The dendrological work of the Service, which has to do with forest 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.
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 coöperation for the advancement of forestry with the several States, and in particular for fire protection under the Weeks law. This form of coöperation 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.