FIFTH NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS 43 



Every forester, every lumberman, and every person interested in the promotion 

 of forestry should study publicity means and methods by which the public can be 

 acquainted with what we are trying to bring about. 



Mr. E. M. Griffith, of Wisconsin : One valuable thing that can be done will 

 be to get the press associations to visit your forest reservation, or wherever you 

 are working in the State and let all the editors see the work that is being done. 

 In other words, educate the editors on the ground and they, in turn, will take 

 your material and put it in proper form. 



Mr. W. R. Brown, of New Hampshire: One thoifght has occurred to me 

 which has not been taken up, and it is that co-operation is a good benefit to pub- 

 licity, but before you can get universal publicity you all want to think alike. I 

 am extremely glad to see so many people here who are talking this matter over 

 so that we can decide on very many things that come tip in forestry, that we will 

 think alike about those things, that we will formulate a plan, and that by talking 

 this plan over together through the country at large, we will reach a greater 

 number of people. 



Dr. J. T. Rothrock, of Pennsylvania: In regard to lobbying, our experience 

 in Pennsylvania a few years ago was that the best thing to do was to go ahead 

 of the lobby, and when we had any particular plan in mind, it was always talked 

 over in the Forestry Commission a year or two before we talked it over in the 

 Legislature. Before it got out every county paper in the State of any influence 

 was induced, by some means or other, to have a nice little editorial in favor of that 

 particular project. Then, when the measure came up before the legislature, we 

 would go to the particular lobby of any county and say we want your support 

 for this bill. They would say they would be glad indeed to support it if they 

 were sure they had' the influence of their constituents back of them, and we could 

 say your constituents have already supported it, here is an extract from a paper, 

 and we would bring out a paper with -an editorial in favor of that movement. 

 That was a little simple device, but I can tell you it has accomplished great results. 



Dr. Hugh P. Baker, of New York : I like Mr. Allen's idea of getting at the 

 people. We have been going out to the high schools throughout the State in 

 illustrated talks, and we find that the children are much interested in pictures and 

 will go home and talk and the parents will listen to the children when they might 

 not listen to someone else about forestry. We are also trying to go a little bit 

 further than simply interesting children in pictures and talk ; that can be overdone, 

 it gets old after a time. There is a great deal of indifference on the part of the 

 older people, they have their interests and even though good work is being done 

 here and there, ninety per cent of them will not know about it. Therefore, we 

 have gone this step further with the children ; we have gotten some schools inter- 

 ested in planting a bit of waste land in the vicinity of the school. We believe if we 

 can get the boys in the high school to go out and plant a few trees in the vicinity of 

 the school on waste land, they will go out and watch those trees grow and in that 

 wav we think we have made quite a step towards the solution of the various 

 problems. 



We are also getting out some little cards. While we are not original in this 

 matter, we are trying to present it in an original way, answering some of the 

 common questions about forestry. These cards are going out to the high schools 

 and to the grangers and the farmers are greatly interested in them. We have 

 also found there is a large amount of timber in the wood lots in the State and the 

 grangers are ready to take what we have. Last year we talked in something like 

 170 communities in the State and we found universal interest, and this year we 

 have applications from about 800 communities in the State to give them talks. 

 People are interested, and it is a constant surprise to me to find the way they take 

 the gospel of forestry. 



