2 Richard H. Bocrkcr 



considered a great, indispensable business asset, warranting whole- 

 some moral and financial support. 



The history of our country reveals the fact that material in- 

 dustrial progress is largely in direct proportion to scientific re- 

 search and invention. This is especially true in the agricultural 

 pursuits. The various governmental bureaus, our state universi- 

 ties and agricultural colleges, and our many agricultural experi- 

 ment stations are intimately connected with and responsible for 

 the progressive agricultural development of our country. These 

 institutions form a vast ganglionic intellectual organization ; they 

 are rapidly becoming the centers of a new agricultural system 

 and, working from these centers outward, they are gradually 

 touching every phase of agricultural activity. 



Forestry has joined the ranks of the great industries in develop- 

 ing the investigative side of the business and the establishment of 

 forest experiment stations and a forest products laboratory by 

 the Forest Service of the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture has been the first step in this direction. It has become the 

 business of these stations and this laboratory to study the funda- 

 mental laws governing the life of the forest and their effect upon 

 the final product — wood. That vast complex of environmental 

 factors — the habitat- — is beginning to be analyzed to discover in 

 what ways man can help nature to produce more and better 

 timber, in a shorter length of time and at less cost than nature 

 has produced in the ages past. While perhaps, on account of 

 economic conditions, industrial investigations have been given 

 preference to purely silvicultural research, yet investigations in 

 establishing and growing forests have received no small amount 

 of attention. 



Outside of these governmental endeavors very little has been 

 done along the lines of silvicultural research. State forest ex- 

 periment stations are practically unknown. It is true that the 

 foresters as well as the ecologists connected with some of our 

 agricultural experiment stations are contributing to this field, but 

 a beginning has scarcely been made. There is a great need for 

 state forest experiment stations or at least for foresters upon the 

 staffs of some of the agricultural experiment stations to help 



