American Forest Congress 357 



about the use of new and better methods on the 

 ground, but, above and beyond the benefit to the indi- 

 vidual cooperator, this work, through the pubHcation 

 of its results, has been a far-reaching influence in fur- 

 thering that understanding of the purpose and methods 

 of forestry, without which its general application is 

 impossible. Thus, the results of the cooperative work 

 cannot be measured by the great areas of forest land 

 now under management as the result of working plans 

 prepared by the Bureau, or the three hundred and 

 thirty-four planting plans which the Bureau has pre- 

 pared for lands in fifty-two states and territories. 

 In its cooperation with railroads, the Bureau, at an 

 expense truly insignificant in comparison with the 

 value of the results, has developed facts regarding the 

 preservative treatment of ties and construction timbers 

 and the profitable use of woods of inferior kinds whose 

 value is beyond estimate both to the great transporta- 

 tion systems themselves and in its decrease in the drain 

 upon our forests. In its cooperative state forest 

 studies the Bureau's work has in each instance had a 

 definite and tangible result in preparing a solid basis 

 for a comprehensive state forest policy. But each 

 piece of cooperative work, whether with the individual, 

 the corporation, or the state ; whether in tree-planting, 

 in working plans, or in studies of forest products, is 

 justified not merely by the direct benefit to the 

 cooperator, but by the acquisition of knowledge for the 

 common good, in which its widest usefulness lies. 



To the statement that this cooperative work, valu- 

 able as its results may be, falls properly not within the 

 sphere of the Government, but to the private forester, 

 the answer is that the Bureau of Forestry took up this 

 work only because no private foresters were available 

 to do it. It is work which the Bureau has from the 



