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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



If this country is to continue to meet its own needs for 

 wood and other forest products, it must keep its forest 

 lands productive and must make the material produced 

 go as far as possible. That important results of im- 

 mediate application can be secured in the latter field has 

 been demonstrated by the ten years of research conducted 

 by the Forest Products Laboratory at Madison. Recent 

 investigations by the wood turners have also indicated 

 the possibility of effecting amazingly large savings by 

 standardization of specifications, the more careful saving 

 of dimension stock, and similar measures. Increased for- 

 est production is equally essential, however, and it is great- 

 ly to the credit of those who utilize but who as a rule do 

 not grow the wood, that they should recognize this fact. 

 That the movement for the practice of forestry now 

 under way in this country will receive a decided impetus 



from the organization of the council of wood-using in- 

 dustries cannot be doubted. These industries represent 

 an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars and 

 form the backbone of many communities throughout the 

 country. Many of their leaders are leaders also in the 

 business world and any recommendations that they may 

 make will carry considerable weight. It is therefore a 

 hopeful portent that these industries through their newly 

 organized council are planning to study the various sug- 

 gestions already made regarding the adoption of a for- 

 est program for the country with a view to reaching 

 conclusions which they can support and which they will 

 endeavor to have enacted into law. American Forestry 

 congratulates them on their foresight and public spirit, 

 and wishes them all success in the work they have 

 undertaken. 



A GOOD MOVE 



TOURING the summer a conference was held at the 

 *-* Forest Products Laboratory at Madison, Wisconsin, 

 which bids fair to result in bringing closer together those 

 interested in forest production and in wood utilization. 

 Its primary object was to discuss the training of special- 

 ists in forest products along lines which, in addition to 

 furnishing a fundamental education in engineering or 

 the physical sciences, would include enough forestry to 

 give them the forester's point of view and to enable them 

 to connect their specialty with the growing forest. The 

 conference expressed its approval of a combination 

 course of this sort and appointed a committee to work 

 out the details and to report with recommendations to be 

 a proposed general conference on forest education to be 

 held early next winter. Much good should come of the 

 movement which has thus been started. There is no 



doubt that men engaged in forest products work, whether 

 in research or in industry, will be better equipped for their 

 task if they have a real understanding of forest production 

 and the place of forestry in the life in the nation. There 

 is equally little doubt that those whose primary care is 

 the growing, management and utilization of forests will 

 gain from the closer contact with their fellow workers 

 in the field of forest products that will inevitably follow 

 when the latter are trained in forestry as well as in en- 

 gineering or chemistry. Increased forest production and 

 increased efficiency in the ulitization of forest products 

 are but two, and equally important, phases of forest con- 

 servation. Any movement that emphasizes this fact and 

 that serves to bring about a closer co-operation between 

 workers in the two fields is worthy of all support. 



IN BEHALF OF FOREST EXPERIMENT STATIONS 



'T'HE Arizona Wool Growers' Association and the 

 * Arizona Cattle Growers' Association at a joint meet- 

 ing in Flagstaff last summer passed a resolution favoring 

 the abolition of the Fort Valley Experiment Station on 

 the ground that its work "has been an entire failure and 

 a useless expense to the amount of approximately $20,000 

 per annum." The resolution was adopted without dis- 

 cussion, and subsequent developments have indicated that 

 many of those at the meeting did not appreciate its sig- 

 nificance and had no desire to interfere with the investi- 

 gative work of the Forest Service. Fortunately no harm 

 seems likely to come of the incident. It does, however, 

 call attention to an unfortunate condition, namely, the 

 widespread lack of knowledge of. the activities of the 

 forest experiment stations and consequent failure to 

 appreciate their true value. 



The Fort Valley Experiment Station has been in ex- 

 istence for more than twelve years. During this time, as 

 a result of carefully planned and systematically con- 



ducted investigations, it has demonstrated that by proper 

 methods of cutting and protection reproduction of west- 

 ern yellow pine, by far the most important species in 

 the Southwest, can be obtained and costly artificial re- 

 forestation avoided. It has also shown that planting, 

 which for many years met with complete failure, can be 

 successfully conducted in accordance with methods de- 

 veloped by the station on denuded areas where natural 

 reproduction would be wholly out of the question for 

 many decades, or perhaps even centuries. It has secured 

 much information regarding the relation between for- 

 ests and their environment which will be of great value 

 in the development of improved methods of forest man- 

 agement. In short, its activities have yielded results of 

 immediate practical use in the face of exceptionally ad- 

 verse conditions. 



It is safe to say that the cattle and sheep men at the 

 Flagstaff convention to whom these facts were known 

 could readily be counted on the fingers of one hand. 



