10 REPORT OF FORESTRY BUREAU, PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 



has a well-paid position, with a prospect of retirement for disability 

 or for age. Service in the Philippines involves some danger, not only 

 from the pernicious fevers, but, at the present time, from insurgents. 

 A forester from Java would not care to give up his life position for 

 service in the Philippines with a prospect of disability and no govern- 

 ment aid afterwards. We have here a vast virgin field for scientific 

 investigation, which makes the Philippine Islands to-day one of the 

 most attractive fields for original work, but the objections noted above 

 deter many from entering the service. 



Many applications are being received from parties in the United 

 States desiring to enter the forestry service. Very few applicants 

 have had any training as foresters; some have been engaged in logging 

 business and sawmills, and some apparently are anxious only for a 

 change of scene. Others seek this service as a means of furthering 

 schemes for future timber exploitation by private parties. Applicants 

 residing in the United States are required to pass a civil-service exam- 

 ination, prepared by the Bureau of Forestry in Washington. Appli- 

 cants in Manila are "required to take a civil-service examination there. 



Two expeditions are in the field at present: One, consisting of an 

 assistant forester and botanist, is in southern Mindanao investigating 

 the varieties and amount of native-tree species producing gutta-percha, 

 rubber, and other gums; another party, consisting of a forester and 

 assistant forester, is in the Camarines making a thorough investiga- 

 tion of the timber on the tract of public land operated over by the 

 largest lumber concern of the Philippine Islands. A forestry official 

 is stationed permanently near the headquarters of this concern. A 

 report from this expedition will inform this office of the amount and 

 variety of timber standing in this tract, methods of felling and hauling, 

 the condition of the younger growth, whether or not forestry regula- 

 tions are strictly complied with; in fact, will report on all matters of 

 interest to the forestry service. From previous reports from this same 

 region we are led to believe that the cutting by this company is a mere 

 thinning of the forest, and works an actual improvement of forest con- 

 ditions, the annual growth on this tract being many times the volume 

 extracted by this company each year. At present this company is 

 somewhat hampered by the loss of nearly all of their carabaos, due to 

 an epidemic of rinderpest which recently swept over the islands, carry- 

 ing off many thousands of these animals, which are the only source of 

 transportation in the islands. 



The forestry official acting as collector for the bureau was sent in 

 January, 1901, to Zamboango, province of Mindanao, to make a col- 

 lection of the leaves, fruit, and flowers of the native-tree species found 

 there. He returned in three months with 425 varieties of wood and 

 leaf with the fruit and flower of many. This collection was made 

 wichin a very limited area in this province, and will give some idea of 

 the problems to be solved by the forestry service when a small tract 

 with several hundred tree species is to be prepared for the lumberman. 



A rational forestry policy will necessitate the felling of all trees by 

 selection. This will be met by the objection of the lumbermen that 

 there is no market for four or five hundred varieties of tree species 

 thus selected. The duty of finding a market for such varieties 

 devolves upon the forestry bureau. The furniture makers of America 

 import vast quantities of hardwood from Central and South America, 



