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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



VOL. XXVI 



AUGUST, 1920 



NO. 320 



EDITORIAL 



FALSE ECONOMY 



A MONG the "economies effected during the last session 

 '* of Congress was a cut of nearly $29,000 in the regu- 

 lar appropriation for forest investigations in the Forest 

 Service. It is unfortunate that Congress, in its need 

 of retrenchment, found it necessary to cut most heavily in 

 the appropriations for scientific work. Any one who is 

 familiar with the splendid work done at the forest ex- 

 periment stations and the great hardships and handicaps 

 under which the enthusiastic scientific staff has been 

 working for years in the hope of more liberal appro- 

 priations to enlarge the scope of the work and provide 

 better facilities for it, will appreciate the serious blow 

 which such a cut means to scientific work in forestry 

 in this country. 



The usual appropriation of $78,728 was never adequate 

 to maintain the eight forest experiment stations in the 

 West, and the investigative work in the East. Several 

 years ago it was necessary as a result of lack of funds, 

 to shut down the experiment stations in California in 

 order to provide sufficient money to carry the rest of the 

 experiment stations. With an appropriation of only 

 $50,000 for the coming fiscal year, it will be necessary 

 to stop practically all the field work at the experiment 

 stations and retain merely a skeleton organization con- 

 sisting of a single man. The plan recently adopted for 

 providing in each western district a technical man to act 

 as the connecting link between the administrative force 

 on the forests and the scientific work in the district, and 

 to see that the results of the experiment stations are 

 applied to every-day practice in National Forest ad- 

 ministration, must now be abandoned. Of course, no 

 new projects of any kind, no matter how urgent, can be 

 undertaken and even current records on some important 

 investigations already under way may have to be either 

 discontinued entirely or greatly curtailed. 



The cut in the appropriation for forest research will 

 fall especially heavily on the work in the East. With the 

 urgent demands for exact information in the manage- 

 ment of the Western National Forests, forest research 

 was, until recently, largely confined to western problems 

 with only an accidental investigation of some eastern 

 problem. It was definitely planned that in any enlarge- 

 ment of the scope of forest research the East should re- 

 ceive greater attention. A number of forest experiment 

 stations in the New England States, the southern hard- 

 woods, the southern pineries, and the Lake States, similar 

 in scope to our western forest experiment stations, had 

 been planned. Under present conditions, of course, noth- 

 ing can be done in the way of establishing experiment 

 stations in the Lake States, the Northeast or the South, 

 yet the problems there, in the face of the rapidly waning 

 supply of hardwoods and southern pine, are particularly 

 urgent. 



It is especially unfortunate that the decrease in the 

 appropriation for forest studies should have come at a 

 time when many organizations, Government, State and 

 industrial, are awakened to the need of a better handling 

 of the remaining forests and are depending on accurate 

 knowledge for applying the different measures suggested 

 for providing a permanent supply of raw materials for 

 the people and industries of the country. The failure to 

 secure this year adequate funds for forest research should 

 not, however, discourage the efforts of those who tried 

 to bring about a better recognition of the need of such 

 investigations ; every one who has the progress pf 

 scientific forestry at heart should double his efforts, 

 and with renewed energy and hope, work for a better 

 financial support by Congress of forest studies. 



TREE PLANTING AND PUBLICITY 



TO carry along the American Forestry Association's 

 campaign of education regarding forests and trees 

 the University of Illinois directed students in its School 

 of Journalism to write editorials on the memorial tree 

 planting at the University, for the newspapers of the 

 State. The result was state-wide publicity and a valuable 

 addition to the campaign which is teaching the people 



throughout the country the value of trees and the need 

 of perpetuating our forests. 



As a sample of the editorials the following is re- 

 printed : 



"There is no one thing in the world that adds more to 

 man's comfort than the silent tree that stands above 

 him. During the hot summer months he revels in its 



