34 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



It has been and still is a decided factor in the long, slow, uphill 

 fight to get on top of our fire problem. It has led to the ineffective 

 expenditures of large sums of money, great loss in timber and area 

 burned, and still greater loss in reduced productivity of land. 



It has delayed the natural reforestation of cut-over forests. In 

 planting it has led to costly mistakes and delays. 



It has brought to the forest wild-life problem only a belated recog- 

 nition that protection alone has created serious problems which only 

 sustained yield management fully correlated with other forms of 

 forest use can solve. 



It still leaves us uncertain regarding the best methods of controlling 

 our most common forms of insect infestation. It has attempted by 

 quarantines to close the door to further importations only after the 

 introduction of such diseases as the chestnut blight, which is prac- 

 tically wiping out one of our most valuable hardwoods, and such 

 insects as the gypsy moth, which has already necessitated expenditures 

 of millions of dollars and is still on our hands. 



Lack of even traditional knowledge has almost certainly been a 

 factor, particularly for the private owner, in discouraging any at- 

 tempt to practice forestry. 



It has slowed down progress, impaired efficiency, and increased 

 costs. In these ways, and perhaps still more by not anticipating 

 the great losses caused by erroneous public and private policy and 

 practices, it has been partly responsible for great public and pri- 

 vate losses and is still handicapping progress of the entire forestry 

 movement. 



RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT BELATED AND INADEQUATE 



In typical American fashion the development of research has 

 ordinarily lagged far behind executive action. 



The aggressive expansion of research was 15 years behind pro- 

 nounced national-forest development. Large-scale fire protection and 

 planting long anticipated research to ascertain the best technique. 



Repeated attempts to formulate national, regional, State, and 

 industrial policies preceded efforts to obtain authoritatively the 

 facts on which they should be based. 



The lumber and other forest industries lost large markets to 

 competitors before beginning efforts to obtain accurate knowledge of 

 their product. By far the largest investigative effort in the forest 

 industries stiU concerns itself largely with tests to insure a uniform 

 product. 



Whole forest regions are still without forest experiment stations 

 worthy of the name. In many important types practically no 

 research has yet been done. A complete and authoritative survey 

 of the forest resources of the United States has never been made. 

 Examples of what we do not know and have not yet attempted to 

 learn, or attempted only inadequately, could be expanded indefinitely. 



The aggressive development of forest research has occurred almost 

 entirely since the war, and most of it is far too recent to have produced 

 any but preliminary results. Even the training of men for the work 

 has been largely a post-war development. 



