THE PLACE OF FOEESTEY AMONG NATUEAL 

 SCIENCES.^ 



By Henry S. Graves, 

 Forester, U. S. Department of Agriculture. 



In an old forest magazine, Sjdvan, is a story about Germany's 

 great poet, Karl von Schiller. Schiller, taking rest at Illmenaii, 

 Thuringen, met by chance a forester who was preparing a plan of 

 management for the Illmenau Forest. A map of the forest was 

 spread out, on which the cuttings for the next 220 years were pro- 

 jected and noted with their year number. B}^ its side lay the plan 

 of an ideal coniferous forest which was to have materialized in 

 the year 2050. Attentively and quietly the poet contemplated the 

 telling means of forest organization, and especially the plans for 

 far-distant years. He quickly realized, after a short explanation, 

 the object of the work, and gave vent to his astonishment: 



I had considered you foresters a very common people who did little else 

 than cut down trees and kill game, but you are far from that. You work 

 unknown, unrecompensed, free from the tyranny of egotism, and the fruit of 

 your quiet work ripens for a late posterity. Hero and poet attain vain glory ; 

 I would like to be a forester. 



An opinion not unlike that held by Schiller before meeting with 

 the forester still commonly prevails in scientific circles in this 

 country. It is quite generally believed that foresters are pure 

 empiricists; something on the order of gardeners who plant trees, 

 of range riders who fight forest fires, or lumbermen who cruise 

 timber, carry on logging operations or manufacture lumber and 

 other forest products; that for whatever little knowledge of a 

 scientific character the forester may need in his work, he depends on 

 experts in other branches of science; on the botanists for the tax- 

 onomy of the trees; on physicists, chemists, and engineers for the 

 proper understanding of the physical, chemical, and mechanical 

 properties of the wood; on the geologists and soil physicist for the 

 knowledge of sites suitable for the grov/th of different kinds of 

 trees; upon the plant pathologist for the diseases of trees; upon 

 the entomologist for the insect enemies of the forest, and so on. 



1 Paper delivered before the Washington Academy of Sciences on Dec. 3, 1914. Reprinted 

 by permission from the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Washington, D. C, 

 Vol. 5, No. 2, Jan. 19, 191.5. 



1S618°— SM 1915 17 257 



