OPPORTUNITIES FOR FORESTERS 93 



had their share along with the rest of us. Founded on European models, 

 located at intellectual rather than business centers, under obligation first 

 and in any case to teach the principles of forestry, science and policy which 

 the country so much needed, with a teaching force young, very limited in 

 its knowledge of actual operations in mills and woods, the schools could not 

 in fairness probably be expected to get to the bottom of these matters and 

 give their students an effective point of viw. Teachers could explain how 

 land ought to be stocked in order to produce to the utmost ; they could recount 

 the steps in the different silvicultural systems ; they could explain the interest 

 of the community in the maintenance of forest cover and productiveness, and 

 tell how under European governments that was secured; they know the 

 forms gone through in making a Forest Service timber sale, and even had the 

 supervision of some pet pieces of land. But American lumbering as it 

 exists in the country today they have felt no kinship to and no obligation 

 really to study and understand. As for woods operations the schools have 

 apparently failed to see the fundamental fact that they are nine-tenths en- 

 gineering. Courses of instruction in lumbering methods have been late, super- 

 ficial and unsympathetic. 



In consequence the men attracted to the forest schools have seldom 

 been of the type to make or to co-operate with lumbermen, or if they were 

 such at the start their forestry training likely spoiled them for any such work. 

 Thus while lumbermen have been employing graduates of colleges and tech- 

 nical schools in various departments of their business, the majority of those 

 who have had experience with forest school graduates simply say that they 

 cannot be used. 



If the view above expressed, that forestry had less effect in lumbering 

 than it might have had, is true in the main, there are enough exceptions 

 not merely to prove the rule, but to indicate the way in which more effective 

 work may be done. The foresters now employed as secretaries to lumber 

 dealers' associations have opportunity in a quiet way to exert a great deal of 

 influence and there is every reason to suppose that they do. A number of men 

 with more or less forestry training now have positions with lumber or pulp 

 concerns in Canada. The more careful and responsible timber estimating of 

 New England is fast coming into the hands of foresters, and recently a trained 

 forester in an important case for damages caused by railroad fires, by means 

 of scientific estimates, beat a whole array of Maine woodsmen into their boots. 

 On the Pacific Coast a number of trained men are succeeding at timber 

 estimating or as forest engineers. The Yale School of Forestry now ad- 

 vertises an elaborate course in lumbering connected with its regular forestry 

 work. Lastly we have the Biltmore School, taking the sons of lumbermen 

 and others going into the lumber business, and giving them a practical training 

 with as much of an insight into forestry science and policy as such men will 

 stand. 



The point in the above is this that the men above mentioned are not 

 doing academic work merely, but are making vital connection between the 

 wo things, lumbering and forestry. They are getting actually to bear on 

 our forest resources. If they are not anywhere bringing about the ideal they 

 are actually improving things to some extent and putting themselves in a 



