FORESTRY QUARTERLY 



Vol. XIII March, 1915 No. 1 



THE POINT OF VIEW^ 



Almost up to the present time the great work that has con- 

 fronted those engaged in putting forestry into practice in the 

 United States has been the development of an adequate system 

 for the administration of the enormous acreage that in the space 

 of two decades has been made into National and State forests. 

 The administrator and organizer has stood head and shoulder 

 above all those engaged in forestry. The thorough student, the 

 philosopher, the knower of the forest in a scientific sense has 

 been lost sight of among the builders of fences, trails and cabins. 

 Far be it from me to criticize this situation. It is the natural 

 order of development. I simply want to emphasize the brightness 

 of the halo that it has placed upon the administrator and the 

 shadow that it has cast for the time being upon the knower of 

 the woods After our system of administration has been de- 

 veloped, our boundary lines run, our cabins built, and our land 

 classification made, the halo of the administration will fall away 

 in luster and the sun will shine on the technician, because it is 

 only through his efforts that our wild and scarred woodlands can 

 in an orderly manner proceed toward a normal forest. 



Although it has been but one or two years since Gifford Pinchot 

 remarked that forestry was advancing everywhere in the United 

 States except in the v.'oods, it is my firm belief that the past few 

 years has experienced a notable advance in the woods. We are 

 making progress toward a normal forest. This advance is notice- 

 able all along the line but mostly in national forestry, less in 

 State forestry, and least of all in private forestry. 



^Portions of an address by Professor Tourney, Director of the Yale 

 Forest School, at the fourth annual dinner of the Foresters' Club at the 

 University of Toronto held January 22, 1915, entitled "Observations orv. 

 Forestry in the United States at the Present Day," which dealt with the 

 development of forestry during the past two decades and its effect upon 

 the profession. 



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