THE PROFESSION OF FORESTRY. 



Office, to which is intrusted the police 

 and patrol of the National forest reserves, 

 has this year an appropriation of $300,000 

 for the care and protection of about forty- 

 seven million acres of forest reserves. At 

 present there are no trained foresters 

 among its officials, but in viewr of the vital 

 importance of foi'est preservation, espe- 

 cially in the West, and of the great and 

 growing public interest in its extension, 

 this system of appointment cannot be ex- 

 pected to last. 



The Bureau of Forestry, which is 

 charged with the general progress of 

 forestry and the interests of private for- 

 est lands, in the subdivision of the Gov- 

 ernment's forest work, is at this moment 

 unable to find enough suitably trained 

 men to supply its needs. It would be 

 easily possible, it is true, to secure Gei-- 

 mans or other foreigners, but a consider- 

 able experience has convinced me that, 

 except in rare cases, such as that of the 

 present forester to the Biltmore Estate, 

 the attempt to use foreign-born men 

 trained abroad is not likely to succeed. 



COMPENSATION. 



The second question asked by the 

 prospective forester very often relates to 

 the rate of pay. I cannot answer this 

 question any more accurately than by 

 saying that trained foresters now receive 

 about the same rate of pay as instructors 

 and professors at Yale. Those in the 

 employ of the Bureau of Forestry receive 

 from $720 to $2,500 a year. Scientific 

 work under the Government is always 

 underpaid, and it is most probable that 

 those foresters who enter the service of 

 lumber companies or other commercial or- 

 ganizations will fare better. It is even 

 possible that a few men may develop such 

 skill that they will be called in consulta- 

 tion over specially difficult problems. 

 Such work will naturally pay well. 



As with teaching, so with forestry ; by 

 no means all the compensation comes in 

 the form of dollars. While the life of the 

 forester in the field is often rough, many 

 times exceedingly hard, and always with- 

 out most of the comforts of life, it is to 

 those of us who have been following it 



the most delightful of occupations. Briefly 

 stated, it deals, on the scientific side, 

 with the life-history of forests and forest 

 trees, with their behavior in health and 

 disease, their reaction under treatment, 

 and their adaptation to and effect upon 

 their surroundings. On the economic 

 side, it has chiefly to do with reconciling 

 the perpetuation of the forest with the' 

 production of timber. Measurements of 

 the stand of timber per acre, and of the rate 

 of growth of single trees and whole for- 

 ests by counting rings, and subsequent 

 calculations, often form a consideraable 

 part of a forester's work. There is often 

 a great deal of office work. It is by no 

 means the easy existence it has often been 

 supposed to be by the many men who 

 have taken up forestry, and then have 

 dropped it. But it has a charm which 

 lies perhaps first of all in the fact that in 

 the United States it is almost an untried 

 field. 



ORIGINAL WORK DEMANDED. 



Unless forestry as a profession has 

 qualities to recommend it other than those 

 I have already mentioned, it would 

 scarcely be worthy of consideration be- 

 fore many other lines of work. It has, 

 however, two peculiarities in which it 

 stands somewhat by itself. In the first 

 place, because the field is practically 

 untouched, a forester finds himself com- 

 pelled to do original work at every turn. 

 The pleasure of investigation of this kind 

 is very real, and to those of us who are 

 practicing forestry it is one of its two great 

 attractions. The second lies in the fact 

 that because forestry is almost unknown 

 in the United States, in no profession is it 

 easier for a man to make his life count. 

 I need not dwell further on the vastness 

 of the interests it touches nor the great 

 utility of forestry to the nation, but I 

 should like to emphasize this statement — 

 in few other professions can a man lead 

 so useful a life. 



WHAT THE PROFESSION DEMANDS. 



These are the things which forestry 

 offers. Now as to what it demands. In 

 the first place success in forestry, as in any 

 other profession, must come largely from 



