718 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



and to a lesser extent on private forests when needed. As the result 

 of a small appropriation for that purpose, the Division is now aiding 

 the National Park Service by making a special reconnaissance study 

 of tree diseases in the national parks and advising methods of control. 

 The Division also maintains pathplogists with the forest products 

 laboratory for special work on diseases affecting forest products. 

 A limited amount of study of dangerous foreign or introduced diseases 

 has been made in the countries of origin, to secure information of value 

 in planning quarantines and eradication work. 



The Division of Blister Rust Control applies and extends measures 

 for the control of white pine blister rust, based on principles estab- 

 lished for it by previous research by the Division of Forest Pathology. 

 Through cooperative agreements, the Division of Blister Rust Control 

 maintains an organization in all States which have commercially 

 valuable stands of white pine. This organization supervises the 

 control of blister rust on State and private lands. The same assistance 

 is extended to Federal land. 



Aside from control of blister rust, there is relatively little work 

 done by individual States on forest-tree diseases. New York conducts 

 some pathological work in its conservation commission for this 

 purpose, and the Natural History Survey of Illinois is giving attention 

 to diseases of elm in that State. In Ohio, Idaho, Pennsylvania, 

 Minnesota, Michigan, New York, and Connecticut and a few other 

 States there has been investigative work carried on incidentally to 

 teaching in the State educational institutions or to research in general 

 plant pathology in the agricultural experiment stations. The small 

 amount of attention to forest pathology in State institutions is 

 probably due as much or more to the inclination and training of indi- 

 vidual pathologists and lack of available funds than to any definite 

 policy or lack of interest of the institutions concerned. Forest 

 diseases cannot be investigated with the ease or speed with which 

 results can be obtained on the diseases of smaller and shorter-lived 

 plants ; and the damage and control phases of such investigations can 

 be adequately handled only by men who have a knowledge of forestry 

 as well as of plant pathology. These facts have induced general 

 plant pathologists to study forest diseases only incidentally and 

 without the continuity of effort that is absolutely essential in the 

 study of diseases of long-lived host plants. Many States whose 

 forests are a primary resource do no work in forest pathology. 



There are no private organizations for investigation or control of 

 forest diseases. Three endowed universities with forest pathologists 

 on their teaching staffs do some research. The Oxford Paper Co. in 

 cooperation with the New York Botanical Garden is studying the 

 diseases of poplars with a view to developing resistant varieties for 

 the use of the company. On a few private forests there is a steady 

 and well directed effort to reduce- diseases to the minimum. In the 

 main, the private timberland owner does not realize the presence or 

 importance of disease unless numbers of trees are killed simultane- 

 ously. Control of white-pine blister rust has been applied over exten- 

 sive areas of private forest land in the Eastern States through a co- 

 operative service organization which has proved to be unusually 

 effective in securing general application of the results of investigative 

 work. 



