1428 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Control of that Bureau, the scope of whose service work should be 

 enlarged to include other diseases. The experience with the blister 

 rust work, which was originally located in the first-named division, 

 has shown that research and service work after the initial stages of 

 development of basic control principles are better handled by sepa- 

 rate personnel. As a general thing the best research men are not the 

 best service men; while the handling of a service function by a research 

 unit usually tends to disorganize and interfere with the indispensable 

 continuity of the research work. 



Service on the diseases of older stands had best be handled as the 

 blister-rust work is now handled, headed up so far as Federal work is 

 concerned by the Division of Blister Rust Control, the name of which 

 should be changed in tune to correspond with its wider function. 

 Cooperation with State agencies in the principle timber-growing 

 States on this general disease project should in general take much the 

 same form as it does now with the blister-rust work alone. Federal 

 control service on general forest diseases in any State should be con- 

 ditional on contribution by the State, but part of the expense can 

 properly be carried on Federal funds because of the interest of the 

 consumers in all the States, particularly in the Northeast, in the 

 maintenance of the timber supply. Entirely aside from the question 

 of financial support, the participation of both State and Federal 

 agencies in such service work is essential to the success of the project. 

 Particularly when action is taken against an introduced disease, it is 

 often necessary to require the cleaning up of infection centers for the 

 protection of neighboring holdings, a function requiring the authority 

 of a State officer. Federal participation is essential to make avail- 

 able to each State the experience in the others, a particularly impor- 

 tant function during the formative period of the service activity, and 

 to make part of the force mobile, allowing it to be moved from State 

 to State and concentrated at any point where emergency need may 

 arise. The above statements have more than theoretical basis, 

 having been thoroughly justified by years of actual experience in the 

 cooperative effort against the blister rust. The direction of the 

 service work should pass increasingly into the hands of the State 

 agencies, particularly in States which establish research work on 

 forest diseases so as to improve the foundation of local knowledge 

 required for the best service work. In States with less interest in 

 the subject, it may prove impossible to have special service men in 

 forest pathology alone, and the pathology service function may have 

 to be carried by men who are paid partly for general forestry service. 

 In any case it will often be desirable, in order to avoid duplication of 

 travel, for the pathology service men to supply advice on control of 

 forest insects or on general forest management as well as on pathology, 

 and similarly for service on disease control to be given on occasion 

 by entomologists or by foresters. 



The service men proposed in connection with the control of the 

 fungi that attack forest products are too few to devote any one of 

 them to a single State, and State participation is therefore doubtful. 

 Federal support of such work is justified by its bearing on the national 

 timber supply. With normal business conditions it should be pos- 

 sible to secure part of its support from regional lumbermen's organi- 

 zations, as has already been done for investigative work on sap stain. 



