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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



VOL. XXVI 



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APRIL 1920 



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EDITORIAL 



NO. 316 



CRIPPLING FOREST INVESTIGATIONS 



rPHE Agricultural bill as passed by the House of Rep- 

 -*- resentatives, reduced the appropriation for forest in- 

 vestigations in the Forest Service from $78,728 to $35,000, 

 or more than half. This appropriation has been granted 

 by Congress for the past eight years. The Senate Com- 

 mittee increased the amount to $105,000. At this writing 

 the conferees of the House and Senate are considering 

 this and other forestry appropriations. 



The reduction of $43,728 made by the House, if final- 

 ly passed, will make it necessary to close down all of the 

 Forest Service experiment stations located at Priest 

 River, Idaho, at Colorado Springs, Colorado; at Flag- 

 staff, Arizona, and at Stabler, Washington. Some of 

 these stations, like the Arizona and Colorado Stations, 

 have been in existence for the last ten years. It will 

 further mean a great crippling, if not the entire abandon- 

 ment, of the more general forest investigations now car- 

 ried on in the States of California, Oregon, Utah, Mon- 

 tana, and the hardwood region of the eastern United 

 States. It will mean the dropping from the rolls of 

 10 or 12 men, some of whom have been in the forest 

 research work for the last 12 or 15 years. It will mean 

 the abandonment of hundreds of experimental plots and 

 records secured with infinite patience and sacrifice on the 

 part of enthusiastic investigators in the course of more 

 than a decade. It will mean setting back the experi- 

 mental work in the country for another 15 years, since 

 in forestry it takes years of most arduous work to build 

 up sufficient evidence for any definite conclusions and 

 secure a complete investigation force. 



If anything has proved beyond doubt its value during 

 the war it is the application of science to modern indus- 

 trial and military efficiency. Just at a time when scien- 

 tific work is at last coming into its own, if it cannot be 

 stimulated it should not at least be crippled by any near- 

 sighted policies of economy. If any effort has more 

 than paid for its cost it has been scientific effort. The 

 National Research Council, the leading scientific body 

 in this country, and the leaders of industry, all unani- 

 mously testify to this. 



It is very unfortunate that this blow to forest investi- 

 gations should come at a time when the people through- 

 out the country are at last aroused to the critical situation 

 of our timber resources and are asking for additional 

 appropriations for experiment stations in New England, 

 the Southern Appalachians, the Lake States and south- 

 ern California. This demand on the part of an awakened 



public opinion manifested itself in the introduction of 

 eight bills now pending in the House and Senate and 

 providing for the establishment of new experiment sta- 

 tions in different parts of the country. 



This drastic reduction in the appropriation for forest 

 investigations is a very near-sighted economy at a time 

 when the exhaustion of our timber resources is so clear- 

 ly in sight, when the prices for lumber have reached 

 levels almost prohibitive for the ordinary user of wood, 

 when many industries in the United States today are suf- 

 fering because of a shortage of wood supplies, as is too 

 clearly manifested by the critical situation in the pro- 

 duction of newsprint, and when the country needs more 

 than ever before knowledge as to the best handling of our 

 remaining timberlands. The question of a National 

 Forest policy for the country is now being widely dis- 

 cussed by the wood-using industries, in trade journals, 

 and the general press, and there is no doubt but that legis- 

 lation of one kind or another will be sought in the near 

 future to provide for measures which will protect the 

 remaining forests from devastation and encourage forest 

 practice by private timber owners as well as by States 

 and municipalities. All such measures, unless they are 

 based on accurate scientific knowledge of the best meth- 

 ods of handling the timber lands and securing natural 

 or artificial reforestation, may prove of little effectiveness. 

 Forest experiment stations are just as indispensable to 

 the growing of timber as agricultural stations are to the 

 production of farm crops. 



The curtailment in the appropriation for forest research 

 is particularly deplorable because it comes at a time when 

 the forest experiment stations are just beginning to 

 reach the period of their greatest efficiency and use- 

 fulness. 



Forest investigations on the National Forests resulted 

 in increasing the revenue from them by developing meth- 

 ods of cutting which, as in the case of the Douglas fir 

 on the Pacific Coast, have saved thousands, if not hun- 

 dreds of thousands, of dollars to the Government in the 

 form of timber which otherwise would have to be left 

 for seeding purposes. Some of the discoveries made at 

 the stations repaid to the Government many times over 

 the entire cost of all expenditures for their establishment 

 and maintenance for many years to come. Their elimi- 

 nation in reality means, therefore, not economy, but a loss 

 since without them increase in productivity of our forests 

 must be trusted entirely to chance. 



