A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 1393 



products research which they undertake will be of benefit directly 

 or indirectly to forestry, and hence to the public welfare. 



In brief, there is room and need for the intelligent effort of all 

 agencies, public and private, in the too-much neglected field of forest 

 products research. Cooperation, the broadest possible interchange 

 of information, and avoidance of overlapping effort should be the 

 keynote. Each research agency or class will make a more or less 

 distinctive contribution in this research structure. Private owners 

 and industry will concentrate chiefly on then- own localized problems 

 and on the application of more general findings to their conditions 

 and requirements. The States will necessarily work in part on some- 

 what more generalized problems, but ordinarily not? beyond those 

 peculiar to their own territory. An important State function will 

 be to serve large numbers of small owners and operators who cannot 

 be expected to support forest products research except through tax- 

 ation. State institutions should also work on those fundamental 

 problems which underlie their own needs. The Federal Government 

 must attack regional, interstate, and national problems, and many 

 phases of fundamental work. The national forests alone place a 

 heavy obligation for forest products research upon the Federal Gov- 

 ernment. Endowed institutions will in most cases work on selected 

 problems or some phase of fundamental research. 



MEETING THE CHALLENGE OF CONSUMPTION TRENDS 



The measures advocated in the foregoing constitute a plea and a 

 program for placing the whole structure of forest markets on a revised 

 and modern basis of consumer-service and continuing supply. 



It cannot be denied that in certain fields of forest consumption the 

 recent trends, aggravated by depression, have been discouraging to 

 producers. They have been prolific of waste, excessive competition, 

 and reckless liquidation of holdings. The situation presents obvious 

 problems which are of fundamental importance to the future of 

 commodity forestry. 



On the other hand, it is submitted that changes in demand are to 

 be recognized, not combated. Old-fashioned exploitation of what 

 were formerly " exhaustless " timber resources is not and cannot be 

 the solution of the marketing problem, as both forest demand and 

 forest supply enter upon the modern era and modern conditions. It 

 is imperative that costs within the industries be lowered, to give the 

 consumer the benefit of economical and abundant products and at 

 the same time to cure the ills of unprofitable production and manage- 

 ment; that the quality and service properties of the products be 

 largely improved and better discriminated, to insure maximum satis- 

 faction in use; that the development of new products be pushed 

 forward to take full advantage of the tide of modern demands and 

 preferences; and that sales and promotion policies be intelligently and 

 aggressively directed in relation to these same objectives. 



Some of the ways and means of meeting the modern challenge 

 have been set forth with at least sufficient clarity, it is hoped, to 

 indicate the direction of progress. It is believed that management 

 and marketing activities may well be concentrated with special 

 reference to transportation costs. The costs of raw material and 

 manufacture should be reduced and quality of output improved by 



