EDITORIAL COMMENT 621 



contribute largely to the outcome. In a certain sense, the Forest Serv- 

 ice as an organization is the author of many of its official reports, quite 

 as much as the man whose name appears on the title page. This in 

 itself has led to liberality in the common professional use of the results 

 of individual study. 



As the main source of information on forestry matters, the Forest 

 Service has sought to afford facilities to members of the profession who 

 are not in the Service for keeping in touch with the progress of its 

 research and administrative work. This has been regarded as neces- 

 sary in the interests of the profession and in the long run of the Gov- 

 ernment work itself. It has been recognized that there were large 

 accumulations of data wliich, under the general publication policy of 

 the Ser\'ice, would not become available in print for a long time, but 

 which it was essential that the forest schools should have. Oftentimes 

 information of this kind is embodied in manuscripts which require 

 modification before they can be given official sanction as the conclu- 

 sions of approved results of the Forest Service, but as the results of 

 individuals are of large value to the specialist. By liberality in allowing 

 members of the profession to make use of the information in its files 

 or in the heads of its members, the Forest Service has been able to help 

 the profession keep up to date. 



Finally, when the Forest Service does publish its results they are not 

 copyrighted. Any one who wishes to make use of information em- 

 bodied in Government publications is legally free to do so. The only 

 restraint on appropriation of material is that imposed by the conscience 

 of the individual and the code of ethics which prevails among scientists 

 and writers of standing with regard to plagiarism. To plagiarize is, 

 according to one of the dictionary definitions, "to appropriate without 

 due acknowledgment the ideas or expressions of another." The time 

 has perhaps come for members of the profession of forestry to ponder 

 with some care the limitations which professional courtesy and a scru- 

 pulous regard for the rights of others impose upon writers of books or 

 of C(Mitributions to periodicals, when assistance is received or results 

 are utilized in a way that might, without careful attention to the giving 

 of credits, give rise to the suspicion of plagiarism. 



Henuv S. Graves. 



