COMMENTS ON KNEIPP'S PAPER 563 



As Spring has pointed out in his criticism, forest management deals 

 with all the business of the forest. There are many minor details in the 

 sum total of the requirements of forest management in which efficiency 

 can be gained only by direct contact through local field experience, and 

 hence cannot be imparted to the student in his university training. It 

 is therefore that the non-technical man of local experience, and at the 

 same time proper temperamental qualities, has often been able to make 

 a better first impression than the technical man. Together with certain 

 other conditions to be referred to later, it will perhaps also explain why 

 so many of these non-technical men have been able to hold on to ad- 

 ministrative positions. We must not forget, however, that the indi- 

 vidual local problems involved in the technical details of fire protection, 

 grazing, timber-sale management, permanent improvements, etc., are 

 but details of the sum total of the management of the entire forest, and 

 that all of them must be thoroughly correlaed by some one with a broad 

 technical understanding of the entire situation. Many of them can be 

 handled without a great deal of experience or education. We can train 

 uneducated men for positions as rangers and guards in our short 

 courses of about three months' duration to do much of this work with 

 entire satisfaction, but their capacity is limited. 



The Forest Service realized fully in the early stages of its develop- 

 ment the human difficulties that would be involved in the management 

 of the forests, and tried to remedy the situation by obtaining men con- 

 versant with the local problems, and who had at the same time some 

 business ability, as the first supervisors, and then giving them technical 

 men as forest assistants, upon whom they should depend for the neces- 

 sary technical information. Unfortunately a large proportion of the 

 supervisors were not as well constituted temperamentally as they should 

 have been, and there was considerable friction. The technical man was 

 looking forward to the supervisor's job and the supervisor knew it. 

 As a temporary makeshift the general scheme was, on the whole, prob- 

 ably as good as could be formed. But it made it necessary to handle a 

 large amount of the detailed work of the forests under rather strict 

 instructions and regulations from the Washington office. This condi- 

 tion was somewhat alleviated later by the establishment of the district 

 officers, but the idea of centralization had become firmly established 

 and still persists. This, in the mind of the writer, is one of the reasons 

 why so many non-technical administrative officers have been able to 

 make good. Initiative doesn't count for what it should in the personnel 

 on the National Forests. Too many of the details of all the phases of 

 management and administration are dictated from the Washington and 



