FOREST GUIDES DEPARTMENT 



SOLAN L. PARKES, EDITOR 



The Forest Guides Department will be a monthly feature of the "American Forestry" Magazine. It 

 will furnish information and instruction to the Forest Guides about our forests, woodlands and trees, and 

 everything connected with them. The editor will conduct a Question Box, and any Forest Guide may 

 ask and will receive an answer to any question about the great outdoors. Scoutmasters will read the 

 Forest Guides Department at meetings of the Forest Guides, and will assist the editor by furnishing him 

 with information about the activities of the Guides. It is expected that this department will soon be read 

 by every Boy Scout organization in the country, while other sections of the magazine will give them 

 equally valuable information about various details of the forests and forest life. 



THIS Forest Guides Department is made a 

 part of the "American Forestry" Magazine 

 with the object each month of teaching 

 Forest Guides about the trees, the wild flowers, 

 birds, and wild life 

 of the forest, in 

 order that you may 

 know the vast bene- 

 fits and pleasure 

 you derive on your 

 hikes or in your 

 camps. We want 

 to teach you that 

 trees represent to 

 us more than the 

 wood and the lum- 

 ber that we get 

 from them. We 

 want to teach you 

 that the birds are 

 here for a purpose, 

 instead of just fly- 

 ing through the air. 

 We want to teach 

 you, besides, that 

 the wild flowers are 

 also performing a 

 duty for us, and 

 that every animal of the forest is working in 

 some way or other for our benefit. We 

 want to teach you to know the trees, without 

 becoming a forester, the wild flowers, with- 

 out becoming a botanist, the birds, without 

 becoming an ornithologist, the insects, with- 

 out becoming an entomologist, and so on. 



TN this department, it will interest us less as 



to just exactly how many board feet of sawed 



lumber there may be in any one given tree, and 



much more to know what benefits we derive 



from the standing 



tree. 



THE FOREST GUIDES DEPARTMENT 



The Forest Guides, orginated, organized rnd under the 

 direction of Solan L. Parkes, as Chief Forest Guide for the 

 State of Pennsylvania, in the belief that our forests, to- 

 gether with their wild life and plant life, should be protected 

 and conserved for our common good, pledge themselves to 

 "do nothing wilfully or carelessly to injure any forest 

 tree, wild plant, bird or harmless animal, and to do all in 

 their power to protect and conserve the same, to urge others 

 to do likewise, and to prevent and extinguish forest fires." 



Believing that this Forest Guide movement, so ably or- 

 ganized and directed by Mr. Parkes, needs and deserves 

 support and stimulation, The American Forestry Associa- 

 tion has made its magazine, "American Forestry," the 

 official organ of the Forest Guides. It is confidently be- 

 lieved that other States will soon follow Pennsylvania's 

 aggressive lead in this field and that the Forest Guides, 

 from a present enrollment of 6,000 in Pennsylvania, will 

 soon be numbered in the tens of thousands throughout 

 the land. 



It will interest us 

 more to know how 

 birds live, and on 

 what they feed, and 

 how to attract 

 them, and also to 

 know them by their 

 song and color, 

 than it will interest 

 us, perhaps, to 

 know their structu- 

 ral form. 



We will laygreat- 

 er stress in telling 

 you of the great 

 benefits we derive 

 from the wild flow- 

 ers as we leave 

 them on their 

 plants or shrubs, 

 than we may care 

 to teach you about 

 plucking them to study their form, or have 

 them adorn your person for but a little while, 

 and then cast away. 



We will teach you about the great loss we 

 suffer when forest fires sweep through our for- 

 ests ; how the forest floor conserves for us our 

 water supply, on which our very life is depend- 



