained forester should know. On the whole, it brings up the 

 old controversy, settled more than a hundred years ago, of the relative 

 merits of the practical man and the scientific man. 



Was not forest management in Germany and other countries held 

 back for hundreds of years while it was in the hands of these so-called 

 practical men ? From the twelfth to the close of the eighteenth century 

 forest management advanced so far, and no further, until the technical 

 forester came upon the scene. 



The situation at the end of the eighteenth century was, briefly, this : 

 Forest management had developed largely in the hands of the Cameral- 

 ists, who were usually at the heads of the forest administrations, and 

 in the hands of the so-called "Holzgerechte Jaeger," to whom, natu- 

 rally, fell the work in the woods. Under the Cameralistic regime tech- 

 nical forestry work was held back because these men, while well in- 

 formed in financial, legal, and administrative matters pertaining to the 

 forest, were rather ignorant of natural science and technical forestry. 

 The hunters, who were also supposed to be versed in forestry matters, 

 had had no schooling in the science of forestry, but usually possessed a 

 great fund of practical knowledge gleaned through years of experience 

 in the woods. At the beginning of the nineteenth century a new order 

 of things came into being. Technical foresters began to supplant the 

 practical foresters and made possible the present high stage of develop- 

 ment of the science. 



The transition stage which took place in Germany about a century 

 ago is, in its major aspects, identical with the stage American forestry 

 is now passing through. When the field force of the Bureau of For- 

 estrv was first organized, in 1897, men who were well informed in ad- 

 ministrative matters connected with the National Forests secured most 

 of the administrative positions. This condition of affairs continued for 

 almost 10 years. Beginning about 1900, technical foresters began to 

 come from the forestry schools. These are gradually and certainly 

 displacing the old type of man. It will be a long transition, but the 

 outcome is inevitable, judging from forestry history. Why? Because 

 forest management in its large aspects demands technical training, and 

 because, furthermore, all professions and all vocations that have to do 



