8 
Ever since assuming charge of the Division the writer has contended 
that the primary requisite for Government activity on behalf of for- 
estry was a tolerably accurate knowledge of the forest conditions and 
forestry interests of the country; but he was met with the objection 
that it would be improper policy to do for one State what every other 
State might with equal right demand to have done for it, and at the 
same time the means placed at his disposal were never sufficient to 
permit him to acquire this information with any satisfactory degree of 
accuracy for the whole country at once. 
Later, when appropriations became more liberal, other lines of work 
had been developed to which the funds were to be applied, and this 
most necessary line of investigations had to be deferred, with the hope 
that the census authorities would see fit to supply the information. In 
this, however, we were again disappointed in the Eleventh Census. The 
Division hopes now, by similar cooperation with State authorities, to 
gradually acquire information, unless Congress should see fit to appro- 
priate the $250,000 which it would require in connection with the next 
census to ascertain at once in a conclusive manner the condition of our 
forest resources, and settle the much discussed question as to the need 
of attention to its more rational use and recuperation. 
While it would be desirable to have even fuller information than is 
contained in the following report, we should possess at least as much 
knowledge of every State in order to render possible an intelligent 
consideration of the needs of Federal and State government forest 
policies and legislation. 
OBJECTS OF FOREST SURVEYS. 
In considering the information which such a report should contain it 
is well to be clear as to the objects for which such surveys are made 
and what relation the several parts of the information bear to these 
objects. Briefly, such a survey is to give by statistics and description 
a picture of the condition of the forest resources. Like all statistics 
and descriptive surveys of resources from the economic standpoint, 
forest surveys and statistics furnish the indispensable basis, not only for 
a rational consideration of present conditions, but of the prospective 
progress in the development of the resource and for the legislation 
concerning the same. The information, if correct and conclusive, will 
serve to guide, not only the policy of timber-land owners, lumbermen, 
woodwork manufacturers, etc., but also of the legislators, in deciding 
how far communal interests require legislative attention and what 
form such legislation should take. 
The communal interest consists in seeing, in the first place, the entire 
land area devoted to productive use, and finally to the several uses to 
which each part is best adapted, for only in this way can the highest 
tax-paving power and the greatest material prosperity of the State be 
developed. Agricultural lands should be devoted to agricultural use, 
