2 BULLETIN" 14 9 9, U. s. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE 
profitable methods of growing timber, particularly under the wide 
range of forest types and economic conditions in the United States, 
can be evolved only from our own experience and investigation. 
Hence, to meet the demand for information on practical ways and 
means of growing timber in the various parts of the United States, 
it is important that the results of our own experience and investiga- 
tions to date be brought together and set forth in the clearest pos- 
sible way. 
This the Forest Service has attempted to do in a series of publi- 
cations dealing with the 12 principal forest regions of the United 
States. The information presented has been gathered from many 
different sources. An effort has been made to bring together all 
that any agency has yet learned or demonstrated about the growing 
of timber, and the results have been verified as far as possible by 
consultation with the forest industries, State foresters, and forest 
schools. These publications thus undertake to set forth, in a simple 
form, what are believed to be the soundest methods of reforestation 
as yet developed in our common experience and study in the United 
States. 
The Forest Service claims no finality for the measures proposed. 
In every countiy forestry has come about through a gradual evolu- 
tion. Much is still to be learned about growing timber under Ameri- 
can conditions. As time goes on, research and practical experience 
will add greatly to the success and certainty of the measures carried 
out in our woods, just as American agriculture and manufacturing 
processes have been perfected through experience and study. But we 
know enough about growing timber to go right ahead. Believing 
that the forest owners of the United States are ready to engage in 
timber growing on a large scale, the Forest Service has endeavored 
to place before them in concise terms the best suggestions and guides 
which the experience of this country to date affords. 
In these publications the measures proposed for a particular 
forest region have been arranged in two general groups. The first 
includes the first steps in forestry, or the minimum requirements 
of local physical conditions, to prevent timberland from becoming 
barren. These measures, in which the prevention of fire is of out- 
standing importance, represent, broadly speaking, the least that 
must be done to keep forest lands productive. As Mr. Thompson 
jDoints out, even these very simple things will bring back good 
stands of timber on many of the forest lands in the lodgepole pine 
region. By and large, however, they will seldom satisfy the land- 
owner who wishes to make the most out of his property in timber 
culture. They represent rather the dividing line between keeping 
land in forest of some sort and allowing it to revert to a barren, 
treeless condition. 
The second group of proposed measures constitutes what may be 
called desirable forest practice in the lodgepole pine region. These 
are designed to grow reasonably complete crops of the more valuable 
timber trees and to make full use of the productive capacity of the 
land. It is impossible to frame any set of measures that are adapted 
to the needs of all individual holdings or industrial enterprises. 
Hence, Mr. Thompson has attempted only to outline the more funda- 
mental things, with illustrative methods of forest practice. The 
