12 MISC. PUBLICATION 249, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
than 100 smaller research centers. More than 1,000 technical men are 
engaged in the research program. Additional temporary assistants are 
employed in some phases of the work in accordance with demands. The 
majority of the technical men are forestry-school graduates, but geologists, 
entomologists, pathologists, botanists, chemists, engineers, economists, 
statisticians, and others are also used. 
Most of the technicians employed in research have had advanced train- 
ing; many 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 technician is to deal 
with forest management and protection, watershed management, range 
management, forest products, or forest economics. Advanced work—be- 
yond 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, 
pathology, entomology, ecology, soils, genetics, taxonomy, mathematics, 
and organic chemistry. 
F—407041 
A forest-research project. The rate of snow melt in the forest is studied with the help of 
special equipment. 
State and Private Forest Cooperation 
About 386 million acres, or nearly four-fifths of our total commercial 
timber-growing area, are now in State or private ownership. Of this, 359 
million acres are privately owned and include 165 million acres in farm 
woodlands. The area under State or county ownership is continuously in- 
creasing through public acquisition for State forest purposes and through 
tax delinquency. 
The future of forestry in the United States depends in no small degree 
upon acceptance and operation of better forestry practices on private lands. 
