708 



YearbooJ^ of Agriculture 1949 



experiment stations in a few experi- 

 ments, mainly in planting, including 

 experimental planting in the Nebraska 

 Sand Hills and cultivation of cork oak 

 from imported acorns. Monographs 

 were prepared, by the botanists rather 

 than foresters, on several important 

 timber trees. 



The greater part of the Division's 

 activity between 1886 and 1898 was 

 devoted to forest-products research, 

 which Fernow believed would encour- 

 age better and more economical use of 

 wood and reduce waste, and would 

 make industrial and other timber own- 

 ers take an interest in conservation of 

 timber resources. Among the subjects 

 investigated were the use of chestnut 

 oak as a substitute for white oak rail- 

 road ties, the use of metal ties to re- 

 place wood, tannin content of chestnut 

 and other woods, strength properties 

 of turpentined pine (until then con- 

 sidered inferior to unbled timber) , blue 

 stain of southern pine and yellow-pop- 

 lar lumber, and timber physics. 



Regarding the need for trained for- 

 esters, Hough's paper on "Forestry 

 Education," presented at the Ameri- 

 can Forestry Congress in St. Paul in 

 1883, is illuminating. He believed that 

 lectures on the importance of forests 

 should be given in all primary and 

 secondary schools, but he saw no need 

 for technical training in forestry. Not- 

 ing a proposal for a Federal forestry 

 school in St. Paul, he asked where the 

 graduates would find employment, and 

 said : 



"Neither the general nor the State 

 governments have any systems of for- 

 est management needing their services. 

 There may be a few railroad compa- 

 nies who would employ one, but this is 

 not certain, and as to private estates, 

 I know of none upon which such a 

 person would be likely to find an en- 

 gagement. . . . We do not for the pres- 

 ent, and perhaps for many years to 

 come, require a class of persons who 

 have been specially trained to the de- 

 gree that is deemed necessary in the 

 better class of forest schools in Europe, 

 because such persons could not find 



employment either in charge of public 

 or private forests at the present 

 time. . . ." 



It should be noted that neither 

 Hough nor Egleston had any technical 

 knowledge of forestry except what 

 they may have picked up in the course 

 of their work. Fernow was the first 

 technically trained forester in Govern- 

 ment service but, as he admits, he was 

 at a disadvantage because he was "a 

 foreigner who had first to learn the 

 limitations of democratic government." 

 Partly as a result of urging by the 

 forestry associations and the reports 

 of State commissions of inquiry, for- 

 estry instruction was introduced into 

 the curricula of many of the land- 

 grant colleges beginning about 1883. 

 There is some difference of opinion as 

 to which was the first to include such 

 a course, but there was one at Iowa 

 State College in 1883, in 9 or 10 insti- 

 tutions by 1887, and in some 20 by 

 1898. 



During the last two decades of the 

 nineteenth century, there were fre- 

 quent expressions of concern over de- 

 pletion of timber supplies in the East. 

 Manufacturers frequently complained 

 of difficulties in getting supplies of ash, 

 hickory, white oak, walnut, and high- 

 grade white pine the same species 

 that we hear about in 1949. In 1883, 

 George Loring, then Commissioner of 

 Agriculture, stated that white pine was 

 nearly gone in New Hampshire and 

 New York, and going rapidly in the 

 other Northeastern States; that only 

 10 to 20 years' supply remained in the 

 Lake States, and that eastern spruce 

 was nearly exhausted. In 1887 it was 

 reported that shiploads of pine were 

 coming into the United States from 

 Russia. In 1889 Professor Prentiss of 

 Cornell predicted that hemlock, "the 

 most valuable tree east of the Missis- 

 sippi, except white pine," would be 

 exhausted in 20 to 30 years at the cur- 

 rent rate of cutting. Evidently southern 

 pine was not well thought of in the 

 New York market at that time. 



In 1890 Fernow reported to the 

 American Forestry Congress: "While 



