1422 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



There is a good deal of information as to how to dry wood quickly, 

 how to keep it dry, and how to choose the kinds of wood that will 

 be most resistant under conditions of decay hazard. Unfortunately, 

 the knowledge of the relation of these practices to fungous damage is 

 mainly empirical. There is need for much additional fundamental 

 study, for example on the fungi that cause decay, on methods of 

 distinguishing different kinds of decay, on the durability of wood cut 

 from different species or at different seasons, and on the limit of 

 moisture content to which wood must be dried to render it safe from 

 the most active decay fungi. 



Following or parallel with such fundamental research, field studies 

 should be made on the relation of decay to methods of cutting, season- 

 ing, storing, and using the wood, including sanitation in lumber yards, 

 and particularly on the so-called dry rot of buildings which often 

 causes disastrous losses to individual house owners and which does not 

 always follow the currently accepted views as to which types of 

 design are safe and which favor decay. The relation between decay 

 and termite injury in wooden structures is also in need of study. 



AGENCIES 



It is desirable that Federal, State, and private agencies take part in 

 investigations of the types described above. 



There should be stationed at each of the regional forest experiment 

 stations of the Federal Government at least two pathologists, to be 

 supplied and technically supervised by the Bureau of Plant Industry; 

 isolated workers in specialized fields of this sort are relatively in- 

 efficient in both quality and quantity of output. Adequate forces at 

 stations in such important timber sections as the Gulf States and the 

 Pacific Northwest would consist of not less than 5 or 6 men with 

 pathological training, and at other stations there should preferably 

 be 3 or 4. Investigative work of the types now under way at Wash- 

 ington should be continued at Washington because of the need in 

 these particular investigations for the library and herbarium facilities 

 and contact with plant-introduction and quarantine organizations 

 that can be gotten nowhere else. Studies of the pathology of forest 

 products, the fundamental aspects of which are best carried on by 

 pathologists of the Bureau of Plant Industry stationed at the Forest 

 Products Laboratory at Madison, need to be enlarged both at Madison 

 and at the Southern Forest Experiment Station and to be begun at 

 one of the forest experiment stations of the Pacific coast, and probably 

 later at the Northeastern Forest Experiment Station. This would 

 mean placing pathologists at eight stations not now served, and 

 enlargement of the pathological staff at the three stations where such 

 work is now in progress. 



The greatest field for expansion in research in forest pathology 

 seems to be in the States. The small amount of State effort along 

 this line has been described earlier. While problems of equal impor- 

 tance to a number of different States can be most logically studied by 

 the Federal regional experiment stations, it would seem proper that 

 the States should be more active in solving problems of concern to 

 them and especially those which are not important to other States. 

 In many cases the best results could be obtained by cooperation 

 between Federal and State agencies charged with such investigations. 



