282 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 477. 



Functions of Forestry in the New Agricul- 

 ture: Thos. H. Sherraed, Bureau of 

 Forestry, Department of Agriculture, 

 Wasliington, D. C. 



Mr. Sherrard's paper dealt with the 

 problem of forest culture, as it related to 

 farming rather than to lumbering, and 

 showed the work of the Bureau of Forestry 

 to this end. Instead of a struggle to win 

 tillable land from the forests the farmer 

 is more often confronted with the difficulty 

 of obtaining building material for his house 

 and wood for his home use. "With the 

 growing appreciation of the urgent need 

 for forest preservation, the demand for 

 better methods for handling wood lots to 

 secure their permanency takes a more and 

 more important place. How important is 

 conservative management of wood lots from 

 the standpoint of national economy may 

 be seen from the fact that from one third 

 to one half of the forests of this country 

 are in the hands of farmers. In the new 

 agriculture, the spirit of which is to use 

 every part of the land, forestry has an 

 important place. Just as the new agri- 

 culture requires the highest possible pro- 

 duction along other lines, so with equal 

 reason it demands that the wood lot should 

 be managed to produce as much wood as 

 possible. The Bureau of Forestry in the 

 Department of Agriculture in the past five 

 years has introduced practical forestry 

 upon over a million and a half acres of 

 private forest land, with applications for 

 assistance covering five and a half million 

 acres. 



In principle forestry is an exceedingly 

 simple matter, but its application requires 

 the trained man. The warp and woof of 

 forestry is silviculture— the science of 

 guiding forest growth so that it will best 

 meet the individual need. 



The manner of treating these applica- 

 tions involves an examination of the tract 

 by an agent, a report on the same and a 



recommendation of a working plan if 

 deemed advisable. The Bureau makes the 

 working plan. In the case of large tracts 

 the expense of the field work, necessary to 

 the preparation of the working plan, and 

 the cost of its execution, is borne by the 

 owner. In the case of wood lots with an 

 area not exceeding two hundred acres, the 

 expenses are borne entirely by the Bureau. 

 The pui-pose of the woodlot work is two- 

 fold. First, to assist the individual owner, 

 in applying such management to his wood- 

 lands as will make them most productive 

 and profitable. Second, to encourage, by 

 examples of forest management, a more gen- 

 eral understanding of the simple principles 

 underlying forestry. In almost every ease 

 owners have asked help of the bureau, be- 

 cause they have a very definite problem of 

 their own to solve. A large proportion of 

 men counting on permanent ownership of 

 their land have wished to know how and 

 where to cut their annual supply of cord 

 wood and such material as they require, so 

 as constantly to improve the value and 

 productiveness of their woods. 



Improvement in Farm Management: W. 

 H. Hays, Minnesota State Agricultural 

 Experiment Station, St. Anthony, Minn. 

 Referring to the 838,591,774 acres in this 

 country, of which 414,498,487 acres were 

 under cultivation and 424,093,287 acres 

 not yet under cultivation,, the problem of 

 farm management is. How can the nation 

 and the state assist so that these separate 

 farms and farm -houses may be so well man- 

 aged that they shall not be supplanted by 

 a system of estates with their centrally 

 located farmsteads and their peasant-like 

 employees? Shall our government and 

 states provide simply higher institutions 

 of agricultural learning to educate man- 

 agers of large estates, and thus follow the 

 present tendency to centralize industrial 

 work under a few managers? Or shall the 



