PAID IN FULL 



1219 



seem most advisable. Such co-operation should, there- 

 fore, be recognized as an essential part of the general 

 program of enlarged forest research in the United States. 

 It should be recognized that the success of the efforts 

 to secure adequate recognition for this work must depend 

 in a very material degree upon the demand for the 

 work outside of the Federal Forest Service. The pres- 

 ent Federal appropriations for silvical research as ap- 

 proved by the House at the short session of Congress is 

 about $78,000. The Senate Committee added $25,000 to 

 this amount. It is believed that the general program 

 above outlined could be carried out by an increase of this 

 appropriation to $200,000, and at the next session of 

 Congress an effort will be made to have this amount 

 appropriated for the work. 



PAID IN FULL 



THE following is a brief sketch of Captain Homer 

 A Smith Youngs, forestry official and university pro- 

 fessor, who gave his life as the salient of St. Mihiel 

 was wrested from the grasp of the Hun : Born in 

 Stillman Valley, Illinois, September 26, 1892. Gradu- 

 ated from Belvidere, Illinois, High School. Enrolled 

 in the University of Idaho School of Forestry, Sep- 

 tember, 1 910, where he won highest honors both 

 as a student and a marksman, and specialized in 

 Forest Engineering and in Grazing. Accepting a position 

 with the Forest Service, District 4, as Chief of Party 

 in charge of primary triangulation, he prepared the base 

 maps for grazing reconnaissance on which he was later 

 engaged for some time. Early in 1916 he was appointed 

 Grazing Examiner for District 1, with headquarters at 

 Missoula, resigning in September of that year to accept 

 a teaching position in forestry at his Alma Mater. 



On January 5, 1917, he was married to Anne Geral- 

 dine Parker, of Los Angeles, and in the same month he 

 passed the examination for second lieutenant, receiving 

 his Commission April 1. On May 15 he was ordered to 

 the Presidio at San Francisco and was commissioned 

 first lieutenant on June 5. On August 29 he sailed from 

 Hoboken to join the 16th Infantry, which had crossed 

 with General Pershing in July, and first saw active ser- 

 vice at the front in November, 1917, where he distinguish- 

 ed himself as a sniper because of his unusually accurate 

 long-range marksmanship. In December he was sent to 

 a British Army Scouting School for further training in 

 methods of scouting and sniping, this training being 

 further supplemented by observation and patrolling in 

 the British trenches at the front. He received his cap- 

 taincy on January 1, 1918, and on returning to his regi- 

 ment was made regimental intelligence officer, in which 

 position, he had charge of most of the patrols that went 

 out from his Division — the famous First Division of the 

 First Army. At Picardy he was seriously gassed and 

 in the hospital for six weeks but again joined his regi- 

 ment on the Champagne front where a shell, which ex- 



ploded in a dugout containing three officers, killed the 

 other two and left Captain Youngs unconscious and ser- 

 iously injured from shell-shock. After two months in 

 Base Hospital No. 8 he again joined his regiment on 

 September 1, and on September 30, in the great battle of 

 St. Mihiel, he went over the top for the last time fighting 

 in the Argonne Forest until October 4, when he received 

 a severe wound in his right shoulder severing nerves 

 which necessitated the amputation of his right arm on 

 October 30. He was never able to bear the strain of 



A FOREST HERO OF THE WAR 

 Capt. Homer Smith Youngs, Co. E, 16th U. S. Infantry. 



moving to a base hospital and on November 23 blood- 

 transfusion was resorted to but he died on the morning 

 of November 24, 1918. He now sleeps in Brizeaux 

 Village, just south of the Argonne Forest. 



He leaves a young son, Homer Smith Youngs, Jr., 

 whom he had never seen. 



Without ostentation, but with dispatch and thorough- 

 ness, fearlessly and dauntlessly, his work was done. 

 Those who knew him best loved and trusted him most. 

 He died in the service of his country which he loved so 

 well, and of whose splendid young manhood he was 

 such a perfect type in every sense. His life ; his ex- 

 ample; his supreme sacrifice, should not be permitted 



