RECENT FOREST PROPAGANDA IN THE PHILIPPINES 753 



Although the report is too lengthy to incorporate in full in this 

 article, one portion reads as follows : 



"After a most careful and detailed consideration of the Bureau of 

 Forestry, it is the firm conviction of your committee that now, as in the 

 past, the suggestion to consolidate Forestry and Agriculture, either 

 with the College of Agriculture or the Bureau of Agriculture, or in 

 fact the suggestion to consolidate the Bureau of Forestry with any 

 other branch of the Government, has arisen from a lack of definite 

 appreciation or from a mistaken idea of what forestry really is, of the 

 objects for which the Bureau of Forestry exists, and of the kind of 

 work which the members of the Bureau are called upon to perform." 



The report then proceeds to describe the work of the Bureau of 

 Forestry, and adds : 



"It is evident that in the carrying on of such work neither the 

 Bureau of Agriculture nor the College of Agriculture plays any part 

 whatever. Each of these organizations, as has been shown above, has 

 its own objects to fulfill, and it could only result in a mutual loss of 

 efficiency to combine two such different branches of the Government." 



Referring to the proposal to merge the Bureau of Forestry in the 

 Bureau of Lands, the report says in part: 



"As the suggestion has also been made that the Bureau of Forestry 

 be combined with the Bureau of Lands, your committee took occasion 

 to investigate the advisability of such a plan. As a result, we find that 

 the activities of the Bureau of Forestry are equally as distinct from the 

 Bureau of Lands as they are from the Bureau of Agriculture. There 

 is no duplication wdiatever, and the same considerations that argue 

 against the combination of the Bureau of Forestry with the Bureau of 

 Agriculture hold against the proposed combination of the Bureau of 

 Forestry with the Bureau of Lands." 



Referring to the Forest School, the report recommends : 



"The time has come and passed when the permanent status of the 



Forest School should be established in order that the forest students 

 may be given the training best to fit them for their forest work, and 

 that such training may be given in the most efficient and economical 

 manner. . . . 



"Your committee strongly recommends that the Philippine legisla- 

 ture pass a bill separating completely the Forest School from the Col- 

 lege of Agriculture and from the University of the Philippines, and 

 organizing it as the Forest Academy of the Bureau of Forestry. The 

 Director of Forestry should be ex officio dean of the Forest Acad- 

 emy," 



Only those who have been through the battles of the past can appre- 

 ciate how radical a change of sentiment such a report indicates, and 



