1568 A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMERICAN FORESTRY 



To carry out these research functions as a part of the proposed 

 fishery survey in each of the six national-forest regions of the Western 

 United States a resident biologist should be stationed in each region, 

 together with sufficient technical personnel to assure acquisition of 

 the most essential information at the earliest moment. The volume 

 of work ahead is sufficient to cover a long period of years; but even 

 the information obtained by a single season's operations will provide 

 a far sounder basis for fish stocking in the area covered than exists 

 at present, and within a few years' time a sufficient area could be 

 brought under scientific control to augment vastly the supply of 

 food and game fishes and to assure their perpetuation. The esti- 

 mated cost of the needed fishery investigative work is $25,000 a 

 year. 



FOREST FIRE WEATHER RESEARCH BY THE WEATHER BUREAU 



A weather-forecasting service to furnish warnings of approaching 

 periods of dangerous fire weather is of material benefit to forest fire 

 protective agencies, permitting increased flexibility of the protective 

 forces, better control of forest fire situations, and generally much 

 increased certainty and efficiency of operation. To provide for 

 "such investigations at forest experiment stations, or elsewhere, of 

 the relationship of weather conditions to forest fires as may be neces- 

 sary to make weather forecasts," the McSweeney-McNary Act 

 authorizes annual appropriations of not more than $50,000. 



Since each forest region presents its own distinct problems, fire- 

 weather research is being carried on to a greater or less degree at 

 all the points at which the fire-weather forecasting system has been 

 inaugurated: San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Spokane, Chicago, 

 Boston, and Asheville. Further extension is extremely desirable. 

 The fire-weather research program for the future therefore merits the 

 provision of the amounts authorized in the McSweeney-McNary 

 Act, reaching an annual appropriation of $50,000 for the fiscal year 

 1938, with such appropriations thereafter as may be necessary to 

 carry out the provisions of the act for this subject. 



FOREST RESEARCH POSSIBILITIES OF THE NATIONAL 

 ARBORETUM 



Completion of purchase plans for the National Arboretum at 

 Washington, D. C., and provision for its administration should be 

 included in the forest-research program. The value of arboreta in 

 forest research was discussed in the section "Privately Supported and 

 Quasi-Public Forest Research". Arboreta afford opportunity for 

 comparing characteristics, behavior, hardiness, and forest value of 

 trees from all parts of the world, and for carrying on investigations 

 in numerous special fields. Among these are the improvement of 

 trees through cross-breeding and selection; physiological processes 

 relating to growth, reproduction, water conduction, nutrition, and 

 soil and other environmental influences; susceptibility to insect 

 attacks and diseases; form and quality of timber; and other character- 

 istics that bear upon the success of the species studied when introduced 

 into the practice of forestry. 



The presence at Washington of so many scientific bureaus engaged 

 in different phases of forest research is a logical reason for the early 



