A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 1425 



scientific developments. For highly infectious diseases, in which the 

 uncared-for stand in one woodlot will spread disease to those that 

 are cared for, it is impossible to secure the general and simultaneous 

 cleaning up of disease that is necessary unless there is a service man 

 to educate, stimulate and frequently locate the more backward 

 owners. A service force to supplement the efforts of the investiga- 

 tors in promoting forest-disease control is believed to be an essential 

 part of any well-rounded-out forestry program. 



The development of most forest diseases, like the growth of the 

 trees they attack, is inconspicuous, and the owner does not realize 

 the size of the cumulative losses that they cost him unless they are 

 demonstrated to him on his own land or that of a near neighbor. 

 Very few owners realize the amount of decay that is allowed to enter 

 their hardwoods when they fail to protect the timber from fire and 

 logging scars. The improvement of the health and timber-producing 

 capacity of the stand through properly conducted selective thinning 

 or logging operations with low cost or with actual immediate profit 

 is something that can be accomplished under ordinary market condi- 

 tions in many stands, particularly in the more densely populated 

 parts of the country, if the owner is shown the sanitary procedure 

 best adapted and most economical for his own holdings. 



The proposed employment of service men to secure application of 

 research results has already been tried out on a large scale through a 

 number of years in the white-pine blister rust control campaign and 

 has fully justified its use. Without it there is very little likelihood that 

 the northern white pine stands as a whole could have been saved; 

 they certainly would not have been protected in time to have pre- 

 vented very heavy losses from the disease. This service activity, 

 supplied by the Division of Blister Rust Control of the Bureau of 

 Plant Industry and cooperating State agencies, should be continued 

 until the remainder of the pine land that warrants protection has 

 been covered and until the control practice has been well enough 

 established to be continued by local community effort. 



Another specialized project in which a similar though smaller 

 service force would be particularly helpful would be one on the 

 diseases of forest nurseries and young plantations, on which as the 

 reforestation movement increases there should be at least one pa- 

 thology service man in the West, one in the Southeast, one in the 

 Lake States, and another in the Northeast. Disease control for 

 stands less than 15 years old in natural reproduction might also 

 advantageously be serviced by the men assigned to nursery and 

 plantation work, because of the similarity in disease type. With such 

 an addition to their duties, two such men would probably be a 

 minimum in each region. 



For both nurseries and plantations their first and perhaps greatest 

 service would be in helping the forester choose sites on which the 

 species desired would be in the least likelihood of infection. Local 

 advice needs to be given at each nursery, and for certain species also 

 for each plantation, as to the needs and possibilities of removing 

 from the neighborhood sources of rust and mistletoe infection. At 

 nurseries already established, nurserymen need technical help in 

 learning to distinguish between damping off and the very similar 

 symptoms produced by high soil temperatures or by chemical or 

 fertilizer injury; and between root rot and the similar symptoms 



