Announcement of the 



care. These conditions call for a degree of maturity, and self-reliance 

 not usually expected of graduates in other professions. 



The second reason is that the fifth year at College contributes 

 more to the development of judgment, maturity and self-reliance than 

 any two years of undergraduate work. That this is not merely an 

 assumption at the University but is a real fact was clearly proved 

 by a canvass among the forestry men now in the field. They are 

 practically united in saying that the fifth year is necessary and that 

 it should by all means be retained in the plan. 



Regarding the comparatively large number of courses in allied 

 subjects the following is true : The work of a forester includes a 

 number of very distinct lines. He should know trees, their require- 

 ments as to soil, light, etc., their reproduction and growth, and finally 

 the quality of the wood they produce. Here, then, he needs to com- 

 bine a knowledge, much like the farmer, of soils, of botany, syste- 

 matics, physiology and pathology; he should have mathematics to 

 make it easy for him to measure and compute the growth of timber 

 in the individual tree and stand of trees, and lastly he should know 

 the technical qualities of wood and be able to judge whether a given 

 kind of timber is suited to particular uses. A judgment of soils in 

 forestry is of prime importance. The forester usually deals with 

 large areas, commonly the rougher, mountainous or hilly lands, and 

 normally the poorer soils unsuited to good farming. Here a sufficient 

 knowledge of soils means an insight into mineralogy and geology, 

 and acquaintance with methods of study of the soil itself. Dealing 

 with large wild-land properties, (today often as large as an entire 

 county in the Eastern states) he needs to be a surveyor, be able to 

 locate lines, make topographic surveys, lay out trails and roads, and 

 finally put everything on paper in a workmanship-like manner for 

 report. 



As caretaker of large areas of lands, in disposal of millions of 

 feet of timber, etc., he needs to be able to prepare a contract, watch 

 over the work and report its progress. In trespass cases it is the 

 forester who must secure evidence and present it in court. And to 

 keep order in all this work he should keep books and be an accountant. 



In the harvest of his crop he should know the methods which 

 make for efficiency and yet for safety to the forest. This means not 

 only a knowledge of methods and machinery but even a personal 

 familiarity based on a reasonable amount of experience. Year in 

 and year out his forest is subject to injury, the fires may burn up 

 the timber and thus destroy over three-fourths of all his property; 

 storm, snow, ice and frost; fungi, insects, rodents and man, all join 

 to injure and destroy. To ward off these dangers, to protect the 

 forest is, today, the greatest task of the young forester leaving our 

 schools. To do this task well means first of all to understand the 

 danger, to know the insect and its ways, to know the means which 

 are feasible or practicable to apply and the possible success attain- 

 able. 



But beyond all this the forester must be more or less a leader of 



