i8 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION. 



January, 



THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE IN FOREST WORK.* 



By GiFFORD PiNCHOT, 



Forester U- S. Department of Agriculture. 



TH E salient fact about the immediate 

 future in forest work is the unex- 

 ampled opportunity. As we look for- 

 ward to the work just ahead of us, the 

 chance for progress stands otit as it never 

 has stood out in forest work in this coun- 

 try before. The opportunity is broaden- 

 ing out in a way that seemed impossible 

 a few years ago, and the opening before 

 all of us in all the different lines of work in 

 which we are engaged is far wider than 

 we are going to be able to use. And 

 that leads me to say (seeing that so many 

 of tis are comparatively new in forest 

 work) that the perfectly natural desire 

 of the younger men to begin their life 

 work qttickly by dropping here a little 

 and there a little of the thoroughness of 

 their preparation is as completely mis- 

 taken as it is thoroughl}' natural. We 

 have all of us suffered from it. I am 

 not unacquainted with its evil effects in 

 my own case ; and before we pass on to 

 the real subject of the evening I want to 

 make this declaration : That the first 

 thing I should advise an}' man to do who 

 is thinking of taking up forest work in 

 this country' is to make his preparation 

 just as thorough as he possibly- can, re- 

 membering that the opportunity, by the 

 time he can use it, will be greater rather 

 than less than it is now. I have had 

 exactly this experience myself. It took 

 me years to catch up with what I let 

 slip because I thought the opportunit}' 

 was going to disappear ; and the result 

 of it was that I had to stop, as so many 

 men in the Bureati have had to do, and 

 go back for the things I had left out of 

 my preparation just at a time when I 

 needed them most. 



People are asking now, all over the 

 country, what ought to be done in 

 forest work. The time of the vague 

 feeling that something ought to be done 

 has gone b}-, and the specific demand 

 for a specific thing is here ; and it is our 



business to answer it. This is the great 

 fact in the situation. As a people, we 

 are ready for forestr}-. 



There are two or three special things 

 which we are all striving for, and that 

 must be brought about in the near future 

 if our opportunity is to be used to the 

 full. One of them is the unification of 

 the forest work of the government. 

 We are all glad that the prospect for 

 heartier co-operation between the three 

 organizations that are occupied in forest 

 work is better than it ever has been be- 

 fore ; that such co-operation has just 

 now actually begun in a new way ; and 

 that the prospect for the immediate fu- 

 ture is that we shall all unite with new 

 strength and new effectiveness at the 

 old task. 



Another of the essentials for the im- 

 mediate future is the extension of the 

 forest-reserve system. That may be 

 said to be the first great need of forest 

 work in this countr}' at present. We 

 are comitag to it with an understanding 

 and with facts that we have never had 

 before. For example, Mr. Newell * has 

 been compiling maps of the alienated 

 lands in a number of states. Wherever 

 that work has been done we can locate 

 forest reserves with absolute knowledge 

 of how much lieu land selection will be 

 entailed. Some of you ma}- not know 

 that there is a law which provides that 

 an}' man who owns land inside a forest 

 reser\'e may exchange it, unless it is a 

 mineral claim, for land outside a per- 

 fectly just provision as applied to set- 

 tlers, but one which has been thoroughly 

 abtised. This law has recently become 

 the great obstacle to the creation of new 

 forest reser\'es. A knowledge of how 

 many lieu land selections will follow the 

 creation of any reserve will immensely 

 facilitate this most important movement. 



* Hydrographer United States Geological 

 Survey. 



* Address delivered before the Society of American Foresters November 2, 1901. 



