PUBLICITY IN STATE FORESTRY WORK 



By Henry C. Campbell 



Assistant Editor of the Milwaukee Journal and Chairman of the Wisconsin Forestry Association. 



'T'HE chief foe of forestry is ignorance. Hardly any- 

 '- body is opposed in principle to forestry. Progress 

 is retarded not by direct opposition, but by the indiffer- 

 ence of the many who do not know, do not understand. 

 Our improvidence, which resulted in laying waste our 

 great forests without any plan or policy looking to the 

 creation of new forests, arose very largely from ignor- 

 ance. Even today, when the economic shoe pinches pain- 

 fully, ignorance of forestry, ignorance of the need for 

 forestry, ignorance of the achievements of forestry in 

 other countries, is still all too widespread. 



There is only one way to dissipate widespread ignor- 

 ance, and that is by widespread publicity. It is impera- 

 tive that the truth be dinned into the minds of the people. 

 The practica- 

 bility of fores- 

 try, the urgent, 

 absolute duty 

 of creating 

 new forests 

 and the danger 

 to our civiliza- 

 tion of neglect- 

 ing forestry, 

 all these are 

 things that the 

 public must be 

 made to under- 

 stand. 



We must re- 

 alize that no 

 adequate for- 

 estry policy 

 can be adopt- 

 ed and main- 

 tained in our 

 country or in 

 any of our 

 states unless it 

 i s supported 

 by a strong 

 and enlight- 

 ened public 

 sentiment. To 

 arouse this 

 sentiment to a 

 point where it will be irresistible we must depend upon 

 publicity that is, the printed word. In short, publicity 

 of the right kind must be the basis of all efforts to make 

 the i)ractice of forestry no less persistent and systematic 

 and continuous than the growing of wheat or the grow- 

 ing of potatoes. 



No man can write effectively in the cause of forestry 



PELICAN LAKE 



The campaign carried on in Wisconsin by the author has created state-wide interest in the 



great outdoors. 



unless he possesses reasonable knowledge of the subject, 

 good judgment, some imagination, no little force, ability 

 to state things clearly and the gift of making pictures out 

 of facts. No writer who cannot interest and convince 

 his average fellow-citizen can render real service to the 

 cause of forestry. He may write countless articles, even 

 large tomes, and yet not make the slightest dent in the 

 popular mind. Briefly stated, the prime requisites are 

 reasonable knowledge of the principles of forestry and 

 a trenchant, graphic pen. I feel that I am within the 

 truth when I say that foresters who possess the power of 

 writing in a way that appeals to the popular mind are 

 not many. Certainly, I am within the truth when I say 

 that professional writers who do possess the power of 



appealing to 

 the popular 

 mind and pos- 

 sess, in addi- 

 tion, a work- 

 ing knowledge 

 of forestry, are 

 still fewer 

 in number. 



Without t h e 

 slightest desire 

 or intention to 

 criticise for- 

 esters for not 

 being able to 

 write more ef- 

 fectively, or to 

 criticise publi- 

 cists for not 

 knowing much 

 more than they 

 do about for- 

 estry, it never- 

 theless seems 

 very plain to 

 me that the 

 one great rea- 

 son why the 

 cause of for- 

 e s t r y has 

 lagged is that 

 this power 

 that comes from knowledge combined with effective writ- 

 ing has been limited to a very small number of indi- 

 viduals. 



The methods of publicity which The Milwaukee Jour- 

 nal, a consistent advocate of forestry for twelve years 

 and longer, has adopted in order to arouse proper interest 

 in state forestry are somewhat different from any other 



