FOREST GENETICS — AUSTIN 435 



its national character and scope. The Board of Trustees is being con- 

 tinued as an Advisory Board. 



Placerville, Calif., was chosen as the site for the Institute's main 

 experimental station because of an unusual combination of favorable 

 conditions. It lies in the center of the belt containing the finest stands 

 of the principal western pine, ponderosa pine. Within the confines 

 of the State of California can be found more species of pines, on which 

 the Institute is specializing, than grow wild in any area of similar size 

 in the world. 



Climatic conditions are naturally of fundamental importance in 

 determining a suitable location for an enterprise of this character. The 

 average growing season to date at the Institute is 237 days. The 

 lowest temperature ever recorded is 16° Farenheit, which is comparable 

 to central Florida. The location chosen is one of the few in the entire 

 United States that is situated in an important forested area and that 

 has a climate sufficiently mild to permit assembling large collections 

 of basic tree-breeding material from nearly all parts of the world, as is 

 successfully being done at the Institute. 



Although the climate at the main experimental station itself is quite 

 moderate, there is abundant opportunity, within a driving distance of 

 50 miles, to obtain testing areas in the foothills and higher reaches of 

 the Sierra where minimum temperatures range from 16° above zero 

 to 30° below. On the Atlantic Seaboard one would have to travel 

 about a thousand miles, from central Florida to New England, to find 

 an equal range in minimum temperatures. 



During the 10 years since its founding the Institute has uncovered 

 many encouraging facts that indicate clearly that forest genetics is 

 not only entirely feasible, but that it will yield usable results in a 

 much shorter time than had been anticipated. Some of the very 

 factors that are ordinarily regarded as serious obstacles to progress 

 have been overcome and have been turned about so that they now serve 

 as material aids to the tree breeder. For example, the long life of 

 timber trees was regarded by many as a factor that made it seem likely 

 that it would be at least several decades before tree breeders could 

 offer to forest planters seeds of improved new types in sufficient 

 quantities to be of practical significance in reforestation. Yet a 

 short-cut method has been devised that makes it possible in a relatively 

 few years to isolate from among the innumerable strains of a given 

 species that nature has produced through countless generations, those 

 with superior germ plasm — that is, those that have the inherent charac- 

 teristics most desired by present-day planters. 



The process used is known as a Progeny Test and it isolates theso 

 superior, most vigorous strains as individual seed-trees in tho 

 forest, based on well-replicated nursery and plantation tests of their 



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