656 



Yearbook^ of Agriculture 1949 



the field. The one at Yale, a privately 

 endowed institution, was open only to 

 men with a bachelor's degree and of- 

 fered 2 years of study leading to the 

 degree of master of forestry. 



The pattern established at Cornell 

 has been pretty generally followed at 

 other institutions. There are today no 

 "master" schools similar to that at 

 Biltmore, and only three Yale, Duke, 

 and Harvard require a bachelor's de- 

 gree for admission. All the others ad- 

 mit undergraduates and are parts of 

 State-supported institutions. The lat- 

 ter fact undoubtedly reflects the belief 

 that the importance of proper manage- 

 ment of the forests to the permanent 

 prosperity of the entire community is 

 such as to warrant public support of 

 professional training. 



Several features of that training de- 

 serve special mention. Without excep- 

 tion, the schools require that students 

 obtain a foundation in such subjects as 

 biology, mathematics, physics, chemis- 

 try, geology, and economics in their 

 first 2 years. Courses in those subjects 

 are followed by professional instruc- 

 tion in the protection and harvesting, 

 reproduction, management, and utiliza- 

 tion of the forest and its products. 

 Since thorough coverage of those sub- 

 jects is obviously impossible in 2 years, 

 many of the schools now offer an addi- 

 tional year, leading to the master's de- 

 gree, in which the student's training 

 can be broadened and intensified. 

 Some encourage superior students to 

 take still more intensive training for 

 the doctor's degree. It is significant of 

 the increasing demands being made 

 upon foresters that more and more 

 students are going forward to the 

 higher degrees. The master's degree is, 

 in fact, now commonly regarded as 

 essential for full professional training, 

 and the doctor's degree is becoming an 

 increasingly valuable asset for men in 

 teaching and research. 



Forestry in the broad sense is the 

 science, art, and business of managing 

 forest lands for the continuous produc- 

 tion of forest goods and services. The 

 average practitioner must be qualified 



to handle most of the problems en- 

 countered in the everyday management 

 of a forest property, whether its size is 

 10 acres or 100,000 acres and whether 

 it serves primarily to produce wood, 

 wildlife, or scenery or to prevent ero- 

 sion and control stream flow, just as the 

 ordinary doctor must be prepared to 

 handle any disease that he is normally 

 likely to run across. But there is also 

 need for highly trained specialists to 

 develop the underlying principles that 

 the practitioner uses in his daily work 

 and to advise on particularly difficult 

 or unusual problems, just as there is 

 need for specialists in the medical field. 



Consequently, the schools are now 

 graduating doctors of philosophy who 

 are intensively trained to handle prob- 

 lems that deal with such matters as 

 the determination of the contents and 

 growth of a forest ; methods of cutting 

 to obtain satisfactory current revenues 

 and at the same time assure the repro- 

 duction of the forest; organization of 

 logging operations to minimize waste 

 and maximize profits; control of the 

 environment to provide an abundance 

 of food and other necessary conditions 

 for the support of the deer, muskrats, 

 pheasants, or ducks ; provision of ample 

 forage for the production of livestock; 

 and maintenance of a forest cover that 

 will control the runoff of water in the 

 interest of water users of all classes. 



In all these fields timber manage- 

 ment, management of wildlife, range 

 management, and watershed manage- 

 ment effective practice must be based 

 on increasingly accurate and compre- 

 hensive knowledge. Education and re- 

 search therefore go hand in hand ; and 

 research is being increasingly recog- 

 nized as a major function of the schools. 



Closely related to the production and 

 harvesting of the forest itself is the 

 manufacture and marketing of wood 

 and its innumerable products. Wood 

 technology, as this field is now com- 

 monly called, includes all matters relat- 

 ing to the structure and properties of 

 wood; the processes used in its manu- 

 facture and treatment, such as kiln 

 drying, preservation from decay and 



