A DkcexxixVL Rfx'okd 107 



satisfied. We have only to go into tlie market and purchase what is 

 offered. But as a matter of fact if such an adhesive is to be developed 

 it will only be after scientific study and research which will bring in 

 the accumulated knowledge from half a dozen sciences, and the men 

 who make that research will need high scientific qualifications on their 

 own part. Only thus can a produce be discovered which is worthy to 

 put ])efore the people and a product on which the people of the coun- 

 try can depend. 



Or take another problem which arises not only in connection with 

 the manufacture of airplanes but in a hundred directions involving the 

 utilization of wood — the matter of kiln-drying. It seems at first a 

 very easy thing to put wood into a kiln and dry it artificially. Yet you 

 know better than I that the man who goes to work on that principle 

 will rather spoil wood than produce good lumber. It is only as the 

 complex conditions and ])roblems involved in kiln-drying are appre- 

 ciated and thoroughly mastered that success is reached. Only as 

 there are scientifically worked out processes by which the different 

 varieties of wood may be treated, each according to its own kind and 

 condition, can success be secured, even in a process which looks at first 

 so simple. And if in such matters as these, which seem to be simple, 

 scientific study and scientific organization are necessary, much more 

 is the same necessity present in the far more complex problems which 

 are involved in the production of paper pulp, in the prevention of de- 

 cay of timber, in the other infinitely varied uses to which timber is put. 



I need not give you more illustrations, for these are enough to 

 illustrate the principle which underlies the subject assigned to me — 

 the need of institutions like the Forest Products Laboratory, which 

 shall concern tliemselves with the translation of knowledge into power 

 and so shall make available for the lienefit of the public along specific 

 hues the enormously valuable asset whicli the M'orld possesses in the 

 accumulated treasures of science. 



This necessity the government is trying to meet along one line 

 through the Forest Products Laboratory, an institution which medi- 

 ates between knowledge and affairs. I congratulate the laboratory 

 on the way it lias ])erformed this duty din-ing the ])ast ten years; I 

 congratulate it for the work wliich it lias done itself; I congratulate 

 it as a part of the great working force of the De])artment of Agricul- 

 ture; I congratulate it especially on tlie ])art Avliicli it lias taken here 



