1218 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Aoner Robinson collected 235,464; Benjamin Palby, 

 213,550; George Nelson, 190,315; Elmer Manesevitz, 

 158,500; Joseph Boduar, 126,392; Alex Elias, 106,347. 

 These figures talk for themselves. The campaign was 

 truly a successful one. The children are interested, and 

 are becoming more and more enthusiastic about trees. 



Surely, these youngsters, in years to come, will be 

 educated to the beauty and value of shade trees, and 

 will see to it that the shade trees of this city are not 

 neglected. The Trenton Times gave lots of publicity 

 to the campaign and contributed in this way very sub- 

 stantially to its success. 



FOREST INVESTIGATION 



FOR some time there has been a growing conviction 

 on the part of foresters in the United States that 

 the amount of silvical research conducted by all 

 agencies, including the Federal Government, is very in- 

 adequate. The war has emphasized this more than ever. 



The southern pine region is still our largest center of 

 lumber production, and the naval stores industry, even 

 though it has materially declined in the last 20 years, is 

 still the world's largest center of naval stores production. 

 The growing area of cut-over land in the South which 

 is not being utilized for agriculture and on which for- 

 est production, if there is any, is largely an accident, 

 calls among other things for a much greater effort in 

 forest research than has ever before been possible. Aside 

 from the small amount of work which has been done by 

 the Forest Service on the Florida National Forest and 

 in co-operation with one agricultural station and in gen- 

 eral studies, practically nothing has been done. Of funda- 

 mental forest research in the southern pineries there has 

 been little Or none. The South can be continued as one 

 of our most important timber producing regions, but 

 one basis for this must be a better knowledge of how 

 to practice forestry. 



Hardwood production in the United States is cen- 

 tered very largely in the Appalachians and neighboring 

 States. This field has been covered during the past 25 

 years by a series of investigations which have helped to 

 answer immediate questions, but fundamental problems 

 at the basis of the practice of forestry have hardly been 

 touched. A very large acreage in this region, because 

 of topography and soil, is most suitable for timber pro- 

 duction including the woodlot, as well as the larger areas 

 in which can be grown timber for the general market. 

 Practically unlimited markets are immediately at hand 

 and close utilization is possible. The number of species 

 is very large and practically all of them have well-estab- 

 lished usages. In this diversified forest many problems 

 of silviculture require solution and some provision should 

 be made for attacking them on an adequate scale. 



Similarly in the Lake States comparatively little has 

 been done to lay the foundations for the practice of for- 

 estry on the large areas of potential timberland which 

 are now so largely waste. Continued timber production 

 of both softwoods and hardwoods is possible on a large 

 scale, but on the basis of present attempts at forest 

 research the foundation for proper silvicultural methods 

 can not be laid for many years to come. 



In New England there is a limited amount of forest 

 research under way by a considerable number of agencies, 



no one of which is covering the field adequately. The 

 Federal Government is doing practically nothing. It is 

 probable that a reasonable effort by the Federal Govern- 

 ment in this region would serve to round out and stimulate 

 and unify the activities of other agencies so that the for- 

 estry problems of the New England States could be 

 solved within a reasonable time. In this region, as we 

 all know, the evolution of lumbering and the gradual 

 drift towards forestry has gone further than anywhere 

 else. We now have probably a better opportunity for 

 the practice of forestry on private lands than in any other 

 part of the United States, barring mandatory provisions. 



Even in the West, to which the research activities of 

 the Forest Service have had to be mainly directed during 

 the last 10 or 15 years because of the necessity of infor- 

 mation on which to base silvicultural practice in the 

 National Forests, the extent of the work has been far 

 from satisfactory. Within the last five years in order 

 to put the work on a satisfactory basis at fewer places it 

 has been necessary to reduce the work in California very 

 materially, this in spite of the importance of the prob- 

 lems which are pressing for immediate solution. The 

 work in California should again be taken up and in other 

 parts of the West it should be materially enlarged. 



There are also other lines of forest investigation which 

 relate equally to all regions, as for example, forest 

 mathematics, a subject which received more or less atten- 

 tion in. the Forest Service some years ago but which it 

 has been impossible -to. -cover in any satisfactory way 

 during the last four ormve years. Here we have such 

 problems as forest growth and yield, volume tables, 

 scaling problems, and mathematical relationships between 

 height, the diameter, volume, and form of trees, a large 

 and important field on which the efforts of a number of 

 men could be devoted for a number of years with results 

 of the greatest importance to foresters and to the forest 

 industries. There is another group of problems which 

 could well be centered at a forest research laboratory, 

 such as fundamental seed studies and forest biological 

 studies in general. 



The time has now come for much closer co-operation 

 in forest research between the Federal Government, the 

 States, the forest schools of high standing, and the State 

 Experiment Stations, with the latter particularly on wood- 

 lot problems. Much more can be accomplished by some 

 attempt at unification of effort of reasonable Federal 

 assistance to the States or forest schools on lines of 

 work mutually agreed upon, either in the loan of men or 

 the allotment of funds, or in such other form as may 



