1144 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



SUMMARY 



While responsibility for research on State or local forest problems 

 rests with the appropriate agencies in the States, the Federal research 

 organization in its work on national or regional or local national forest 

 problems is of both direct and indirect assistance to the States in 

 many ways. Federal, State, and private forest-research agencies 

 frequently aid each other through direct cooperation on local aspects 

 of the regional problems studied by the Federal stations. Since all 

 of the important forest types studied by the regional stations are 

 common to more than one State, the research results obtained, though 

 regional in scope, furnish much information that can be used by 

 States and private owners in connection with their own problems. 

 Intimately related to these investigations is the work of the Forest 

 Products Laboratory the results of which aid forest management and 

 forest conservation and are of value to the States, to private opera- 

 tors, and to industrial plants throughout the country. 



In addition to research results, the regional stations offer facilities 

 for assistance to States and private timberland owners through their 

 technical staffs which are available for consultation or cooperation, 

 the experimental forests where research results are demonstrated, 

 and the advisory research councils which establish contact between 

 the regional stations and the State and local forest-using agencies of 

 many kinds. 



INFORMATIONAL ACTIVITIES 



By A. B. HASTINGS, Forest Inspector in Charge, Division of State Cooperation 

 DIFFUSION OF FORESTRY INFORMATION 



Any effort toward permanent improvement in the management of 

 forest resources depends for success upon widespread public recogni- 

 tion of the value of these resources. In compliance with the terms 

 of the act establishing the Department of Agriculture (Act of May 15, 

 1862, sec. 511, title 5, U.S. Code), to acquire and to diffuse among 

 the people of the United States useful information on subjects con- 

 nected with agriculture, in the most general and comprehensive sense 

 of that word, the Department maintains a number of types of infor- 

 mational activities relating to forestry. They include the distribu- 

 tion of bulletins and circulars on forestry prepared in the Department, 

 forestry exhibits for State and county fairs and other expositions, 

 motion-picture films, lantern slides for purchase or loan, special edu- 

 cational cooperation with the States and with clubs and institutions 

 hi the States, and extension work among timberland owners by 

 agents of the Forest Service specially designated for this work. These 

 activities in one way or another reach a very large number of people. 

 It is estimated, for example, that motion-picture films on forestry 

 subjects, of which 920 loans were made to State forestry agencies in 

 1931 by the Department, were seen by over 2% million people. In 

 the same year the Forest Service loaned exhibit material of bromides, 

 display panels, etc., to 13 States, and it is estimated that nearly 4% 

 million people saw these. In 1932 approximately 90,000 persons 

 viewed more than 11,000 Forest Service lantern slides loaned to a 

 very wide variety of organizations in 26 States, 



