This monograph was prepared by Capt. S. T. Dana, in the Forestry Service of the Department of Agriculture, under the direction of Charles H. Winslow, Chief of the Research Division of the Federal Board for Vocational Education. Acknowledgment is due to Dr. John Cummings of the Research Division for editorial assistance.
What Forestry Is
Forestry is the business, or the art, or the science, depending on the point of view from which you look at it, of handling forests for timber production or stream-flow protection. It does not, as is often mistakenly thought, have anything to do with fruit trees, or even with street and park trees. The care of these comes under horticulture and arboriculture. Forestry is distinct from either in that it has to do primarily with entire stands of trees, or forests, rather than with individuals. Forests are really nothing more nor less than tree societies, or communities, comparable in many ways with human communities, every member of which has an influence upon and in turn is influenced by its neighbors; and it is this fact that gives to forestry its distinctive character.
Forestry should also not be confused with lumbering. Lumbering has to do merely with harvesting the trees on any given area, with cutting them, transporting them to the mill, and converting them into lumber or other products. While the chief task of the forester is to manage forest lands, he has to do with the production of trees as well as with their utilization. Forestry is concerned fully as much with the future as with the present. Like agriculture it looks forward to keeping the land continuously productive by the growth of successive crops. Only in the case of forestry the crops instead of being wheat, or rye, or corn, are trees, which in turn can be converted into fuel, fence posts, telephone poles, railroad ties, wood pulp, lumber, and a host of other wood products. How much the forests mean to the economic development of a community through the crops which they produce and the employment which they offer is evidenced only too plainly by the desolation which has followed destructive lumbering in many a once prosperous forest region.
In addition to yielding crops which have a commercial value, forests in mountainous regions perform another important function which is none the less valuable because its benefits are difficult to measure in dollars and cents. By decreasing erosion and regulating stream-flow the mountain forests conserve water for domestic supplies, irrigation, power, and navigation, and at the same time help to lessen the damage caused by destructive floods. So far-reaching is this influence and so great is the population affected by it, that the treatment which such forests receive becomes a matter of vital interest to the general public. One of the primary concerns of forestry is to see that they are handled in such a way as to afford the maximum amount of protection, even if this involves, as it not infrequently does, the restriction or entire prevention of lumbering operations.
What Foresters Do
In order to handle to the best advantage the area under his charge there is a wide range of work which a forester may be called upon to do. He must be able to identify different kinds of trees and must know the uses to which each can be put and the sites to which they are best adapted. He must be able to map the area and to determine the amount and value of the timber upon it. He must be able to draw up a complete plan for protecting the forest from fire and to carry out the details involved in its execution. He must know how to control the attacks of destructive insects and fungous diseases. He must be able to handle the many details connected with the collection of seed and the production of young trees in forest-tree nurseries. He must know where and how to plant these, or how to sow the seed on areas where this is preferable. He must know whether any given stand is too dense, and if so, what and how many trees should be taken out to stimulate the growth of those that are left. He must be able to determine the rate at which trees are growing and the age at which they should be cut and to make plans for harvesting them in such a way as to secure natural reproduction. And finally, he must be able to draw up a “working plan” providing in detail for the handling of the entire forest in such a way as to keep it continually productive.
All of this obviously involves a good deal of office work in the formulation of plans, the maintenance of records, and the miscellaneous administrative work connected with any business enterprise. It also involves a good deal of practical out-of-door work. The average forester must take long walks and horseback rides. He must often camp out in a tent or with no shelter whatever. He must take his part in fighting forest fires, which means the liberal and energetic use of the axe, the mattock, and the shovel. He must run compass and transit lines, and make topographic maps. He must estimate the size and contents of standing trees by the use of calipers and height-measures, and must scale the fallen timber. He must mark, or blaze, the trees to be removed in lumbering and must see that the operations are carried out in accordance with the approved plans. He must collect tree cones, extract the seeds from these, sow them in the nursery, care for the young seedlings, and later set them out in the forest.
He must also do a hundred and one other things which are not strictly forestry but which are so closely connected with it that they must be handled by the forester along with his other work. Grazing is a good example of this, since most of the forest regions in the United States produce forage as well as trees. In order to utilize this to best advantage the forester must know how many stock the range will support and how they should be handled. In regions where mineral deposits occur he must be familiar with the mining laws and must have at least enough knowledge regarding mining to enable him to deal intelligently with prospectors and others. Since most of the forests occur in undeveloped regions he must know how to open these up by building ranger and lookout stations and by constructing such other permanent improvements as roads, bridges, trails, and telephone lines. In short, the average forester, particularly in pioneer regions, must be a veritable jack-of-all-trades.