800 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



search in particular, and furthermore, will learn to appreciate the 

 traits and characteristics of the research type of forester, then they 

 will have no serious difficulty in arriving at an understanding as to 

 the training which the research forester should have in order to be 

 successful. It is very evident that the Forest Service, and other forest 

 organizations, for that matter, are badly in need of competent research 

 men, and, on the other hand, that the forest schools would only be too 

 glad to furnish these men if they knew just exactly the training that 

 was required by them. It seems to me this is an excellent opportunity 

 for an advisory committee, composed partly of forestry school pro- 

 fessors and partly of Government research men, to study out and 

 recommend a definite plan of action. This plan must, to be complete, 

 provide for two important needs : a new position in the Government 

 civil service by which research men shall be admitted to the Forest 

 Service, and, secondly, a definite course of study in the fundamental 

 sciences, peculiarly adapted to meet the needs of men specializing in 

 silvical and silvicultural research. 



When the administrative field force of the Forest Service was first 

 organized many men secured good appointments and, subsequently, 

 rapid promotion who today would not even be considered properly fit 

 and qualified for the work. Most of them knew nothing about for- 

 estry ; their chief assets were, perhaps, a knowledge of the western 

 country, a little experience in the live-stock or timber business, and a 

 little business instinct. The research force was organized more or less 

 on the same plan in the beginning, and is, in some respects, to this very 

 day. Men get into research work even now, not because they have 

 had special training, but because they are the best that are available. 

 Their only qualifications are that they have evinced an interest in this 

 sort of work and at the same time have shown administrative ability. 

 Men are shifted from research work to administrative work, and vice 

 versa, according as more men are needed in one line of work or the 

 other. The attitude in general has been that a man for the experiment 

 stations does not differ radically in training or temperament from the 

 kind of man required in administrative work. The result of this 

 policy, or rather lack of policy, has been that a number of men not at 

 all qualified for research or investigative work have been placed in re- 

 sponsible positions at the experiment stations in the past. These men 

 had not only poor training, or no training at all, in botany and ecology, 

 but also, in some cases, poor training in forestry itself. 



Bear in mind I am not speaking especially of the men who have 

 charge of the experiment stations today. They are the result, more or 



