FOREST GENETICS — AUSTIN 439 



budding and grafting were quite successful, even when one species 

 was budded onto another. 



The more one studies genetics, the more thoroughly he becomes 

 convinced of the widespread application of the fundamental laws of 

 heredity, and the importance of giving thought today to the genera- 

 tions yet to come. The universality of these considerations may be 

 appreciated by observing the close similarity in the situation that has 

 long existed in forestry and in human society. When war is declared, 

 the best specimens of manhood are sought out and sent to the front, 

 often never to return, while those that the examinations show to be 

 unfit, are left at home to perpetuate the race. 



With timber trees, too, this unfortunate practice has been all too 

 prevalent of using the best for present needs and leaving the discards 

 with their inferior heritage for the future — a tragic policy, bringing 

 about the deterioration of the strains of our forest trees through what 

 might well be termed "the perpetuation of the unfit." In some ways 

 it may seem only natural that many have yielded to the pecuniary 

 temptation to send to the mill all the finest and largest specimens, 

 with straightest grain and the best form, leaving as seed-trees for 

 natural regeneration only the misshapen, diseased, and otherwise un- 

 desirable types that are not fit for lumber. In many cases the seed 

 gathered for artificial reforestation has been little better, for all too 

 often the collectors' chief concern has been ease of gathering, and 

 hence much of the seed has come from low, scrubby or stunted trees. 



We know that not all of these poor-appearing trees have an inferior 

 heredity, for those defects that are caused by environmental influ- 

 ences, such as mechanical injuries, are in no respect hereditary. Yet 

 on the other hand, we also know that many visible characteristics 

 that are undesirable economically, such as spiral grain and suscepti- 

 bility to disease, and many others, are often definitely hereditary. It 

 seems obvious, then, that any system of selection in which only the 

 culls and poorest specimens are saved for reproduction must lead 

 inevitably to the deterioration of the strain. 



Another example of the unfortunate tendency to destroy the best, 

 and one that is seldom appreciated, is afforded by the Institute's 

 previously-mentioned discovery that the forms of ponderosa pine 

 having the greatest inherent vigor seem to come from the low eleva- 

 tions in the Sierra of California. In this belt, at an elevation of only 

 900 feet above the sea, lies Coloma, where gold was discovered in 

 1848, starting an avalanche of adventurous prospectors to California. 

 With surprising rapidity, mining camps sprang up all along the foot- 

 hills, and as this new western civilization developed, man unwittingly 

 logged off great quantities of the easily-accessible low-altitude trees 

 that we now find constitute a strain having exceptional growth capac- 

 ities. This deforestation has been carried still farther by the fires that 



