Forestry and Government 179 



also true of the economic side. Thorough and 

 reliable information on markets, inventions affect- 

 ing the use of woods, legislative measures in the 

 various States, and economic conditions generally 

 must be at the command of the forester for the 

 proper conduct of his business. The owners of 

 woodlands, the lumbermen, and other exploiters 

 of forests cannot, as a rule, be expected to acquire 

 such information for themselves, still less to pub- 

 lish it for the benefit of others. They rarely have 

 the training required to make scientific investiga- 

 tions even of the simplest sort. If they had the 

 ability, yet they would lack the time and inclina- 

 tion to do work of this kind. The work must 

 be done, not for the interest of these exploiters 

 merely, but in the interest of the nation, which 

 needs the forest and the forest industries. There- 

 fore it is eminently within the province of the gov- 

 ernment to provide means and men to do work of 

 this kind. It must be said that both our federal 

 and State governments have done more in this 

 branch of forestry work than in any other, yet 

 much still remains to be done. Just what the 

 various scientific bureaus of the United States and 

 of many of the States have accomplished in this 

 direction, we will outline in another chapter. In 

 this place we merely want to make the point, that 

 no matter what our view may be regarding the 

 expediency of private or public systems of forest 

 management, we cannot deny that here is a great 

 field for the activity of governmental agencies. 



