distribution, the identification of tree species and other forest
botanical work, is also under the immediate supervision of the Forester,
and the Chief Lumberman reports directly to him.
In addition to the work which falls immediately under the eye of the
Forester, and which used to, but does not now, include the legal work
necessary to support and promote the operations of the Service, there
are seven principal parts, or branches, in the work of the Washington
headquarters. The first of these is the Branch of Accounts, whose work I
need not describe further than to say that the Service has always owed a
very large part of its safety against the bitter attacks of its enemies
to the accuracy, completeness, and general high quality of its
accounting system.
The second branch, that of Operation, has charge of the business
administration both of the National Forests and of the other work of
the Forest Service. Here the business methods which are necessary to
keep the organization at a high state of efficiency are formulated, put
in practice, and constantly revised, for it is only by such revision
that they can be kept, as they are kept, at a level with the very best
practice of the best modern business. There are very few Government
bureaus of which this can be said. The Branch of Operation is
responsible for the adoption and enforcement of labor-saving devices in
correspondence, in handling requisitions, and in the filing and care of
papers generally, and for the supply of stationery, tools, and
instruments, and the renting of quarters,--in a word, for the whole of
the more or less routine transaction of business which is essential to
keep so large an organization at the highest point of efficiency.
[Illustration: BRUSH PILING IN A NATIONAL FOREST TIMBER SALE]
The office work needed in the mapping of the National Forests, with
all their resources, boundaries, and interior holdings, is in charge of
the Branch of Operation. So is the immense amount of drafting which is
necessary in the other work of the Service, and the photographic
laboratory in which maps are reproduced and where permanent photographic
records of the condition of the forest are made.
The third branch, that of Silviculture, is the most important of all. It
has oversight of the practice of forestry on all the National Forests,
and of all scientific forest studies in the National Forests and
outside. It is here that the conditions in the contracts under which the
larger timber sales are made are finally examined and approved, and here
are found the inspectors whose duty it is not only to see that the work
is well done, but to labor constantly for improvements in methods as
well as in results. Here centres the preparation of forest working
plans, and the knowledge of lumber and the lumber markets.
The Branch of Silviculture has charge also of National cooperation for
the advancement of forestry with the several States, and in particular
for fire protection under the Weeks law. This form of cooperation has
made the knowledge and equipment of the Forest Service available for the
study of State forest resources and forest problems, and much of the
progress in forestry made by the States is directly due to it.
Under the Branch of Silviculture, the Office of Forest Investigations
brings together all that is known of the nature and growth of trees in
this country, and to some extent in other countries also, conducts
independent studies of the greatest value in developing better methods
of securing the reproduction of important forest trees, and computes
the enormous number of forest measurements dealing with the stand and
the rate of growth of trees and forests that are turned in by the
parties engaged in forest investigation in the field. Under the Office
of Forest Investigations, studies in forest distribution and in the
structure of wood are carried on, and it includes the Library of the
Forest Service, by far the most complete and effective forest library in
the United States.
The fourth branch, that of Grazing, supervises the use of the National
Forests for pasture. Over the greater part of the West, this was the
first use to which the forests were put, and an idea of its magnitude
may be gathered from the fact that every year the National Forests
supply feed for about a million and a half cattle and horses, and more
than fourteen million sheep. It is no easy task to permit all this live
stock to utilize the forage which the National Forests produce, and yet
do little or no harm to the young growth on which the future of the
forest depends. To exclude the grazing animals altogether is impossible
and undesirable, for to do so would ruin the leading industry in many
portions of the West. Consequently, many of the most difficult and
perplexing questions in the practical administration of the National
Forests have occurred in the work of the Branch of Grazing, and have
there been solved, and many of the most bitter attacks upon it have
there been met.
The fifth branch, that of Lands, has to do with the questions which
arise from the use of the land in the National Forests for farming or
ranching, mining, and a very wide variety of other purposes, and with
the exceedingly numerous and intricate questions which arise because
there are about 21,100,000 acres of land within the boundaries of the
National Forests whose title has already passed from the Government. The
boundaries of the National Forests also are constantly being examined to
determine whether they include all the land, and only the land, to be
contained within them, and whether they should be extended or reduced.
The first permits for the use of waterpower sites on Government land
were issued by the Forest Service, and the policy which is just being
adopted by the Interior Department and other Government organizations in
their handling of waterpower questions was there first developed. These
permits are prepared in the Branch of Lands. The first steps toward
deterring men who attempt in defiance of the law to get possession of
lands claimed to be agricultural or mineral within the National Forests
are taken here, but the final decision on these points rests with the
Department of the Interior. The examination of lands to determine
whether they are agricultural in character, and therefore should be
opened to settlement, is directed from this Branch.
The uses to which National Forest lands are put are almost unbelievably
various. Barns, borrow pits, botanical gardens, cemeteries and churches,
dairies and dipping vats, fox ranches and fish hatcheries, hotels,
pastures, pipe lines, power sites, residences, sanitaria and
school-houses, stores and tunnels, these and many others make up, with
grazing and timber sales, the uses of the National Forests, for which
already more than half a million permits have been issued. This work
also falls to the Branch of Lands.
The sixth branch, that of Forest Products, is concerned with the whole
question of the uses of wood and other materials produced by the forest.
Its principal work is conducted through the Forest Products Laboratory,
in cooperation with the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Here timber
is tested to ascertain its strength, the products of wood distillation
are investigated, wood pulp and paper studies of large reach are carried
on, the methods of wood preservation and the results of applying them
are in constant course of being examined, and the diseases of trees and
of wood are studied in cooperation with the Bureau of Plant Industry of
the United States Department of Agriculture. The consumption of wood,
and the production of lumber and forest products, are also the subject
of continuous investigation, and various necessary special studies are
undertaken from time to time. At the moment, an effort is under way to
find new uses and new markets for wood killed by the chestnut blight in
the northeastern United States.
The seventh branch has to do with the study, selection, and acquisition
of lands under the Weeks law, in accordance with which eight million
dollars was appropriated for the purchase of forest lands valuable for
stream protection, with particular reference to the Southern
Appalachians and the White Mountains of New England. The examination of
the amount of merchantable timber on lands under consideration for
purchase, the study of the character of the land and the forest, and the
survey of the land keep a numerous body of young men very fully
occupied. Their task is to see that none but the right land is
recommended for acquisition by the Government, that the nature and value
of the lands selected shall be most thoroughly known, and that the
constant effort to make the Government pay unreasonable prices or
purchase under unfavorable conditions shall as constantly be defeated.
The same branch takes charge of the lands as soon as they have been
acquired.
The foregoing description of the work which is done in Washington by the
Forest Service may help to make clear the great variety of tasks to
which a Forester may be required to set his hand, and emphasizes the
need of a broad training not strictly confined to purely technical
lines. It would be defective as a description, however, and would fail
to show the spirit in which the work is done, if no mention were made of
the Service Meeting, at which the responsible heads of each branch and
of the work of the Forester's office meet once a week to discuss every
problem which confronts the Service and every phase of its work. This
meeting is the centre where all parts of the work of the Service come
together and arrange their mutual cooperation, and it is also the spring
from which the essential democracy of the organization takes its rise.
The Service Meeting is the best thing in the Forest Service, and that is
saying a great deal.
It must not be imagined that the maintenance of Forest Service
headquarters in Washington indicates that the actual business of
handling the National Forests is carried on at long range. In order to
avoid any such possibility the six District offices were organized in
1908. These are situated at Missoula, Denver, Albuquerque, Portland,
Ogden, and San Francisco. Each of the District offices is in charge of a
District Forester, who directs the practical carrying out of the
policies finally determined upon in Washington, after consultation with
the men in the field. The execution of all the work, the larger features
of which the Washington office decides and directs (and the details of
which it inspects), is the task of the District Forester. The District
Forester's office is necessarily organized much on the same general
lines as the Washington headquarters. Thus, the subjects of accounts,
operation, silviculture, grazing, lands, and forest products are all
represented in the District offices. In addition, a legal officer is
necessarily attached to each District office, and each District Forester
has in his District one or more forest experiment stations, employed
mainly in studying questions of growth and reproduction; and three
forest insect field stations, maintained in cooperation with the Bureau
of Entomology, are divided among the six Districts.
[Illustration: FOREST RANGERS GETTING INSTRUCTION IN METHODS OF WORK
FROM A DISTRICT FOREST OFFICER]
While the work of the Washington office is mainly that of guiding the
work of the National Forests along broad general lines, through
instructions to the District Foresters, the office of each District
Forester deals directly with the Forest Supervisors, and so with the
handling of the National Forests. A multitude of questions which the
Supervisors can not answer are decided in the District office instead,
as was formerly the case, of being forwarded to Washington for disposal
there, with the consequent aggravating and needless delay. The
establishment of the District offices has made the handling of the
National Forests far less complicated and far more prompt, and has
brought it far closer than ever before to the actual users,--that is,
has made it far more quickly and accurately responsive to their needs.
PRIVATE FORESTRY
As yet, the practice of forestry by private owners, except for fire
protection, has made but little progress in the United States, although
without doubt it will be widely extended during the next ten or fifteen
years. The concentration of timberland ownership in the United States
has put a few men in control of vast areas of forest. Many of them are
anxious to prevent forest destruction, so far as that may be practicable
without interfering with their profits, and for that purpose Foresters
are beginning to be employed. Until now the principal tasks of Foresters
employed by lumbermen have been the measurement of the amount of lumber
in the standing crop of trees, and the protection of forest lands from
fire. Here and there the practice of a certain amount of forestry has
been added, but this part of the work of the private Forester employed
by lumbermen has not been important. It is likely, however, to increase
with some rapidity before long. In the meantime, the private Forester
must usually be willing to accept a good many limitations on the
technical side of his work.
It is essential for the Forester thus employed to have or promptly to
acquire a knowledge of practical lumbering, that is, of logging,
milling, and markets, and for the forest student who expects to enter
this work to give special attention to these subjects.
Already about 170 graduates of forest schools are in private employ, a
considerable proportion of which number are employed by large lumbermen.
The time is undoubtedly coming, and I hope it may come soon, when forest
destruction will be legally recognized as hostile to the public welfare,
and when lumbermen will be compelled by law to handle their forests so
as to insure the reproduction of them under reasonable conditions and
within a reasonable time. The idea is neither tyrannical nor new. In
democratic Switzerland, private owners of timberland are restrained by
law from destroying the forests upon which the welfare of that mountain
region so largely depends, and if they disobey, their forest lands are
replanted by the Government at the owners' expense.
Another opening for Foresters in the employ of lumbermen is through the
forest fire protective associations. Of these, two stand out most
conspicuously at the present time, one the Northwestern Conservation and
Forestry Association, the other the Oregon Forest Fire Association. Each
has as its executive officer a trained Forester whose knowledge of the
woods not only makes him exceedingly useful to his employers, but also,
when combined with the Forester's point of view, enables him to be of
great value in protecting the general interest in the forest.
The object and methods of one of the associations is described by its
Secretary as follows:
"A field hitherto narrow but continually broadening, and offering much
opportunity for those with peculiar qualifications, is the management of
the cooeperative forest work carried on by timber owners in many
localities, often jointly with State and Government. This movement
originated in the Pacific Northwest, where it still has the highest
development, but is extending to the Lake States, New England, and
Canada.
"As a rule the primary object of these cooeperative associations is fire
prevention and their local managers must have demonstrated ability to
organize effective patrol systems, build telephone lines, apply every
ingenuity to supplying and equipping their forces, and, above all, to
handle men in emergencies. But in most cases the association of forest
owners to this end has led also to progress in many other matters
inseparable from improvement, such as study of reforestation
possibilities, forest legislation, educating lumberman and public in
forest preservation, and the extension of cooperation in all these as
well as in fire prevention from private to State and federal agencies.
"The development of such activities is already employing several highly
paid men who can command the confidence, not only of forest owners, but
also of the public and of public officials. Advisers in legislative as
well as technical forestry matters and particularly proficient in all
that pertains to forest protection, their usefulness lies as much
outside their own association as within them, and to be successful they
must be skilful organizers and campaigners. It is these men who have
developed to its highest extent the adaptation to forestry propaganda of
modern publicity and advertising methods.
"As a rule, however, these may be described as graduate positions,
filled by men of experience and acquaintance with the several agencies
involved, rather than by newly fledged Foresters. A practical knowledge
of protection problems is essential."
Forestry associations offer a different, but often a most fascinating
field, of work for the trained Forester. There are at present 39 such
associations. The work which they offer has much in common with the
duties of a State Forester.
Fish and game associations are beginning to employ Foresters, realizing
that the wise handling of the forests may well go hand in hand with the
care of the game and fish which the forest shelters and protects.
Eventually nearly all such associations which control any considerable
body of land in timbered regions may be expected to utilize the services
of trained Foresters of their own.
In addition to the work for lumbermen and for associations of various
kinds, land owners in considerable variety have begun to employ
Foresters. Among these are coal and coke companies, iron companies, wood
pulp and paper companies which are beginning to look after their supply
of timber; powder, arms, and ammunition companies, hydraulic and water
companies; a great corporation engaged in the manufacture of matches;
and a number of railroads, including the Delaware and Hudson, the
Illinois Central, and the Pennsylvania. In addition to the need for
cross ties, railroads are among the largest consumers of lumber. The
Foresters who work for them are largely occupied with growing the wood
supplies which the railroads need, and nursery practice often occupies a
very large share of their attention.
FOREST SCHOOLS
Since the first one was founded in 1898, the number of forest schools in
the United States has increased so rapidly as to create a demand for
forest instructors which it has been exceedingly difficult to fill.
Indeed, the increase in secondary forest schools, or schools not of the
first grade, has doubtless been more rapid than the welfare of the
profession or the sound practice of forestry required, and the brisk
demand for teachers has led some men to take up the task of instruction
who were not well fitted for it.
There are in this country to-day 23 forest schools which prepare men for
the practice of forestry as a profession, and 51 schools which devote
themselves to general instruction in forestry or to courses for Forest
Rangers and Forest Guards. The approximate number of teachers in all
forest schools is at present 110, and this number will doubtless be
still further increased by the addition of new forest schools or the
expansion of old ones, while a certain number of places will be made
vacant by the retirement of men who find themselves better fitted for
other lines of work.
The teaching staff at three of the principal forest schools of the
country is as follows:
At School A, 5 men give their whole time to forest instruction, and 14
give courses in the forest school.
Schools B and C have each 4 men who give their whole time to the work;
and 4 and 20 respectively who give lectures or individual courses.
In addition to the work for lumbermen, associations, railroads, and
others just mentioned, an increasing number of Foresters are required to
care for the forests on large landed estates in different parts of the
country. Work of this kind is at present restricted almost entirely to
the East, and especially to New England, where several firms of
consulting Foresters give to it the larger portion of their time. Some
of the men thus employed are as fully occupied with the tasks of the
professional Forester as any of the men in the Government service, while
others give a part of their attention to the general management of the
property, or to the protection and propagation of game and fish.
THE OPPORTUNITY
GOVERNMENT SERVICE
There is no more useful profession than forestry. The opportunity to
make himself count in affairs of public importance comes earlier and
more certainly to the Forester than to the member of any other
profession. The first and most valuable, therefore, of the incentives
which lead the Forester to his choice is the chance to make himself of
use to his country and to his generation.
But if this is the first matter to be considered in deciding upon a
profession, it is by no means the last, and the practical considerations
of a fair return for good work, bread and butter for a man and his
family, the certainty or uncertainty of employment,--such questions as
these must have their full share of attention.
There are in the United States Forest Service 1059 Forest Guards, 1247
Forest Rangers, 233 Supervisors, and Deputy Supervisors, and 115 Forest
Assistants and 177 Forest Examiners who, as already explained, are the
technical men in charge of practical forestry on the National Forests.
The six District offices together include in their membership about 50
professional Foresters, and about 65 more are attached to the
headquarters at Washington, so that allowing for duplications there are
about 335 trained Foresters in the United States Forest Service.
The number of new appointments to the Forest Service in the different
permanent grades varies from year to year but may be said to be
approximately as follows: Rangers, 240 new appointments; Forest
Assistants, 35; other technical positions, 10. All appointments as
Supervisor are by promotion from the lists of Forest Rangers or Forest
Examiners.
The yearly pay of the Forest Guard, who, like the Ranger, must be a
citizen of the State in which his work lies, is from $420 to $900.
Forest Rangers, who enter the Service through Civil Service examination,
receive from $1100 to $1500 per annum. Forest Supervisors, practically
all of whom are men of long experience in forest work, receive from
$1600 to $2700 per annum. Forest Assistants enter the Forest Service
through Civil Service examination at a salary of $1200 per annum, and
are promoted to a maximum salary of $2500 per annum, as Forest
Examiners. Professional Foresters at work in the District offices are
recruited mainly from among the Forest Assistants and Examiners. They
receive from $1100 to $3200 yearly. The technical men in charge at
Washington get from $1100 to $5000 per annum, which last is the pay of
the Forester, at the head of the Service.
STATE SERVICE
The pay of the State Foresters, or other trained Foresters in charge of
State work, ranges from $1800 to $4000, and that of their technical
assistants from $1000 to $2500. Out of the total number, only 2 are
directly in charge of their own work, responsible only to the Governor
and the Legislature, while 19 act as subordinates for State forest
commissions or commissioners, who in the majority of cases are political
appointees. In striking contrast with the United States Forest Service,
politics has so far been a dangerous, if not a dominating, influence in
the forest work of most of the States which have undertaken it.
Like the National Forests, the State Forests already in existence will
create an increasing demand for the service of technical Foresters.
Indeed, as similar forests are acquired by most of the States which are
now without them, as undoubtedly they will be, the extent of the
opportunity for professionally trained Foresters in State work is
certain to grow.
PRIVATE WORK