SOME FUNDAMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS IN THE PROSE- 

 CUTION OF SILX'ICULTURAL RESEARCH 



By Richard H. Boekker 



IV. Tjiiv Present Status oe Goverxment Research Work 



I have already spoken of three fundamental considerations in the 

 prosecution of silvicultural research in the three previous papers of 

 this series, Parts I, II, and III, in the November issue, and I briefly dis- 

 cussed them quite apart from the numerous suggestions that have been 

 made by various foresters upon these same subjects. In order to. better 

 support my contentions and to fortify the position T have taken in 

 regard to them. I am giving in this paper numerous citations from 

 recent forestry literature to show that the suggestions I have made 

 and the few that I still intend to make find direct application in Gov- 

 ernment research work at the present time. 



Within the last two years the subject of forestry research, especially 

 silvicultural research, has been given the discussion which it right full v 

 deserves, and that by several very able foresters, so it was with con- 

 siderable reluctance that 1 attempted this series of papers upon the 

 subject. Dr. B. E. Fernow^ about two years ago, before the Societv, 

 made some suggestions as to the possibilities of silviculture in America, 

 which sums up the situation so well that I quote in cxtenso: 



"We will have to confess, we teachers of silviculture, that the knowledge we 

 propound is of a most general character, which fails to suffice when it comes to 

 applying it in a given specific case. Silviculture is still an empirical art, relying 

 upon trial and experiment to find out the modus operandi. We must realize 

 that all we can learn of silviculture as practised abroad is principles, and then 

 not always firmly based. 



"With a hundred years of experience behind them, with only a very limited 

 number of species to propagate, with only limited territory, and that means 

 limited climatic conditions, the practitioners of Europe are still at variance on 

 almost any silvicultural practice. Opinions and judgments, not specific pre- 

 scriptions, rule to a large extent. 1 f this is so even in the fatherland of forestry, 

 what shall wc exjjcct as regards application under vastly different and vastlv 

 varying climatic conditions, with an entirely different set of species, and a large 

 number of them to deal with, and without exiioricncc?' 



"Ignorance becomes excusable under such conditions ;ind it is justifiable to 

 hesitate before ai)plying untried methods on a large scale. 



' B. E. Fernow : vSuggestions as to Possibilities of Silviculture in .America. 

 Proc. Soc. .Xmerican Foresters. XT ; 2. piv 171-176, i<)i6. 



871 



