Forest Experiment Station. 221 



operation with administrative officers and should not ordinarily 

 be burdened with administrative responsibility. In special cases, 

 however, it may be desirable for such officers to take entire 

 charge of a project in order to familiarize themselves with the 

 conditions met in actual practice. 



What promises to be a new field of activity for the experi- 

 ment station is developing out of the demand of the public for 

 technical advice on forestry. Already a considerable number 

 of requests for information in regard to tree planting are being 

 received from western states outside of the field of the Wash- 

 ington Office of State Co-operation. If these requests increase 

 materially in number, as they undoubtedly will, some provision 

 must be made for handling them. In some states, a large por- 

 tion of this work can be referred to the agricultural experiment 

 station, but in states' which do not maintain a Department of 

 Forestry, it will fall upon the Forest Service. It has been the 

 experience in District 3 that many of the requests for informa- 

 tion, particularly in regard to tree planting, are difficult to handle 

 because they come from agricultural sections in the lower alti- 

 tudes where conditions are entirely different from those on the 

 National Forests. If the Service continues the policy of fur- 

 nishing advice to private owners it must make the investigations 

 necessary to give reliable information. These investigations will 

 logically devolve upon the experiment station, but routine cor- 

 respondence and the execution of co-operative agreements should 

 as far as possible be handled by administrative officers. 



The experiment station has an unusual opportunity for edu- 

 cational influence. The public is rapidly awakenmg to the im- 

 portance of forestry and is looking for evidences of the work of 

 the Forest Service. An experiment station, if at all accessible, 

 is visited by a great number of people annually. Many are at- 

 tracted by mere curiosity, but others show a genuine interest in 

 the work. Not a few of these visitors are persons of scientific 

 prominence. The experiment station is thus called upon to up- 

 hold the scientific prestige of the Forest Service. A well con- 

 ducted nursery and a few successful plantations are a revelation 

 to the average layman. Reforestation appeals to the public more 

 than any other phase of forestry, and for this reason it is desir- 

 able that the experiment station locate its nursery and some of its 

 plantations where they can be conveniently reached by visitors. 



