A Dkckxxial Kkcokd 



satislied. AVe have only to o-o into the market and pnreliase what is 

 offered. Ent as a matter of faet if sneh an adhesive is to l)e developed 

 it will only be after scientific stndy and research whicli will bring in 

 the accunudated knowledge from half a dozen sciences, and the men 

 who make tliat research will need liigli scientific ([nalifications on their 

 own part. Only thus can a produce be discovered which is worthy to 

 put before the people and a product on which the ])eople of the coun- 

 try can depend. 



Or take another problem which arises not only in connection with 

 the manufacture of airplanes but in a hundred directions involving the 

 utihzation of wood — ^the matter of kiln-drying. It seems at first a 

 very easy thing to put wood into a kiln and dry it artificiall>-. Yet you 

 know ])etter than I that the man who goes to work on that principle 

 will rather spoil wood tlian produce good lumber. It is only as the 

 complex conditions and problems involved in kiln-drying are appre- 

 ciated and thoroughly mastered that success is reached. Only as 

 there are scientifically worked out processes by which the diff'erent 

 varieties of wood may be treated, each according to its own kind and 

 condition, can success be secured, even in a process which looks at first 

 so simple. And if in such matters as these, which seem to be simple, 

 scientific study and scientific organization are necessary, much more 

 is the same necessity present in the far more complex problems which 

 are involved in the production of paper pulp, in the prevention of de- 

 cay of timber, in the other infinitely varied uses to which timber is ]nit. 

 I need not give you more illustrations, for these are enough to 

 illustrate the principle which underlies the subject assigned to me— 

 the need of institutions like the Forest Products Laboratory, which 

 shall concern themselves with the translation of knowledge into po^yer 

 and so shall make availa])le for the benefit of the public along specific 

 lines the enormously valuable asset wliicli tlie world possesses in the 

 accumulated treasures of science. 



This necessity the government is trying to meet along one line 

 throiigli the Forest Products Laboratory, an institution wliich medi- 

 ates between knowledge and afi'airs. I congratulate the laboratory 

 on the way it has performed this duty during the past ten years: I 

 congratulate it for the work which it has done itself; I congratulate 

 it as^a ])art of the great working force of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture; I congratidate it especially on the part wliich it has taken here 



