NOTES ON THE DOUGLAS FIR. 3 1 



weeks I was able to spend in the United States were largely 

 occupied in paying visits to the headquarters of the Forest 

 Service at Washington, the Madison Forest Products Labora- 

 tories, and the great Forest Schools for which America is justly 

 famed. On all sides I was accorded the same fine hospitality 

 and courteous treatment. I was particularly impressed, both in 

 the United States and in Canada, and especially in the former 

 country, by what is being done in the way of guiding public 

 opinion to a proper appreciation of the necessity for the adoption 

 by the State of an enlightened policy in regard to the conserva- 

 tion and development of the country's timber resources. In 

 this propagandist movement the University teaching centres 

 co-operate, in the closest degree, with other educational agencies, 

 such as the American Forestry Association and the Canadian 

 Forestry Association, bodies which avowedly exist for no other 

 purpose than that of fostering the conservation movement, and 

 have a large membership and a powerful organisation to support 

 their activities. The social and moral benefits that will 

 ultimately accrue from the adoption of a wise and progressive 

 policy of conservation and development is the note that is being 

 unceasingly sounded in this propagandist movement. The large 

 views of those who are the leaders in the movement, and the 

 extent to which assistance is given to forestry by older and 

 more firmly established interests, such as the kindred agricultural 

 interests, is made clear from the following notes quoted from 

 the American Forestry Magazine for March 1922 : — 



" In the long run the extensive practice of forestry on the 

 scale needed to yield the timber we require must be based 

 on a minute knowledge of the life-history and habits of 

 trees, singly and in groups. To get this knowledge will 

 require a vast deal of investigation, experimentation and 

 patient observation of forests of all kinds, in short, forestry 

 research on a national wide scale. Forestry research 

 occupies a prominent place in the forest policy recom- 

 mended by the recent National Agricultural Conference 

 where the following resolution was passed " : — 



" ' Research in forestry has already produced results 

 of incalculable value to the people of the United States 

 and is essential for future progress. Therefore research 

 in methods of maintaining and increasing the productivity 



