882 JOURNAL 01' FORKSTRV 



ability as administrative men. So completely has the research bureau 

 of the Forest Service become obsessed with the idea that research men 

 must be at the same time administrative men that research men of good 

 standing, capable, according to the associate forester, of rendering ex- 

 cellent service in research, have been railroaded out of the Service be- 

 cause they have lacked administrative ability. In short, there is at the 

 ])resent time no position open to purely research foresters in the Forest 

 Service. Is such a policy in the best interests of forestry research? Is 

 it conceivable that there is no employment in the Forest Service today 

 for a forester who wants to devote his life to research work? Strange 

 and unfortunate though it may seem, there is not. 



If research work in the Government service is to attain a healthy 

 development, these are a few of the matters that must be given atten- 

 tion. It seems to me this is another place in w^iich a standing advisory 

 committee on research could perform an invaluable service. There 

 ought to be a closer co-operation between the heads of the research 

 bureau of the Forest Service and the teachers and educators of our re- 

 search men — in other words, between those that are acquainted with 

 the administrative limitations and applications of research work and 

 those that appreciate the purely scientific point of view-. This closer 

 co-operation should take the form of a standing committee consisting 

 of professors of silviculture, the directors of the forest experiment 

 stations, and the heads of the research bureau in Washington. If nec- 

 essary, the advice of one or two professors of plant ecology should be 

 solicited. A direct result of this closer co-operation should be the solu- 

 tion of the problem of how^ to give research men the greatest possible 

 freedom in their work — how^ to divorce administrative work from re- 

 search as far as possible under present administrative limitations. 



Coming back to the question, Under present conditions of organiza- 

 tion, how can Government research work be left relatively free and 

 unhampered ? While I have alread}- made a few suggestions along this 

 line, I am tempted to say something more about the top-heavy adminis- 

 trative organization of Forest Service research work. 



The shackles of super-administration should be relentlessly with- 

 drawn from the director of the Forest Experiment Station. He has 

 original ideas, in most cases unbounded enthusiasm and initiative, yet 

 W'hat chance has he to put some of his ideas and hypotheses to a test? 

 He wants certain equipment and desires to investigate certain prob- 

 lems ; but these wants and desires must first be ground through the 

 administrative mill of the district office and the Washington office. 

 The man in charge of Forest Investigations at the district office, the 



