78 The Forest Products Laboratory 



From the foregoing, it will be seen that the laboratory does not 

 have available money with which to undertake projects not included 

 in its regular j^rogram of work. The amount annually made available 

 by Congress must be spent in accordance with a general program 

 approved by it. This sum, however, is much less than could be ex- 

 pended effectively with the laboratory's present facilities. 



Recognizing the further opportunity for service, the laboratory 

 has adopted the policy of undertaking cooperative work up to the point 

 where it can be handled efficiently and without disruption of its regu- 

 lar jDrogram of fundamental work. A number of important consid- 

 erations influenced the Forest Service in offering this cooperative 

 service, among which are : 



( 1 ) The Forest Products Laboratory is the only organization 

 of its kind in this country' fully equipped to conduct intensive re- 

 search in all lines of wood utilization and readily available to the 

 lumber- and wood-using industries. During the ten years of its 

 existence, it has built up a great fund of scientific information on 

 wood which is usually of direct ^alue and application in the solu- 

 tion of specific problems, thus making it possible to solve many 

 new problems with a minimum amoimt of new research. The 

 idea behind its cooperative service is thus to place its facilities, 

 organization, and fund of information at the disposal of the indus- 

 tries under the best terms possible and practicable. The alterna- 

 tive would be to attempt no research except that provided for in 

 its approved program. 



(2) A certain amount of cooperative work, it is believed, is a 

 healthy thing for an organization of this character. It not only 

 increases contact between the laboratory and the wood users, thus 

 stimulating appreciation of one another's problems, but it adds 

 to the general fund of scientific information on wood. While all 

 information in possession of the laboratory is disseminated free 

 of charge, much of this information is incomplete when applied 

 to specialized commercial problems. Cooperative service makes 

 available to the industries an opportunity, which otherwise would 

 not be available, to supplement by special research at minimum 

 cost any incomplete data in possession either of the laboratory or 

 of the industry. And it tends to utilize the full capacity of the 

 laboratory. 



