[Jan. 26, 1907. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
JJEST OF LAUGHING GULL. 
What the Forest Service Stands For. 
Address by Gifford P'nchot, Forester U. S. Dept, of Agri¬ 
culture, before the American Forestry Association. 
The Forest Service stands for business fores¬ 
try. In addition to that statement I have only 
a' few words to say to you about what the 
Forest Service stands for, because I think you 
know. If I may, I will say just a word about 
what the business situation is in the Forest 
Service, because I have been talking that matter 
over with the House Committee recently, and 
it is very fresh in my mind. 
Just before the transfer of the forest reserves 
from the Department of the Interior to the 
Department of Agriculture was made, I was 
rash-enough on behalf of the Forest Service 
to engage with the House Committee that if 
they would give us the right to charge for 
grazing, the Forest Service would never ask 
for an appropriation of more than a million dol¬ 
lars in one year, and that within five years 
from the transfer it would cease to ask for 
anything. In other words, that in five years 
the Forest Service would be self-sustaining. 
It is now nearly two years since the transfer 
of the reserves to the Department of Agricul¬ 
ture was made, and the prospect for fulfilling 
that promise is good. During the year of the 
transfer, in which we had charge of the reserves 
for five months only, the income was $75,000, 
there being then no grazing fee. The next 
year the receipts were $767,000, or during the 
past calendar year something over a million, 
and during the present fiscal year we shall take 
in about a million and a quarter. The prospects 
are good for an increase in the income of about 
a half million a year for the next few years. 
In other words, we expect a reduction of a 
hundred thousand dollars in the next year's ap¬ 
propriation; that will give us $900,000. Year 
after next we expect to get only $700,000, the 
next $400,000. and then nothing. So that the 
business of the Forest Service looks as if it 
might fairly be expected to come out all right. 
But that is a good deal like learning to write 
in the process of getting an education. If the 
Forest Service stands merely for business suc¬ 
cess. only a very small part of its functions can 
possibly be filled. We must, however, lay a 
foundation of business success upon which to 
build our superstructure of technical success 
in the application of forestry. 
The first few months—indeed the first two 
years—since the forest reserves were brought 
under the care of the Forest Service have nec¬ 
essarily been given to completing the‘business 
organization. Now we are going to take up 
with more and more emphasis the details of 
technical matters. The business of the Forest 
Service is to practice forestry; it cannot prac¬ 
tice forestry successfully unless it can make 
that practice pay. We know now that prac¬ 
tical forestry can be made to pay, and the next 
point for us to prove is that we can practice 
as good forestry in the administration of the 
National forests as could be practiced by any 
other organization in our place. The point 
which we are going to be judged by in the end 
isn’t the business success, but the professional 
success, and that is getting to_ be the chief ob¬ 
ject of the Forest Service; just as the boy, 
having learned to read, goes ahead and uses 
that knowlegde -to get his technical education 
and prepare himself for the real work of life. 
The whole prospect, I may say to you, for the 
Forest Service seems to be excellent. I have' 
been unable to see, and I have looked care¬ 
fully, that we have any serious dangers ahead 
for the next two or three years except the pos¬ 
sible failure in getting the things we need in 
addition to the things we have now. The rou¬ 
tine success, of the management of the National 
forest reserves is fairly secured, but there are 
many objects toward which we are reaching, 
some of which we may fail to reach. 
I am just going out this week to discuss 
with the livestock men of the west the question 
of National control of the open ranges. Thefe 
is a strong movement among them to put the 
control of three or four hundred million acres 
of public grazing land in the Forest Service, 
to administer it just as we are administering 
the ranges in the forest reserves. It is a move¬ 
ment in whose ultimate outcome I have the 
utmost confidence. 
But just now the main issues are the proper 
handling of the National forest reserves and 
the proper spread of interest in forestry in the 
United States; and I think without question 
that assiduous, earnest, and fairly intelligent 
handling will assure good results. 
There is another matter that I wish to speak 
of. suggested by what Secretary Wilson said 
this morning about action of the States. With 
the progress of sentiment in favor of forest 
preservation there have arisen State and Na¬ 
tional organizations to deal with these prob¬ 
lems. And growing out of these there have 
been created forest commissions, State forest¬ 
ers, etc., men, and bodies of men, who are tak¬ 
ing up these problems in the States. The ques¬ 
tion of the policy of the Forest Service toward 
State forestry is very important, and it is our 
decided policy to leave to every State every¬ 
thing in forest work that each State does not 
need to have us do for it. Within a couple 
of days I wrote to the State Land Board of 
California, asking that whatever appropriation 
it proposed to get for the expenses of Forest 
Service work in California be given, not to us, 
but to the State Forester; and in similar cases 
it is the pojicy of the Forest Service to help 
State organizations just so far as they want 
our help, but never to penetrate their field 
except by- their invitation—never to stay in it 
any longer than is necessary; but that work 
which ought to be done by the States should 
be left by the National Government to them. 
Of course, this does not mean that the National 
forests should be managed by the States. 
Another matter in which the Forest Service 
is interested is the support of education in 
forestry. It is striving to give help just so far 
as it can to the institutions scattered through¬ 
out the country—which are taking up instruc¬ 
tion in forestry, from either of two points of 
view. I wish to make this distinction here: 
there are preparatory schools, so to speak, in 
forestry, which do not prepare students in pro¬ 
fessional work, and there are professional 
schools whose business it is to turn out men 
ready to work in the first field. The great 
danger which threatens forest education now 
is thai institutions which are well equipped 
to give the preliminary education should at¬ 
tempt to turn men out as professional foresters, 
when they are not really able to do so. The 
Forest Service is exceedingly anxious for a 
supply of men, and it is still more anxious that 
the men who come in should be thoroughly 
trained. Accordingly it is very solicitous that 
the schools which profess to give complete and 
professional.training, should really be equipped 
for that purpose. And I must tell you in 
closing of the tremendous' need that we have 
for men. 
We have now, as you know, 127,000,000 acres 
in forest reserves. All of 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 re¬ 
sults of forest preservation 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 Govern¬ 
ment holds, our forests are ridiculously inade¬ 
quate. We have now, in the middle of winter, 
about 600 forest rangers and about 90 forest su¬ 
pervisors; that it to say, a force of about 700 
men for an area which, if it were managed as 
it would be managed in Prussia—taking Prus¬ 
sia as an illustration—and we were to have as 
many men on our forest reserves as they would 
have in Prussia, we # would have something over 
15.000 forest supervisors and something over 
117.000 forest guards. We have about 200 
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 aonointed lived and worked to 
the end, it would take about a hundred and 
fifty years to get our reserves manned in the 
Prussian way. One of the very first demands 
of the present situation is f.or men. 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 de¬ 
mands 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. As the 
population increases, as people understand 
how to use the National forests more freely, 
and as roads and trails are built, the forests 
will be used then, twenty, or a hundred times 
more than they are now; and when that time 
comes, unless we can have enough trained men 
ready for professional work on the reserves, 
we shall have an exceedingly hard job. Just 
one ray of light, in addition to the very hopeful 
