1218 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



State and private cooperation as could be administratively obtained, 

 and without any legal stipulation as to S.tate financial participation. 

 The conditions of State cooperation should be left to the responsible 

 judgment of the Federal agency administering the act. Usually 

 they should be so administered as to require substantial cooperation, 

 both in fairness to the United States and on the general principle 

 that unless the State or the owners are interested enough to assist 

 in work for their own benefit, it may not be worth doing at all. 



On the whole it appears that continuing Federal aid on a fixed ratio 

 of cooperation is applicable only to the survey and local or initial 

 control of insects. Outside these activities, the factors affecting 

 Federal aid in insect control seem comparable to those influencing 

 Federal action in other emergencies, with the further proviso that 

 some insects attack only trees of merchantable or nearly merchantable 

 size, and in those cases greater emphasis should be placed on State 

 and private contributions in control projects. 



INVESTIGATION AND CONTROL OF TREE DISEASES 



A prerequisite for disease control is research. The Federal agency 

 is in the best position to carry out research on diseases of importance 

 in several States. This is particularly true for introduced epidemic 

 diseases, which are more destructive in States other than the one first 

 invaded. On the other hand for native diseases of particular impor- 

 tance to individual States, study by State agencies is considered 

 appropriate. The best solution of some of the more important prob- 

 lems could be obtained by cooperative research by State and Federal 

 investigators. While State work on some types of forest pathological 

 problems may properly be assisted by Federal contribution under the 

 Hatch, Adams, and Purnell Acts, the central Government under the 

 provision of the McNary-McSweeney Act proposes to make its princi- 

 pal contribution to such research by placing pathologists at its regional 

 forest experiment stations. 



There is also particular need for direct Federal aid in protecting the 

 States from introduced diseases. Federal quarantine against para- 

 sites from other countries is necessarily a larger part of the protection 

 system for forest trees than for crop plants. Federal activity is also 

 essential in handling such introduced parasites as may slip through 

 quarantine, since such work must often be done in one State primarily 

 for the protection of the interests of another, and because only the 

 Federal Government can maintain the mobile force of technical men 

 necessary for prompt attack on an epidemic wherever it may appear. 

 But where direct control measures are required, authority to condemn 

 and destroy property is commonly necessary; this calls for State legal 

 action, and, therefore, State cooperation. In securing concerted 

 action against an invader that has already become established, as the 

 white-pine blister rust, Federal leadership has proved invaluable to 

 the State and private agencies that do most of the control work. 



Native diseases in general do not ordinarily cause spectacular epi- 

 demics or threaten neighboring lands as do fires or insect outbreaks, 

 and the application of preventive measures is therefore more properly 

 a matter for the landowner. But since preventive measures have not 

 reached the rule-of-thumb stage, there is need for a technical service 

 force to help landowners translate the results of the research workers 



