utilization of wood and other forest products and with reduction of 

 waste; that in forest economics with the production, distribution, and 

 consumption of forest products and with facts and principles on which 

 the policy of forest landowners, public and private, should be based. 



The research program is carried on at 12 regional forest and range 

 experiment stations and at the Forest Products Laboratory at Madison, 

 Wis. Several hundred technical men are engaged in the research pro- 

 gram. Additional temporary assistants are employed in some phases of 

 the work in accordance with demands. The majority of the techni- 

 cal men are forestry-school graduates, but geologists, botanists, chem- 

 ists, engineers, economists, statisticians, and others are also used. 



Many of the technicians employed in research have had advanced 

 training, some have doctors' degrees or their equivalent. The various 

 phases of forest research require as a foundation broad training in 

 natural science with emphasis on forestry, regardless of whether the 

 investigator is to deal with management and protection, forest influ- 

 ences, grazing management, forest products, or forest economics. Ad- 

 vanced work— beyond this foundation training in forestry— may be in 

 any one or more of a large group of biological or other sciences, such 

 as plant physiology, ecology, soils, genetics, taxonomy, and organic 

 chemistry. 



Wherever possible, men are encouraged to spend a limited time in 

 the administrative organization, either as junior foresters or as district 

 rangers, in order' to become familiar with actual forest practice before 

 entering permanently upon research assignments. In employing men as 

 temporary assistants, the Forest Service gives preference to forestry- 

 school students and others who are anxious to specialize later in re- 

 search. 



Figure 5.— A forest -research project— studying the rate of snow melt in the forest, with 

 the help of special equipment. 



13 



