214 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



of engineering that applied mechanics will he taught hy other than 

 an engineer. Both subjects may be well commanded by specialists 

 who are not physicians or engineers, but the point of view brought 

 to the teaching by the man who is first the physician and afterwards 

 a bacteriologist is more and more essential. It will undoubtedly be 

 so in forestry, and there is already a marked tendency in this direction. 



A similar evolution is perceptible in the field. More and more 

 there is a demand for forest pathologists instead of mycologists and 

 entomologists. Some recent work done by such men is particularly 

 notable. It is to be urgently hoped that more good men will 

 specialize and become available to foresters. 



But the fact remains, and must always remain, that the forester 

 is the man in charge of the forest and the man who must decide what 

 shall be done, when and where it shall be done, and what it may cost. 

 It is the farmer himself who must practice diversified farming to 

 escape the boll-weevil pest, the orchardist who must spray for moth 

 and scab and scale, the physician who must fight the plagues. Each 

 must draw freely from the specialists in his line, but each must do his 

 work alone. This is particularly true in the case of the forester, with 

 his great areas and long working periods. To the forest the forester 

 must always be in loco parentis. The parent watches and wards for 

 a child and a good parent is much of very many things. And still 

 the parent calls upon the physician, the dentist, the druggist, the 

 oculist, or the other specialists, freely and at need — and is glad of 

 the chance to do so. But a hospital would be a poor place for a 

 child to be reared, and a surgeon might make a poor playmate. To 

 the forest the forester is in loco parentis. He cannot delegate his 

 duties if he would. The good forester must be much of many things, 

 for he is dealing with one of the most complex of societies. 



