T 



THE ATTITUDE OF EDUCATIONAL IN- 

 STITUTIONS TOWARD FORESTRY 



BY 



B. LAWTON WIGGINS, LL. D. 



Vice-chancellor, University of the South. 



HE attitude of at least one educational institution 

 toward forestry will be best appreciated through 

 the statement of the following few facts : 



The University of the South has at Sewanee, Ten- 

 nessee, what is perhaps the largest university campus 

 in the world. It comprises 7,250 acres of land, of 

 which 6,500 acres are wooded. In 1898, Mr. Gifford 

 Pinchot, Forester of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture, inspected the university domain and made 

 with the university one of the agreements which the 

 Bureau of Forestry has for cooperating with timber- 

 land owners in the management of their tracts. To be 

 acceptable to the university, the scheme of management 

 had to provide for good net financial returns, for we 

 are in the position of most small owners of timberland 

 — unable to leave much merchantable timber in the 

 woods or to reinvest much of our profit in forest 

 improvements. To comply with the requirements of 

 the Bureau of Forestry, the working plan had to pro- 

 vide for leaving the forest in better condition than 

 before ; in other words, the working plan had to cover 

 the judicious selection of the trees to be cut, so as to 

 favor the reproduction and growth of the desirable 

 kinds, the avoidance of damage to small growth and of 

 waste in cutting logs, and protection against fire, while 

 at the same time assuring a profit to the university. 



