1904 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



205 



Under these conditions it is very natu- 

 ral that the forest schools have acted to 

 a large extent as feeders for the govern- 

 ment service, and have patterned their 

 courses according to the needs of the 

 Bureau as developed in actual service 

 all over the United States, and it fol- 

 lows that with a few exceptions the 

 Bureau operations hereinafter described 

 are typical of similar work as carried on 

 by all foresters in the country. 



The European forester, with centuries 

 of precedent to guide him, is at a great 



The European's very weight of learn- 

 ing would militate against him if he were 

 confronted by a task such as the Ameri- 

 can is now beginning. He has never been 

 compelled to face entirely novel condi- 

 tions. By long habit of following rules, 

 his methods have taken on the mechan- 

 ical exactness of his checkrowed wood- 

 lands and the comparative absence of 

 need for progressive thought in latter 

 days has resulted very much as might 

 be expected, with some brilliant excep- 

 tions. 



FORESTERS' CAMP IN IDAHO. 



advantage, so far as his work is con- 

 cerned, compared with his American 

 cousin. His work was an exact science 

 long before he was born. He has only 

 to consult the authenticated records 

 of thorough and comprehensive forest 

 study to obtain data which might cost 

 the American months or years of inves- 

 tigation. As a consequence he can make 

 accurate predictions, which reduce busi- 

 ness risks to a minimum, provided he 

 is not asked to go outside of his own 

 bailiwick. At this point the disparity 

 ends. 



The Yankee, on the other hand, is the 

 same energetic, inventive pioneer that 

 his great-great-grandfather was before 

 him. Lacking in many cases the erudi- 

 tion of his trans-Atlantic prototype, he 

 attacks a new set of conditions with mind 

 unhampered by dogmatic opinions of 

 what must necessarily be done, and he is 

 going to succeed in the gigantic task be- 

 fore him through adapting his methods 

 to circumstances. These statements are 

 intended neither as derogation of the 

 one nor flattery of the other, but as an 

 expression of recognized facts. Each 



