Packing the mule preparatory to the hike. Field Day, 1910. 



SKETCH OF PROFESSOR FILI- 

 BERT ROTH. 



A remarkable and picturesque 

 personality, which makes instant ap 

 peal to the imagination and enthusi- 

 asm of his students, combines in 

 Professor Filibert Roth of the For- 

 estry School of the University of 

 Michigan, with an extent of profes- 

 sional experience granted to few 

 other teachers of forestry, to make 

 him one of the greatest American 

 teachers in the profession. And 

 these qualities have made it possi- 

 ble for his indefatigable industry 

 to build up in seven years, against 

 heavy odds of lack of funds and 

 equipment, one of the largest and 

 best forestry schools in the United 

 States. 



A German boy, as his name would 

 betray, Professor Roth was born in 

 the province of Wuertemburg, in one 

 of the best forest regions of Europe. 

 Here he had the usual German ele- 

 mentary schooling. He recalls with 

 great pride that during a year of this 

 schooling which was spent at the 

 town of Ravensburg. he roomed in 

 the old Guelph castle which had 

 been the ancestral home of the 

 Hanover kings. 



Tn 1871 the future forester, then a 

 lad of thirteen, came with his parents 



to Ann Arbor. A short time later 

 he made his way to Wisconsin and 

 for three years hardened his stubby, 

 sturdy frame, and took without com- 

 plaining the hard knocks which came 

 his way, in the hardest school of 

 American frontier life, in the log- 

 ging camps, and in rafting logs down 

 the rivers. In 1874 he drifted to the 

 frontier of the plains, and there 

 spent eight years, herding cattle and 

 sheep and for two years hunting the 

 buffalo. But the forest had its charm 

 for him, and the years 1883 and 1884 

 found him again back in woods 

 work, first saw milling in Warsaw, 

 Wisconsin, and then driving logs in 

 the Gallatin Valley in Montana. 



But during all the years in the 

 hard frontier life, the future uni- 

 versity professor had never become 

 merely one among the other careless 

 and improvident "cow punchers" and 

 "lumber jacks." For him there al- 

 ways beamed the star. He would, 

 and must, have an education. So 

 while the others played poker and 

 idled by the camp fire, Roth studied 

 what books he could obtain. By 

 lss.-> he was ready for the trial, and 

 came to the University of Michigan. 

 There was no entrance on diploma in 

 those days, and even had there been 

 such, he had no high school to give 



