A PROGRAM FOR FOREST RESEARCH 



By E. H. FROTHINGHAM, Director Appalachian Forest Experiment Station 



CONTENTS 



Page 



Forest research by Federal agencies 1555 



Forest Service research 1556 



Research in forest pathology by the Bureau of Plant Industry 1565 



Research in forest entomology by the Bureau of Entomology 1565 



Research in naval stores by the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils 1566 



Research in forest biology by the Biological Survey 1566 



Fishery research in forest waters by the Bureau of Fisheries 1567 



Forest fire weather research by the Weather Bureau 1568 



Forest research possibilities of the National Arboretum 1568 



Forest research by the States 1569 



Forest research by quasi-public and private agencies 1571 



Other sections of this report have discussed the character and cost 

 of the forest research now being conducted by public and private 

 agencies in the United States. The purpose of the present section 

 is to bring together these different fields of research activity so as to 

 permit a view of the size and nature of each in relation to the entire 

 field. Such a view may help toward a better understanding of the 

 mutual obligations involved and toward a fuller coordination of effort. 



FOREST RESEARCH BY FEDERAL AGENCIES 



Federal responsibility for conducting forest research arises from (1) 

 the obligation to meet national or regional problems of forest-land 

 management and forest-products utilization, and (2) the obligation to 

 administer productively and wisely the immense areas of Federal 

 forest lands. Federal forest research subjects are divided among a 

 number of bureaus, mostly of the Department of Agriculture, as 

 follows: Timber production and utilization, forest-fire protection, 

 forest-range management and utilization, forest economics, forest 

 influences, and related matters, the Forest Service; forest diseases and 

 decays of forest products, Bureau of Plant Industry; forest insect 

 infestations, Bureau of Entomology; preparation and use of naval 

 stores, Bureau of Chemistry and Soil; forest wild life, Bureau of 

 Biological Survey; game and food fish in forest waters, Bureau of 

 Fisheries in the Department of Commerce; and weather relationships 

 to forest fires as a basis for forecasting, Weather Bureau. Almost 

 all the forest research of the Forest Service, and much of that of other 

 Department of Agriculture bureaus, is concentrated at 11 regional 

 forest experiment stations and the Forest Products Laboratory. 

 Although great progress has been made, the areas and values involved 

 are so large and the problems arising in connection with them so 

 complex and difficult that this progress constitutes no more than 

 a good beginning. Facts and figures cited in many sections of the 

 present report reveal the enormous size of the forest-research task 



1555 



