A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 785 



The most important single means of popular education in forestry 

 matters is without doubt the press. The daily and weekly news- 

 papers reach people in all walks of life. In some States prepared 

 news bulletins are furnished for the newspapers of the State. 



State foresters are often given an opportunity to speak over the 

 radio. Some radio stations also broadcast the so-called fire weather 

 reports, warning the public when the weather for the day will be very 

 dry and conducive to forest fires. Public addresses by State forestry 

 officers are among their duties, and are widely used as a means of 

 education. Frequently the speaker can use lantern slides or moving 

 pictures, of which some States own their own films. New York 

 State in 1931 had films covering 30 different titles. There is such a 

 wide call for addresses of this kind that it has been necessary in New 

 York to restrict addresses to audiences where there will be at least 

 200 people. 



In their every-day personal contacts with the public, the State 

 forestry employees are constantly performing an educational function. 

 Observers on the fire lookout stations are often proivded with postal 

 cards and other printed matter, to hand interested visitors. Some 

 States require their field men to wear a uniform, which calls attention 

 to the work and the fact that the State is engaged in it. 



In several States special efforts are made to reach boys and girls in 

 summer camps, children in the schools, and people not easily reached 

 through ordinary channels. Several of the Southern States in 

 cooperation with the American Forestry Association put on a special 

 3-year educational campaign among the country people who lived in 

 the wooded sections. Trucks which carried their own moving-picture 

 equipment and lecturers were employed for that purpose. Pennsyl- 

 vania as long ago as 1926 had enlisted in an organization known as 

 the Forest Guides of Pennsylvania 25,000 boys, who were pledged to 

 help protect the forests of the State and to urge others to do so. 



Exhibits at fairs are a common means used to arouse interest, both 

 through the exhibit itself and through the man in attendance. These 

 exhibits take many and ingenious forms. The posting of signs and 

 the publication and distribution of bulletins afford means of reaching 

 large numbers of people. Pennsylvania in one 2-year period dis- 

 tributed more than 400,000 copies of publications, covering many 

 phases of forestry work. 



Demonstration methods are beginning to be used, with good results. 

 Several States have set up roadside demonstration plots, conspicuously 

 signed. Pennsylvania and Connecticut lay out " blue-ribbon plots." 

 The trees most suitable for the final crop trees are selected and marked 

 with a band of blue paint. Trees which if left would interfere with 

 the growth of the final crop trees will be cut out as they can be mar- 

 keted. These plots have excited a great deal of curiosity; signs are 

 placed to indicate their purpose and they have thus become of educa- 

 tional value. 



The laws of Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and 

 Tennessee require the teaching of forestry by the regular staff of 

 teachers in the primary or advanced public schools or in both. In 

 Ohio, South Carolina, and West Virginia provision is made by law 

 for the State board of education in each case to prepare a course of 

 study in fire prevention, which presumably includes protection of 

 forests from fire. This course is for use in public, private, and paro- 



