OTHER FEDERAL FOREST ACTIVITIES AS FORMS OF STATE AID 

 FOREST PATHOLOGY 



By CARL HARTLEY and J. S. BOYCE, Office of Forest Pathology, Bureau of Plant 



Industry 



PAST AND PRESENT AID TO STATES 



In a sense, all of the Federal research activity in the forest disease 

 field has been an aid to States, local governmental units, and private- 

 timber owners. Even when the studies were made primarily for con- 

 trol of diseases on the national forests, the published results have been 

 generally available, and unpublished information has been made 

 freely available to State and local officers and private landowners. 

 The total annual cost of this research based on Federal appropriations 

 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1933, is approximately $133,000 not 

 including funds primarily for diseases of ornamental trees and shrubs. 

 Of tliis amount, $113,000 is for forest diseases and $20,000 for study 

 of fungous injury to forest products. In some cases the investigations 

 have been made in close cooperation with State agricultural experi- 

 ment stations or State foresters, part or all of the salary or expenses 

 of former State employees having been carried on Federal funds during 

 studies of local aspects of more general problems. Advice on diagnosis 

 and practical control measures has been given by personal visits when 

 possible. 



In no case has there been any grant of Federal funds to State or 

 private agencies for use in connection with control of forest diseases. 

 There are annual Federal grants to the State agricultural experiment 

 stations under the Hatch, Adams, and Purnell Acts for research on 

 agricultural problems; these acts are interpreted as providing for 

 research covering problems of forestry, where such problems are a part 

 of the farm problems or practice of agriculture, or when the investiga- 

 tion is aimed at questions of fundamental science the solution of 

 which will be useful in the general field of agriculture. 



An inconspicuous but tremendously important service to all of the 

 States, that is and can be rendered only by the Federal Government, is 

 in the inspection and quarantine activities connected with the pre- 

 vention of the introduction of new diseases from abroad. The Bureau 

 of Plant Quarantine of the Department of Agriculture, under authority 

 of Federal legislation, forbids the general importation of nursery stock 

 and certain other kinds of material that are known to be likely to 

 carry dangerous parasites, maintains a force of port inspectors to en- 

 force these regulations, and arranges for inspection or long-time obser- 

 vation in quarantine when introduction of foreign propagating stock 

 is essential to Ajnerican plant breeders or propagators. The amount 

 expended for forest protection by this method cannot be segregated 

 from that spent for the protection of other kinds of plants, since the 

 same personnel attends to all kinds of material. The results of this 

 work are impossible of quantitative evaluation, since we have no way 



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