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: