Canadian Forestry Journal. June, ipi6. 



583 



What is a Forester ? 



(By Frederick Olmstead, Consulting Forester, San Francisco. 



At the meeting of the Society of 

 American Foresters in San Fran- 

 cisco last October George AI. Corn- 

 wall, editor of The Timberman. read 

 a paper on "The Forester's Duty To^ 

 ward Lumbering" and the writer 

 discussed "The Lumberman's Duty 

 Toward Forestry." It seems to me 

 that these two discussions deserve 

 more than passing remark, mainly 

 because of the different points of 

 view advanced by the lumberman 

 and the forester as to what consti- 

 tutes the duty of the one to the 

 other. Let me state that I do not 

 assume to represent the opinion of 

 all foresters on this subject, nor, per- 

 haps, would ]\Ir. Cornwall care to 

 assume such a responsibility for all 

 lumbermen. Nevertheless, owing to 

 the national character and import- 

 ance of the meeting before which 

 the papers were read the two diver- 

 gent views should command more 

 or less attention. 



Briefly put, Mr. Cornwal's idea of 

 the forester's duty toward lumbering 

 was that he should specialize in such 

 problems as over-production and 

 under-consumption in the lumber 

 trade ; the purchasing power of farm 

 tenants ; the replacement of wood by 

 cement and other materials ; the 

 utilization of by-products for pulp ; 

 the manufacture of wood for paving, 

 excelsior and many other things ; the 

 elimination of waste in sawing at the 

 mill ; constructive advertising of 

 wood, and the business of distribut- 

 ing and selling forest products. 



Work for the Lumberinen. 



This is not forestry, nor are the 

 men engaafed in such work foresters. 

 I admit that these problems are of 

 vital importance to the lumberman's 

 business and that they should be 

 studied and solved, possiblv to a 

 large extent by the lumbermen 

 themselves. I suggest, however. 



that such problems are not essential 

 parts of the forester's profession and 

 that they may best be attacked and 

 settled by experts other than the 

 forester. 



As his name implies, the forester's 

 work is in the forest. He is con- 

 cerned in measuring the amount, 

 kind, quality and value of growing 

 timber, and in determining and ap- 

 plying methods for its protection ; in 

 mapping the land to show how the 

 various bodies of trees are located 

 and how they may best 'je cut and 

 removed : and, where conditions 

 warrant, in designing and putting 

 into ]jractice such cutting methods 

 as will make present operations pro- 

 fitable while leaving the lands tim- 

 ber-productive. His highest duty 

 and most difficult work is this prob- 

 lem of using a natural resource with- 

 out destroying it. It is odd, inci- 

 dentally, that this problem has so 

 far made but a slight impression on 

 the lumberman ; he has not only gen- 

 erally overlooked the possible ad- 

 \-antage to himself in cases where he 

 intends to hold his logged-oft' lands, 

 but has also failed to realize that the 

 state, when it begins to acquire for 

 itself lands best suited to tree 

 growth, will acquire first, and pay 

 highest for. those lands which have 

 been kept producing timber, not 

 those which have been turned into 

 non-productive wastes. 



Logging and Foresrty. 



Mr. Cornwall stated that "a 

 knowledge of logging engineering is 

 the basis of true forestry." I should 

 put it otherwise. Logging engineer- 

 ing is an incident to, not the basis 

 of, true forestry. It is essentially 

 civil and mechanical engineering and 

 has to do, for the most part, with 

 mechanical devices for the transpor- 

 tation of logs to cars and mill. Of 

 this, to be sure, the forester should 



