A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 561 



soapberry for soap, manzanita roots for pipe bowls, etc. Twenty- 

 eight hundred pounds of moss (mostly sphagnum) was removed under 

 permit during the calendar year 1931 from the White Mountain 

 National Forest, N.H., and the Unaka National Forest, Tenn., 

 chiefly for surgical dressings and horticultural packing. 



No satisfactory inventory has yet been made of the extent and 

 character of the minor products of American forests. For most of 

 the species research is necessary to determine: (1) Their beneficial 

 or detrimental relationship to the forest and. to forest management, 

 including timber, watershed, range, wild life, recreation, or other 

 values; and (2) methods of utilization consistent with highest and 

 perpetuated productivity and compatible with other outstanding 

 forest uses and values. 



Forests serve as natural laboratories for research. Their vegeta- 

 tion is proving to be an increasingly important source of supply for 

 the plant breeder. Examples may be cited in the use of western forest 

 species in the development of needed types of strawberry, of native 

 aconite for the drug trade, of native forest grasses in the production 

 of cultivated forage plants for range and pasture improvement at home 

 and abroad, and in the breeding of plums. Important research is in 

 progress on the role of the forest in harboring obnoxious plants, such 

 as those that are poisonous, mechanically injurious, or which are 

 abundant and worthless. 



The proportion of forest plants known to be injurious to agriculture 

 is relatively small; certain species serve as alternate hosts of timber 

 and agricultural crop diseases, subjects which also require further 

 study. For example, certain forest grasses serve as alternate hosts 

 for cereal stripe rust, while barberries and buckthorns occupy similar 

 roles for stem rust of spring wheat and crown rust of pats, respectively, 

 and the thurberia bush harbors the cotton bollweevil. Further fields 

 for study are indicated in the extent to which certain members of the 

 forest cover shelter insects and other organisms injurious to man and 

 beast, and the relationship borne to forest protection methods by 

 various subsidiary plants, e.g., resinous shrubs such as snowbrush 

 and bearmat, the inflammable spores of certain clubmosses, and cer- 

 tain fibrous tree lichens of the alectoria-evernia type. In the maple 

 sugar sirup industry more information is needed as to the best number 

 of tappable trees per acre, methods of obtaining the proper number per 

 unit area of trees of the most desired " sugar orchard" type, the best 

 diameter and depth of taphole, and, in general, methods and periods 

 of tapping that will insure maximum continuous yield. Research 

 is also needed regarding methods of collection, cutting, etc., of medic- 

 inal and ornamental plants conducive to permanent yield, and as to 

 the use of bee-plant range at heights of flowering seasons of the most 

 important plants. 



The forest economics aspects of these minor by products need 

 additional emphasis for, by their proper utilization, opportunity is 

 afforded here and there to supplement income from forest properties 

 to a greater or less extent. 



Regulations needed for minor forest by products on Federal lands 

 cover permits for sales and collection methods based upon use in 

 conformity with the best management principles, and in recognition 

 of the principle that the objective sought is permanent utilization and 

 enjoyment of these byproducts, as opposed on the one hand to nonuse 



