A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 795 



lished in 1909 and is devoted to a study of the problems of the 

 northern Minnesota woods. 



Another station worth noting is the Michigan Forest Fire Experi- 

 ment Station at Roscommon, Mich. It was organized in 1930 and is 

 a cooperative enterprise of the Michigan Department of Conservation 

 and the Lake States Forest Experiment Station of the United States 

 Forest Service. Both the State and the Federal Government are 

 represented on the station staff, and the various investigations under 

 way are divided between them by mutual agreement. As its name 

 indicates, the station was established to make forest-fire investiga- 

 tions. This includes a variety of subjects such as fire weather studies, 

 firebreak construction, fire damage, slash disposal, and the develop- 

 ment of fire-fighting equipment. 



The needs of the State forestry departments for more knowledge 

 will call for an increase of research facilities such as these stations 

 afford. The Pennsylvania Forest Research Institute is an example of 

 what might easily be done by a number of the more wealthy States, 

 at least, to enable their forestry departments to work out their more 

 fundamental problems. On the other hand, the Minnesota station 

 affords an example of an alternative course which a good many States 

 will doubtless prefer to take. Instead of setting up special provisions 

 for the conduct of major research projects, arrangements may be 

 made to have the work of this kind assumed by the forest schools and 

 agricultural experiment stations. Some States are now pursuing this 

 course. 



Research facilities at State forest schools. A considerable amount of 

 research in the aggregate is conducted by divisions, departments, and 

 schools of forestry attached to the State universities or colleges of 19 

 States. The amount varies greatly. Most of the forest schools have 

 faculties of from 2 to 4 professors only, who usually have little time 

 for research. Hence the larger part is done by relatively few schools 

 of forestry, at which special provision of one kind or another is made 

 for the purpose. In general, the research which is done by the schools 

 equipped for it is more intensive and less limited in point of applica- 

 bility than that performed by the State forestry departments. 



Not all of the forest schools, of course, are connected with the 

 State-supported colleges and universities. Some of the privately 

 endowed universities, notably Harvard, Yale, and Duke, occupy 

 outstanding positions in the list of institutions equipped to share in 

 the general forest research program, and need to be included without 

 distinction from the State-supported institutions in appraising the 

 available facilities for the work in the States. 



Limitations upon the resources of the forest schools affect the 

 amount rather than the kind of research. Their field is much broader 

 than that of most of the State forestry departments so broad that 

 each school must select from it. The resulting diversity of programs 

 is brought out in the section, Privately Supported and Quasi-public 

 Forest Research. The schools have the opportunity, not generally 

 possessed by the State departments, for doing research of an advanced 

 and intensive character. Nor are they as limited as are the State 

 departments to work relating to their own State. 



The character and scope of this work has been a result partly of the 

 recognized urgency for basic knowledge in forestry, partly of the 

 affiliation of the forestry courses with other university departments 



