represent, while it is making immense strides in public acceptance, is
still far from general application. Therefore, Foresters are still
missionaries in a very real sense, and since they are so few, it is of
the utmost importance that they should stand closely together.
Differences of opinion there must always be in all professions, but
there is no other profession in which it is more important to keep these
differences from working out into animosities or separations of any
kind. We are fortunate above all in this, that American Foresters are
united as probably the members of no other profession. This _esprit de
corps_ has given them their greatest power of achievement, and any man
who proposes to enter the profession should do so with this fact clearly
in mind.
The high standard which the profession of forestry, new in the United
States, has already reached, its great power for usefulness to the
Nation, now and hereafter, and the large responsibilities which fall so
quickly on the men who are trained to accept it--all these things give
to the profession a position and dignity which it should be the first
care of every man who enters it to maintain or increase.
To stand well at graduation is or ought to be far less the object of a
Forester's training than to stand well ten or twenty years after
graduation. It is of the first importance that the training should be
thorough and complete.
A friend of mine, John Muir, says that the best advice he can give young
men is: "Take time to get rich." His idea of getting rich is to fill
his mind and spirit full with observations of the nature he so deeply
loves and so well understands; so that in his mind it is not money which
makes riches, but life in the open and the seeing eye.
Next to those basic traits of personal character, without which no man
is worth his salt, the Forester's most important quality is the power of
observation, the power to note and understand, or seek to understand,
what he sees in the forest. It is just as essential a part of the
Forester's equipment to be able to see what is wrong with a piece of
forest, and what is required for its improvement, as it is necessary for
a physician to be able to diagnose a disease and to prescribe the
remedy.
Silvics, which may be said to be the knowledge of how trees behave in
health and disease toward each other, and toward light, heat, moisture,
and the soil, is the foundation of forestry and the Forester's first
task is to bring himself to a high point of efficiency in observing and
interpreting these facts of the forest, and to keep himself there. It
should be as hard work to walk through the forest, and see what is there
to be seen, as to wrestle with the most difficult problem of
mathematics. No man can be a good Forester without that quality of
observation and understanding which the French call "the forester's
eye." It is not the only quality required for success in forestry, but
it is unquestionably the first.
Perhaps the second among the qualities necessary for the Forester is
common sense, which most often simply means a sympathetic understanding
of the circumstances among which a man finds himself. The American
Forester must know the United States and understand its people. Nothing
which affects the welfare of his country should be indifferent to him.
Forestry is a form of practical statesmanship which touches the national
life at so many points that no Forester can safely allow himself to
remain ignorant of the needs and purposes of his fellow citizens, or to
be out of touch with the current questions of the day. The best citizen
makes the best Forester, and no man can make a good Forester unless he
is a good citizen also.
The Forester can not succeed unless he understands the problems and
point of view of his country, and that is the reason why Foresters from
other lands were not brought into the United States in the early stages
of the forest movement. At that time practically no American Foresters
had yet been trained, and the great need of the situation was for men to
do the immediately pressing work. Foresters from Germany, France,
Switzerland, and other countries could have been obtained in abundant
numbers and at reasonable salaries. They were not invited to come
because, however well trained in technical forestry, they could not have
understood the habits of thought of our people. Therefore, in too many
cases, they would have failed to establish the kind of practical
understanding which a Forester must have with the men who use, or work
in, his forest, if he is to succeed. It was wiser to wait until
Americans could be trained, for the practising Forester must handle men
as well as trees.
One of the most difficult things to do in any profession which involves
drudgery (and I take it that no profession which does not involve
drudgery is worth the attention of a man) is to look beyond the daily
routine to the things which that routine is intended to assist in
accomplishing. This is peculiarly true of forestry, in which, perhaps
more than in any other profession, the long-distance, far-sighted
attitude of mind is essential to success. The trees a Forester plants he
himself will seldom live to harvest. Much of his thought about his
forest must be in terms of centuries. The great object for which he is
striving of necessity can not be fully accomplished during his lifetime.
He must, therefore, accustom himself to look ahead, and to reap his
personal satisfaction from the planned and orderly development of a
scheme the perfect fruit of which he can never hope to see.
This is one of the strongest reasons why the Forester, whether in public
or private employment, must always look upon himself as a public
servant. It is of the first importance that he should accustom himself
to think of the results of his work as affecting, not primarily himself,
but others, always including the general public. It is essential for a
Forester to form the habit of looking far ahead, out of which grows a
sound perspective and persistence in body and mind.
One of the greatest football players of our time makes the distinction
between a player who is "quick" and a player who is "soon." In his
description, the "quick" player is the man who waits until the last
moment and then moves with nervous and desperate haste in the little
time he has left. The man who is "soon," however, almost invariably
arrives ahead of the man who is "quick," because he has thought out in
advance exactly where he is going and how to get there, and when the
moment comes he does not delay his start, makes no false motions, and
thereby makes and keeps himself efficient. Forestry is preeminently a
profession for the "soon" man, for it is the steady preparation long in
advance, the well-thoughtout plan well stuck to, which in forestry
brings success.
In my experience, men differ comparatively little in mere ability, in
the quality of the mental machine, through which the spirit works. Nine
times out of ten, it is not ability which brings success, but
persistence and enthusiasm, which are usually, but not always, the same
as vision and will. We all have ability enough to do the things which
lie before us, but the man with the will to keep everlastingly at it,
and the vision to realize the meaning and value of the results for which
he is striving, is the man who wins in nearly every case. This is true
in all human affairs, but it is peculiarly true of the Forester and his
task, the end of which lies so far ahead.
In a class below me at Phillips-Exeter Academy was a boy who had just
entered the school. His great ambition was to play football, and he
came to the practise day after day. His abilities, however, were
apparently not on the same plane with his ambitions, and his work was so
ridiculously poor that he became the laughing stock of the whole school.
That, however, troubled him not at all. What held his mind was football.
Undiscouraged and undismayed, he kept on playing football until in his
last year he became captain of the Exeter football team.
Every man of experience has known many similar cases. It is clear, I
think, that the master qualities in achievement are neither luck nor
mere ability, but rather enthusiasm and persistence, or vision and will.
In a peculiar sense the Forester depends upon public opinion and public
support for the means of carrying on his work, and for its final
success. But the attention which the public gives or can give to any
particular subject varies, and of necessity must vary, from time to
time. Under these circumstances, it is inevitable that the Forester must
meet discouragements, checks, and delays, as well as periods of smooth
sailing. He should expect them, and should be prepared to discount them
when they come. When they do come, I know of no better way of reducing
their bad effects than for a man to make allowance for his own state of
mind. He who can stand off and look at himself impartially, realizing
that he will not feel to-morrow as he feels to-day, has a powerful
weapon against the temporary discouragements which are necessarily met
in any work that is really worth while. Progress is always in spirals,
and there is always a good time coming. There is nothing so fatal to
good work as that flabby spirit under which some weak men try to hide
their inefficiency--the spirit of "What's the use?"
It has been the experience of every Forester, as he goes about the
country, to be told that a certain mountain is impassable, that a
certain trail can not be travelled, that a certain stream can not be
crossed, and to find that mountain, trail, and stream can all be passed
with little serious difficulty by a man who is willing to try. Most
things said to be impossible are so only in the mind of the man whose
timidity or inertness keeps him from making the attempt. The whole story
of the establishment and growth of the United States Forest Service is a
story of the doing of things which the men who did them were warned in
advance would be impossible. Usually the thing which "can't be done" is
well worth trying.
Perhaps I ought to add that I am not urging the young Forester to
disregard local public opinion without the best of reasons, or to rush
his horse blindly into the ford of a swollen stream. Good sense is the
first condition of success. I am merely saying that in ninety-nine cases
out of a hundred, when a thing ought to be done it can be done, if the
effort is made with that idea in mind.
All this is but one way of saying that the Forester should be his own
severest taskmaster. The Forester must keep himself up to his own work.
In no other profession, to my knowledge, is a man thrown so completely
on his own responsibility. The Forester often leads an isolated life for
weeks or months at a time, seeing the men under whom he works only at
distant intervals. Because he is so much his own master, the
responsibility which rests upon him is peculiarly his own, and must be
met out of the resources within himself.
The training of a Forester should lead him to be practical in the right
sense of that word, which emphatically is not the sense of abandoning
standards of work or conduct in order to get immediate results. The
"practical" men with whom the Forester must do his work--lumbermen,
cattlemen, sheepmen, settlers, forest users of all kinds--are often by
very much his superiors in usable knowledge of the details of their
work. Their opinions are entitled to the most complete hearing and
respect. There is no other class of men from whose advice the Forester
can so greatly profit if he chooses to do so. He is superior to them, if
at all, only in his technical knowledge, and in the broader point of
view he has derived from his professional training. It is of the first
importance that the young Forester should know these men, should learn
to like and respect them, and that he should get all the help he can
from their knowledge and practical experience. The willingness to use
the information and assistance which such men were ready to give has
more than once meant the difference between failure and success.
The young Forester, like other young men, is likely to be impatient. I
do not blame him for it. Rightly directed, his impatience may become one
of his best assets. But it will do no harm to remember, also, that the
human race has reached its present degree of civilization and
advancement only step by step, and that it seems likely to proceed in
very much the same way hereafter. As a general rule, results slowly and
painfully accomplished are lasting. The results to be achieved in
forestry must be lasting if they are to be valuable.
In general, the men with whom the Forester deals can adopt, and in many
cases, ought to adopt, a new point of view but slowly. To fall in love
at first sight with theories or policies is as rare as the same
experience is between persons. As a rule, an intellectual conviction,
however well founded, must be followed by a period of incubation and
growth before it can blossom into a definite principle of action, before
the man who holds it is ready to work or fight in order to carry it out.
There is a rate in the adoption of new ideas beyond which only the most
unusual circumstances will induce men's minds to move. Forestry has gone
ahead in the United States faster than it ever did in any other land. If
it proceeds a little less rapidly, now that so much of the field has
been won, there will be no reason for discouragement in that.
AS A SUBORDINATE OFFICER
Necessarily the young Forester will begin as a subordinate. How soon he
will come to give orders of his own will depend on how well he executes
the orders of his superior. In particular, it will depend on whether he
requires to be coddled in doing his work, or whether he is willing and
able to stand on his own feet. The man for whom every employer of men is
searching, everywhere and always, is the man who will accept the
responsibility for the work he has to do--who will not lean at every
point upon his superior for additional instructions, advice, or
encouragement.
There is no more valuable subordinate than the man to whom you can give
a piece of work and then forget about it, in the confident expectation
that the next time it is brought to your attention it will come in the
form of a report that the thing has been done. When this master quality
is joined to executive power, loyalty, and common sense, the result is a
man whom you can trust. On the other hand, there is no greater nuisance
to a man heavily burdened with the direction of affairs than the
weak-backed assistant who is continually trying to get his chief to do
his work for him, on the feeble plea that he thought the chief would
like to decide this or that himself. The man to whom an executive is
most grateful, the man whom he will work hardest and value most, is the
man who accepts responsibility willingly, and is not continually under
his feet.
AS A SUPERIOR OFFICER
The principles of effective administrative work have never, so far as I
know, been adequately classified and defined. When they come to be
stated one of the most important will be found to be the exact
assignment of responsibility, so that whatever goes wrong the
administrative head will know clearly and at once upon whom the
responsibility falls. This is one of the reasons why, as a rule, boards
and commissions are far less effective in getting things done than
single men with clear-cut authority and equally clear-cut
responsibility. Another principle, so well known that it has almost
become a proverb, is to delegate everything you can, to do nothing that
you can get someone else to do for you. But the wisdom of letting a good
man alone is less commonly understood. It is sometimes as important for
the superior officer not to worry his subordinate with useless orders as
it is for the subordinate not to harass his superior with useless
questions.
Let a good man alone. Give him his head. Nothing will hold him so
rigidly to his work as the feeling that he is trusted. Lead your men in
their work, and above all make of your organization not a monarchy,
limited or unlimited, but a democracy, in which the responsibility of
each man for a particular piece of work shall not only be defined but
recognized, in which the credit for each man's work, so far as possible,
shall be attached to his own name, in which the opinions and advice of
your subordinates are often sought before decisions are made; in a word,
a democracy in which each man feels a personal responsibility for the
success of the whole enterprise.
The young Forester may be years removed from the chance to apply these
principles in practice, but since no superior officer can put them into
fruitful effect without the cooperation of his subordinates, it is well
that they should be known at both ends of the line.
A PUBLIC SERVANT
I repeat that whether a Forester is engaged in private work or in public
work, whether he is employed by a lumberman, an association of
lumbermen, a fishing and shooting club, the owner of a great estate, or
whether he is an officer of a State or of the Nation, by virtue of his
profession he is a public servant. Because he deals with the forest, he
has his hand upon the future welfare of his country. His point of view
is that which must control its future welfare. He represents the planned
and orderly development of its resources. He is the representative also
of the forest school from which he graduates, and of his profession.
Upon the standards which he helps to establish and maintain, the welfare
of these, too, directly depends.
STATE FOREST WORK
The work of the States in forestry is still in the pioneer stage, and
the work of a State Forester must still bear largely on the creation of
a right public sentiment in forest matters. In State forestry the need
for agitation has by no means passed. It is often the duty of the State
Forester to prepare or endeavor to secure the passage of good State
forest laws, or to interpose against the enactment of bad laws. In
particular, much of his time is likely to be given to legislation upon
the subjects of forest fires and forest taxation. Upon the latter there
is as yet no sound and effective public opinion in many parts of the
United States, and legislatures and people still do not understand how
powerful bad methods of forest taxation have been and still are in
forcing the destructive cutting of timber by making it impossible to
wait for the better methods of lumbering which accompany a better
market. I have known the taxes on standing timber to equal six per cent.
a year on the reasonable value of the stumpage.
Thirteen States have State Forests with a total area altogether of
3,400,000 acres. Of these New York has the largest area. Its State
Forests cover 1,645,000 acres, partly in the Adirondacks and partly in
the Catskills; Pennsylvania comes next with nine hundred and eighty-four
thousand acres; and Wisconsin third, with about four hundred thousand
acres.
Twenty-nine States make appropriations for forest work. Excluding
special appropriations for courses in forestry at universities,
colleges, and schools, the total amount spent for this purpose is about
$1,340,000. Pennsylvania has the largest appropriation,--three hundred
and twenty-eight thousand dollars, in addition to which a special
appropriation of two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars has been
devoted to checking the chestnut blight. Minnesota comes second with two
hundred and thirty-three thousand dollars; New York third with about
one hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars, and Wisconsin next with
ninety-five thousand dollars.
Thirty-three States have State forest officers, of whom fifteen are
State Foresters by title, while the majority of the remainder perform
duties of a very similar nature.
Eleven States are receiving assistance from the Federal Government under
the Weeks law, which authorizes cooperation for fire protection,
provided the State will furnish a sum equal to that allotted to it from
the National fund, with a limit of ten thousand dollars to a single
State.
For purposes of reforestation, ten States maintain forest nurseries.
During the year 1912 they produced in round numbers twenty million young
trees, of which fourteen million were distributed to the citizens of
these ten States.
In some States the waterpower question falls within the sphere of the
State Forester, as well as other similar Conservation matters, while it
has usually been made his duty to assist private timberland owners in
the handling of their holdings, whether these be the larger holdings of
lumber companies or the farmers' woodlots. In many States the State
Forester is made responsible for the enforcement of the State forest
fire laws, and for the control and management of a body of State fire
wardens, who may or may not be permanently employed in that work. The
enforcement of laws which exempt timberlands or lands planted to timber
from taxation, or limit the taxation upon them, are also usually under
his supervision.
The work of forestry in the various States being on the whole much less
advanced than it is in the Nation, the State Forester must still occupy
himself largely with those preliminary phases of the work of forestry
through which the National Forest Service has already passed. Much
progress, however, is being made, and we may fairly count not only that
State forest organizations will ultimately exist in every State, but
that the State Foresters will exert a steadily increasing influence on
forest perpetuation in the United States.
THE FOREST SERVICE IN WASHINGTON
A description of what a Forester has to do which did not include the
work of the Government Foresters at the National Capital would
necessarily be incomplete. The following outline may, therefore, help to
round out the picture.
The Washington headquarters of the Forest Service are directly in charge
of the Forester and his immediate assistants. The Forester has general
supervision of the whole Service. It is he who, with the approval of the
Secretary of Agriculture, determines the general policy which is to
govern the Service in the very various and numerous matters with which
it has to deal. He keeps his hand upon the whole machinery of the
Service, holds it up to its work, and in general is responsible for
supplying it with the right spirit and point of view, without which any
kind of efficiency is impossible.
The Forester prepares the estimates, or annual budget, for the
expenditures of the Service, and appears before Committees of Congress
to explain the need for money, and otherwise to set forth or defend the
work upon which the Service is engaged. His immediate subordinates spend
a large part of their time in the field inspecting the work of the
Service and keeping its tone high. Their reports to the Forester keep
him thoroughly advised as to the situation on all the National Forests,
so that he may wisely meet each question as it comes up, and adjust the
regulations and routine business methods of the Service to the
constantly changing needs of the people with whom it deals.
Being responsible for the personnel of the Forest Service, the Forester
recommends to the Secretary of Agriculture, by whom the actual papers
are issued, all appointments to it, as well as promotions, reductions,
and dismissals. Under his immediate eye also is the very important and
necessary work of making public the information collected by the Service
for the use of the people. Since 1900, 370 publications of the Service
have been issued, with a total circulation of 11,198,000 copies.
The publications of the United States Forest Service include by far the
most and the best information upon the forests of this country which has
until now been assembled and printed. Hence, the prospective student of
forestry can do nothing better than to write to The Forester,
Washington, D. C. (which is the correct address), for the annotated
catalogue of these publications which is sent free to all applicants,
and then to secure and study such of the bulletins and circulars as best
meet his individual needs. If he looks forward to entering the United
States Forest Service, he should not fail to get also the Use Book, the
volume of directions and regulations in accordance with which the
National Forests are protected, developed, and made available and useful
to the people of the regions in which they lie.