NATIONAL FOREST ORGANIZATION 



By S. W. WynneI 



During the past few years very radical and far-reaching changes 

 have taken place in the organization of the working forces of 

 many large industrial concerns. It is natural that these changes 

 should be reflected in the thought of men in the Forest Service who 

 are interested in business management and keep track of progress 

 outside the Service. Mr. Woolsey's excellent article in this volume 

 of the Quarterly puts the matter forth in a definite form, and no 

 doubt his several propositions will bring out the thorough discus- 

 sion which has been pending for some time. That different men 

 will reach different conclusions with about the same data is just as 

 certain in the Service as it has been with industrial concerns. The 

 extreme difference between District 2 and District 3, at present, 

 indicates how divergent lines of management can proceed from very 

 similar conditions. Which one is right can be determined only by 

 measuring the work accomplished by each and balancing it against 

 the total cost. No common reducing factor has been found to 

 measure the work, and until it is, some other method of determina- 

 tion must be used. If we turn to industry and study the trend of 

 changing methods, it will be seen that large imits are displacing 

 small ones. For a time it was held by some organizers that a large 

 operating unit was the first step to low costs. Further experience 

 showed that this did not always work out, in fact, the increase in 

 size sometimes resulted in an increase of cost due to a lessening in 

 the intensity of supervision as against a mmiber of small units 

 with closer attention by the boss. When this condition was 

 studied, it was found that the increase in size was simply a con- 

 solidation of similar units without material change in Junction. 

 Increased effectiveness of a single large organization over several 

 small ones resulted only when there was a greatly increased divi- 

 sion of labor, or specialization. Conversely, the Taylor type of 

 ' ' functional management ' ' is possible only in a large imit . It would 

 seem that the intense grazing business in District 4 would fur- 

 nish an excellent chance for larger imits, with a grazing specialist 

 to relieve the supervisor of this class of work. The great trouble 

 usually with having a specialist is that the cases requiring his 



' Forest Supervisor, Sequoia National Forest. 



589 



