For the industrial timber owners and larger indi- 
vidual owners, practical advice and assistance on 
timber estimating, cutting methods, log grading, tim- 
ber values, and market opportunities can usually be 
obtained from company or private consulting foresters. 
For the farmer and for the small nonfarm owner ad- 
vice and assistance will need to come largely from 
publicly employed foresters. While both the Federal 
and State Forest Services now provide some assistance 
to farmers (as well as limited amounts to larger own- 
ers), there is great need for immediate expansion of 
effort if any but a small fraction of Virginia’s timber 
owners are to be reached. A forester in each heavily 
timbered county and one in each small group of less 
heavily forested counties is highly desirable. Virginia 
has recently expanded its efforts in this field in coop- 
eration with the Federal Norris-Doxey Act program, 
but these efforts are still far from the requirements just 
described, even though the Virginia Forest Service is 
moving toward this goal as rapidly as available funds 
permit. 
Forest-products cooperative marketing associations 
offer perhaps another opportunity for improved forest 
practices. While forest-products cooperatives are 
relatively untried and while they have many pitfalls, 
a well-managed and honestly run association, with 
requirements for forest management by its members, 
offers protection to both buyer and seller against in- 
equitable prices, gives the buyer prior knowledge of 
quantity and quality of timber available, permits pur- 
chase from one source, and provides the seller with 
a definite market at established prices. 
Funds for protection against fire, insects, and dis- 
ease have not been adequate. They should be mate- 
rially increased. 
For the most part, private enterprise should own 
and operate the forest land now in its hands, where 
such land can be managed so as to be kept reasonably 
productive. But where private owners are unable or 
unwilling to maintain productivity, there is need for 
public ownership. Such public ownership should be 
distributed through all levels of government—Federal, 
State, county, and municipal. 
Greatly expanded research is needed in the fields 
of silviculture, management, utilization and products, 
and economics to make available sound information 
on forest use and development to all timber owners 
and forest administrators. Equally necessary, of 
course, is research on phases of forestry not covered 
in this report—watershed management, wildlife man- 
agement, recreation development, and others. Inten- 
sive research along the broad lines suggested will pro- 
vide the basic information requisite to a great im- 
provement in timber management and utilization. 
Responsibility for publicly financed research in Vir- 
ginia rests mainly with the Virginia Forest Service, the 
Agricultural Experiment Station of Virginia Poly- 
technic Institute, and the Southeastern Forest Experi- 
ment Station of the Forest Service, United States De- 
partment of Agriculture. Forest research is also car- 
ried on to a limited extent by some of the larger cor- 
porations and by conservation and trade associations. 
Forest research takes time, however, and known 
measures to increase the utility of the forest should not 
be delayed. With existing knowledge there are many 
opportunities to improve forest practices, growing 
stock, protection, and timber utilization. These op- 
portunities can be realized through the active coop- 
eration of all timber owners and timber operators, both 
individual and corporate, and public agencies at all 
levels of government. By such cooperation, Virginia’s 
forest resource can continue to provide not only the 
raw materials which make her forest industry possible, 
but jobs for thousands of additional workers, profits 
for the owners of both the stumpage and the process- 
ing plants, and products for all the people of Virginia. 
ie Miscellaneous Publication 681, U. S. Department of Agriculture 
