334 



Sierra Club Bulletin-. 



FORESTRY NOTES. 



Edited by Professor William R. Dudley. 



Need of 



Trained Foresters, 



Increase in the area of the National For- 

 ests — formerly known as Forest Reserves — 

 has taken tremendous strides in the two 



years now past. Indeed the amount has practically doubled, and 

 would cover, if made continuous, an extent of territory equal to 

 the six New England States, the four old Middle States, Mary- 

 land, the Virginias, and North Carolina, or about 200,000,000 

 acres. January i, 1907, the area was over 127,000,000 acres, and 

 Chief Forester Pinchot, in an address showing the advance in 

 the organization and utility of the National Forests since they 

 were placed under the control of the Forest Service, made the 

 following remarks : — 



" We have now, as you know, 127,000,000 acres in forest re- 

 serves. All this is but a drop in the bucket compared with the 

 total forest area of the United States, and but a small part of 

 the forest which must be preserved if the results of forest preser- 

 vation are to be achieved. We are doing pretty well with the 

 Western mountains, but those Western mountains will not supply 

 the National need. That must be done by the States and by 

 private individuals, who will hold and manage their forests on 

 scientific principles. Even in this comparatively small forest area, 

 which the National Government holds, our forces are ridicu- 

 lously inadequate. We have now, in the middle of winter, about 

 six hundred forest rangers and about ninety forest supervisors ; 

 that is to say, a force of about seven hundred men for an area 

 which, if it were managed as it would be managed in Prussia, — 

 taking Prussia as an illustration, — and we were to have as many 

 men on our forest reseryes as they would have in Prussia, we 

 would have something over 15,000 forest supervisors and some- 

 thing over 117,000 forest guards. We have about two hundred 

 trained foresters to do the work which would be done in Prussia 

 by 15,000. If we were to add a hundred men a year to our 

 present force, and each man appointed lived and worked to the 

 end, it would take about a hundred and fifty years to get our 

 reserves manned in the Prussian way. We realize that unless 

 the forest schools can begin to turn out the trained foresters we 

 need, we shall be unable to meet the rapidly increasing demands 

 for men in the forest reserves to handle them properly. The 

 only reason we can do it now is because the demand for products 

 of the reserves is comparatively small." 



Naturally the need of recruits for the forest service is very 

 much greater now than it was eighteen months ago. A man 

 cannot serve his country better than by faithful work in this field. 



