662 



CONSULTING FORESTERS 



NORMAN MUNSTER, ARTHUR SPILLERS 



Like engineering and dentistry and 

 other professions, forestry has oppor- 

 tunities for consultants, who sell advice 

 or their services. Usually the consulting 

 foresters are employed by landowners 

 and industries for a short period and a 

 specific purpose. 



The number of consulting foresters 

 is still small, but it is rapidly increas- 

 ing. The Society of American Foresters 

 estimates that 150 firms now sell pro- 

 fessional advice or services and employ 

 more than 200 foresters. 



Forty years ago there were probably 

 fewer than a dozen consulting foresters. 

 Most of them did only one type of 

 work determining the volume of the 

 timber on areas being traded or logged 

 by wood-using industries. During the 

 prosperous 1920's their number in- 

 creased slowly; the depressed 1930's 

 gave them a severe set-back, but they 

 recovered in the late 1930's and after; 

 as business increased, a remarkable 

 pulpwood development started in the 

 South and the war demanded more 

 wood. Lately their practice has flour- 

 ished with the expansion of industrial 

 plants, the need for more forest prod- 

 ucts, and high prices for stumpage. 



At the same time, the consultants 

 are widening their field of activities. 

 No longer do they confine themselves 

 to timber cruising ; they have branched 

 out into many other aspects of forestry, 

 and, as "Gap" Eldredge put it, "the 

 forester is in a fair way of becoming a 

 working member of the industrial 

 family." 



The skills they offer are in 21 fields 

 of specialization, listed by the Society 

 of American Foresters as arboriculture 

 and tree preservation, cost and eco- 

 nomic studies of the forest operations, 

 forest and wood utilization, forest 

 management and the silvicultural prac- 

 tices, forest protection from disease, 

 forest protection from fire, forest pro- 

 tection from insects, forest taxation, 



game and wildlife management, log- 

 ging engineering, market studies and 

 promotion of trade (forest products), 

 naval stores operations, the pulpwood 

 operations, range management, sur- 

 veying and mapping, timber valuation 

 and appraisal, timber volume and 

 quality estimates, planting of trees and 

 reforestation (reproduction studies), 

 preservation of wood, wood seasoning, 

 and wood technology. 



A list recently published by the 

 Society showed that most of the con- 

 sultants have seven specialties, the fore- 

 most of which are timber valuation and 

 appraisal, forest management and 

 silvicultural practice, and timber vol- 

 ume and quality estimates. 



Some of the oldest consulting firms 

 are in the Northeast; the largest ones 

 probably are in the South and on the 

 west coast. Most of the consultants 

 work chiefly with the large land- 

 owners. Sometimes their services are 

 brief consultations on specific prob- 

 lems, very often with the permanently 

 employed foresters of the corporations ; 

 sometimes their work is the long-term 

 management of forest properties. One 

 consulting forester spends practically 

 all his time locating sites for new in- 

 dustrial developments. Another con- 

 centrates on finding tropical forest 

 products. Another specializes in ap- 

 praising foreign timber investments. 



Nearly all large-forest owners and 

 industries employ consulting foresters. 

 The usual fees vary from $20 to $200 

 a day. Many owners of small forests 

 do not have enough work for consult- 

 ants; many cannot afford to pay a 

 consultant's fee or are unwilling to pay 

 fees large enough to attract consulting 

 foresters. An obstacle to working with 

 small ownerships is that the expense 

 and time involved in travel are large 

 in proportion to the services and con- 

 sequently the fees that have to be 

 charged. Few firms of consultants have 



