A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 673 



ment of suppression tactics and technique. To the same end scat- 

 tered effort has been devoted to the development of power equipment 

 to speed up work and to reduce costs by replacing hand labor, which 

 to date has been so largely used in fire suppression. 



In a relatively few instances research has indicated the possibility 

 that it may be advantageous or even necessary to use fire as a bene- 

 ficial agent in silviculture. Research of this character, however, lies 

 almost entirely ahead. 



The possibility that the menace of forest fires may be reduced 

 through silvicultural management, and that under some conditions 

 the maintenance of the forest cover by the elimination of clear cut- 

 ting may be the most effective means of fire prevention, has only 

 been touched upon. The work done, however, suggests rather far- 

 reaching modifications of silviculture, and in fact for some forest 

 types the probability that future silviculture may be dominated by 

 requirements for fire prevention. 



Forest-fire research to date has, on the whole, been centered very 

 largely on man power, finances, organization, etc., to prevent and 

 minimize forest fires and to extinguish them. In general, forest-fire 

 research is still in its infancy, and its achievements lie mostly in the 

 future. 



OTHER CLASSES OF MANAGEMENT RESEARCH 



Other phases of forest management in which research can make 

 important contributions but in which as yet far too little or prac- 

 tically nothing has been attempted include : Forest regulation, involv- 

 ing rotations, cutting cycles, and cutting budgets, which have both 

 silvicultural and economic aspects; forest engineering, including such 

 problems as permanent road or transportation systems for forest 

 utilization but having important silvicultural aspects, and as road 

 and trail systems for fire protection; and park forestry and city and 

 town or shade tree forestry, both of which have important root, physi- 

 ological, growth, and health problems in which there is a large amount 

 of public interest. Before forestry in the United States can be on 

 a wholly satisfactory scientific foundation much information must 

 be available for many species on the relative merits of geographical 

 strains. This, along with other information, is needed as a basis of 

 seed selection for planting. There is a distinct possibility also of 

 developing hybrids which will be superior to any existing species. 



FOREST RANGE INVESTIGATIONS 



If not the first, the United States was one of the first countries to 

 undertake range research. This work of the Forest Service grew out 

 of the widespread use of western national forest ranges by domestic 

 livestock and has since been extended by departmental or legal dis- 

 pensation to include other forest ranges as well as nontimbered west- 

 era ranges. The justification for the work is the possibility of using 

 the range as one of the important products of the forest. 



The Forest Service has centered its work primarily on the range 

 resource and the relation of range used to timber growing and water- 

 shed protection, and has taken up the problem of handling livestock 

 on the range only incidentally. The use of native plants in most 

 instances as a secondary crop w^hich must be perpetuated and con- 

 trolled by natural processes and skillful use and, in the West, at least, 



