THE LIFE OF A FORESTER 81 
rience as useless or dangerous as in forestry. Most 
schools require a large amount of laboratory and field 
work and many institutions are now insisting that 
at least one suinmer vacation shall be given over to 
three months of practical work in a field camp under 
the supervision of instructors. Here additional ex- 
perience in surveying, the running of old boundary 
lines, timber cruising and map-making on a large 
scale are obtained. It goes without saying that the 
better the practical training the more valuable will 
the student be to his employer. After five or six 
years of thorough training in college the young forester 
is ready to try his wings, but he should consider him- 
self no more than an apprentice, familiar with his tools 
but by no means an expert. Several years of experience 
with gradually increasing responsibility are necessary 
before he can really consider himself a forester. 
Several lines of work are open to the forestry grad- 
uate at the present time. In the past the National 
Forest Service has been the chief employer of technical 
foresters but at present this demand is decreasing and 
other openings are appearing with lumber companies, 
railroads, estate owners, State forest departments, etc. 
Whichever line of work is chosen, the possibilities ahead 
should be carefully investigated and a man with real 
talent for a certain line of work should specialize along 
that line, for the day of the specialist in forestry has 
arrived. 
Men fond of research can specialize in problems deal- 
ing with the life habits of trees, forest entomology, 
the study of insects attacking the forest, or the chem- 
istry of forest products, etc. Men interested in the 
commercial end may take up paper-making or fit them- 
selves to be expert lumber salesmen, while those fond 
