8 DEPABTMENTAL REPORTS. 



kinds of information relating to forestry millions of readers can be 

 reached through newspapers and magazines for thousands who could 

 be reached at a much greater expense and much less effectively 

 through official publication and distribution of the same matter. The 

 Service therefore definitely seeks to give publicity through these 

 channels to much of the useful information which it discovers. 



The Government's work in promoting the best use of our forests, 

 public and private, is recognizedly a matter of general and deep 

 interest to the people of the country. One result of this interest is an 

 increasing demand for information from representatives of the press 

 concerning investigations under way, administrative work and policy, 

 statistics of forest resources and products, and all kinds of facts re- 

 lated to the need and practice of forestry. This demand can not be 

 ignored, and can not be satisfied without special provision to meet it. 

 The result of making such provision is evident in lessened friction, 

 less interruption of the work of administrative officers of the Service, 

 a better response made to demands for information on matters con- 

 cerning which the public has a right to expect publicity, and an im- 

 portant furthering of one of the ends for which the Service exists 

 in the dissemination of knowledge of practical value concerning for- 

 est protection and use. 



WORK FOK THE ENSUING YEAE. 



I 



Special attention will be given to popularizing technical informa- 

 tion concerning forests, the requirements and life activities of forest 

 trees, and the practice of forestry. Economical methods of utilizing 

 wood and other forest products will also be presented. But above 

 all the relation between the public welfare and the perpetuation of 

 the forests, the loss of which would mean an impairment of the Na- 

 tion's wealth, will be illumined to the fullest possible degree. 



DENDROLOGY. 



A very large part of the work of the Office of Dendrology is tht 

 giving of technical information through correspondence. This 

 mainly concerns the identification of commercial woods for archi- 

 tects, builders, railroad companies, and others, and of seeds and other 

 material from native and foreign trees. In all, 3,576 letters were 

 prepared. 



TURPENTINE INVESTIGATION. 



It was definitely established by the turpentine investigation that 

 shallow chipping with the ordinary hack yields more turpentine, 

 makes it possible to work the trees an average of one and one-third 

 years longer, and detracts less from their value for lumber than the 

 old method. The discovery was made that by beginning chipping one 

 month earlier than has been the custom the flow of resin during the 

 following month is decidedly increased, and also that a cause bi dis- 

 turbance and loss in the process of distillation hitherto unexplained 

 is the mixing of pond-pme resin with longleaf. This produces a 

 boiling over in the stills which makes it necessary to throw away the 

 entire charge. Progress was made toward a determination of the 

 exact kind of turpentine yielded by the different species of southern 



