Editorial 



STATE FORESTRY ORGANIZATIONS AND PROBLEMS 



A FORESTRY policy for a State is founded on the 

 protection of forests from destruction. Before 

 the development of State forestry, the acreage 

 burned annually and the damage done was appalling, 

 and was reducing a great proportion of our woodlands 

 to desert conditions. It has been the task of State for- 

 estry departments to cope with this situation, and by 

 education, organization and law enforcement gradually 

 to obtain a strangle hold on forest fires. Then comes 

 the great work of suppressing insect depredations and 

 injurious diseases, one of which, the white pine blister 

 rust, is just assuming dangerous proportions. To render 

 the forest safe is the first step. 



Next in importance comes the task of educating land- 

 owners to take care of their forest lands, and to use 

 them for the production of timber crops. There are 

 many ways of attacking this problem. Circulars and 

 bulletins with useful information reach many; lectures, 

 if given by persons who have real information to con- 

 vey, bring the question home to others; but there are 

 still more practical means of spreading the gospel of 

 forestry. The growing and distribution of tree seed- 

 lings at cost for forest planting is a help. Even more 

 effectual are object lessons in planting upon State lands 

 purchased for the purpose, such as is carried out in New 

 Hampshire and Massachusetts. 



The final problem in State forestry is that of State 

 ownership and management of a certain amount of 

 waste land in tracts large enough to show the commercial 

 and practical possibilities of forestry. This policy 

 Massachusetts, Vermont and Connecticut have adopted, 

 and in other States it has been developed to include 

 ownership and management of over three million acres, 

 exclusive of the purchases of the National Government 

 in the East, now totalling over a million acres. 



To carry on and develop a successful and well-rounded 

 State policy, the entire work must be in the hands of 

 men who understand what it is all about, and who can 

 proceed with the certainty which comes from training 

 and education toward the attainment of definite, clear- 

 cut objects. Not only that, but the work must pay. 

 The returns must be adequate for the expenditures in 

 whatever line the appropriations are directed. Efficiency 

 is the watchword of the hour, and the blundering, waste 

 and excessive cost of inefficiency, due to lack of ade- 

 quate training, is just as criminally inexcusable in our 

 internal affairs as it would be in waging war. 



The result of inefficiency and waste, if too long con- 

 tinued, will inevitably be either the abandonment of the 

 enterprise, if it is considered unessential, or the enforced 

 reorganization of the management, so that results vital 

 !> the Commonwealth may be secured. 

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In the present stage of development of forestry its 

 magnificent opportunities and the vital bearing of its 

 economic relations to our future social health are only 

 dimly perceived by legislators, and, facing a crisis arising 

 from mismanagement, it may frequently happen that re- 

 trogression is recommended rather than reform. 



In spite of object lessons on every hand, we have not 

 yet fully grasped the fact that efficiency in State forestry 

 can be obtained only by giving the work into the hands 

 of efficient foresters and keeping it there. Whatever 

 may be said of the possibilities of partisan political gov- 

 ernment along other lines, politics and forestry will not 

 mix. A political forester, without technical knowledge 

 of his subject, is as hopelessly out of his element as a 

 fish on dry land. His principal concern is to make 

 believe to accomplish something he is never quite sure 

 what and to continue to bluff as long as there is a 

 salary to draw or other perquisites in sight. When he 

 has exhausted the patience of the public, it is time to 

 regain popular favor by recommending the abolition of 

 the work as a measure of economy and efficiency. 



Take a concrete case. In 1893 New Hampshire 

 created a forestry board composed of political appointees 

 who had the bestowal of a secretaryship at a salary of 

 $1,000 per year. This sum promptly became the per- 

 quisite of a prominent politician residing in Concord, 

 who continued to draw it for sixteen years without ren- 

 dering any practical return. Finally, rendered uncom- 

 fortable by the rising tide of interest and criticism, he 

 sapiently suggested that the entire board, with its paid 

 secretary, be abolished and the duties of the office turned 

 over to a clerk in the Department of Agriculture. Thanks 

 to the services of former Governor Robert Bass and 

 others, this suggestion was vetoed, the board was reno- 

 vated, and for the first time a technically educated man 

 employed as forester. That was in 1909. In the six 

 years following, and in spite of a desperate and unsuc- 

 cessful attempt to reorganize the forester's office so as 

 to restore its original status as a political plum, the 

 board has retained the State forester, and the policy of 

 the State has been crystallized into definite achievement. 

 Among the results obtained are State-wide fire protec- 

 tion, the control of railroad fires, a State forest nursery, 

 State forest reserves, and the preservation of the Craw- 

 ford Notch at a cost of $110,000. 



We do not obtain efficiency in great State enterprises 

 like the construction of highways or canals by permit- 

 ting the work to become the plaything of party politics. 

 The trained engineer must be in charge, or waste is 

 inevitable. It is equally absurd to hope to raise the 

 edifice of a State forest policy on the foundation of 

 practical politics. No civilized nation but ourselves 



