A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMERICAN FORESTRY 669 



sary to think out plans as fully as possible in advance of beginning 

 work, with whatever advantage this may bring in avoiding mistakes. 

 It permits criticism from other men. The scheme as followed is per- 

 fectly flexible in allowing or requiring the revision of plans whenever 

 the development of the work calls for it. W^hout question this 

 requirement also helps to insure the fullest possible correlation of the 

 investigative work as a whole. 



Dependence upon public funds has led among other things to the 

 adoption of the principle of accountability, and there cannot be 

 accountability without pressure on men who need it for the delivery 

 of reasonable results. That this principle is regarded by many 

 research organizations as inapplicable in investigative work or injuri- 

 ous to it is well known. Without any question accountability 

 introduces difficult problems of supervision. Zeal and interest can in 

 the great majority of cases be appealed to in men of the right sort 

 when important questions of public interest are involved. Men who 

 have the ability to render satisfactory services and who have the 

 public interest at heart are not the ones who object. Rightly handled, 

 periodic accounting need not interfere with individual initative and 

 can be made as wholesome an incentive to good work in research as in 

 any other human activity. In the last analysis the public that we 

 serve has a right to ask that for every dollar expended at least an 

 equivalent value in services be rendered and that appropriate means 

 to insure this return be taken. 



Finally, effective supervision requires conscious and continued 

 effort to create and maintain the right atmosphere for research, the 

 interest, the zeal, and in general the intangibles which are so large a 

 factor in the character and quality as well as the quantity of work 

 and which are perhaps more needed in research than in any other 

 activity. 



Organization, facilities for work, finances, men, and effective super- 

 vision are, however, merely a beginning. Taken alone they mean 

 nothing. Singly and collectively they only pave the way for research. 

 Research itself is only a means to an end. The end is human welfare. 



PROGRESS IN RESEARCH AND THAT STILL REQUIRED 



In the space available it is possible to discuss actual progress in 

 research only in the most general terms. A compensating advantage 

 should be a clearer picture of the broader aspects of the situation for 

 the entire country. Because the major portion of Forest Service 

 results have been obtained since the formation of the Branch of 

 Research in 1915, the statement covers all results to date. The 

 headings are by appropriation items and do not in all cases conform 

 exactly to accepted professional terminology. The field which 

 remains to be covered is discussed without reference to the obliga- 

 tion for it which rests on many agencies of which the Federal Govern- 

 ment is only one. 



FOREST MANAGEMENT 



Forest management, one of the most important classes of forest 

 research, determines how to establish, bring to maturity, measure, 

 and protect forests or, in the broadest sense of the term, how to grow 

 or manage forest properties. Research in forest entomology and 



