14 FORESTRY INVESTIGATION'S U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



desired information upon which to be able to direct its action with regard to its own timber lands 

 as well as to the forestry interests in general. 



In proposing to furnish information toward these ends, three questions then occur: 



(1) Who wants the information, and for what purpose? 



(2) What is the nature of the information wanted! 



(3) How is the information to be obtained! 



In the case of inquiiy hy correspondents answer to these questions is at once supplied. It is 

 only when the inauguration of original investigation is contemplated that these considerations 

 are submitted to the discretion and judgment of the investigator. Nevertheless the thousands of 

 letters asking for information, to which the 20,000 pages of letterpress mentioned before corre- 

 spond, naturally indicate the character of the information most wanted, and admit of a classifica- 

 tion both of inquirers and inquiries. 



From the many letters of inquiry on file in the Division of Forestry it will at once appear 

 that there are three classes seeking information: 



(1) The consumers of forest products who need information which will aid them in an econom- 

 ical and advantageous use of the same. 



(2) The producers of forest products, who, if owners of natural wood lands, need information 

 in regard to the best methods of utilizing them most advantageously and securing reproduction, 

 or if forest planters, in regard to the best methods of starting and cultivating a timber crop. 



(3) The general public, the economist, the legislator, the Government, all desire the informa- 

 tion which will allow them to appreciate the true position of forests and forestry in the economic 

 life of the nation, and which is to serve also as a basis for Government action with reference to 

 this subject and the problems connected with it. 



This last class of inquirers was at first the largest, but soon, when it became known that 

 specific and trustworthy information could be obtained, the first class, namely, the consumers of 

 forest products, lumbermen, engineers, architects, builders, railway companies, became the moie 

 frequent, while the third class, the forest producers, remained in the minority, the tree-planting 

 interests alone being prominent. 



This was natural. The incentive to apply the art of forestry to wood lands by private indi- 

 viduals can only (or with rare exceptions) come from a desire to "make it pay." Whether the 

 application of skill can be made to pay, or whether rough exploitation of the natural resource 

 pays better, depends upon economic conditions, over which neither the owner nor the Government, 

 nor its poor agency, the Division of Forestry, has any control. Only one condition could make the 

 application of forestry pay, namely, the entire or partial reduction of virgin supplies. As long as 

 the competition of virgin supplies, on the production of which no skill, no time, no money has been 

 expended, must be feared, it remained questionable whether the application of skill, of time, and 

 money could secure desirable financial results. 



The writer, therefore, at the time when he commenced his labors, soon peiceived that there 

 was not much hope for a change of methods in the cutting of our forest areas, which would, for 

 natural reasons, go on in the same maimer until necessity forced a change. 



On the other hand, it was much more likely that a more rational and economical use of the 

 material, which the logger would continue to cut wastefully, could be brought about among wood 

 consumers, hence instruction as to the properties and working qualities of our woods and their 

 most satisfactory application, a knowledge of which was extremely deficient and the cause of much 

 wastefulness, appeared to offer the most practical field of work, and the best means of securing 

 the husbanding of our forest supplies while preparing for the application of forestry. 



ECONOMY IN THE USE OF FOREST PRODUCTS. 



This position, namely, that economy in the use of wood materials could be more readily secured 

 than change in the methods of exploiting the natural supplies, gains additional support when we 

 realize that the per capita consumption of wood in the United States, about 350 cubic feet annu- 

 ally, is from ten to twenty times larger than that of Germany and Great Britain. The margin, 

 therefore, within which economy could be practiced is enormous. 



The first and foremost effort of the division was therefore directed toward getting into com- 

 munication with the large wood consumers. 



