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Literature in Agriculture (CHLA), Cornell University)









THE TRAINING OF A FORESTER




[Illustration: A FOREST RANGER LOOKING FOR FIRE FROM A NATIONAL FOREST
LOOKOUT STATION _Page 32_]




  THE TRAINING OF A FORESTER




  BY

  GIFFORD PINCHOT




  WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS



  [Illustration]



  PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
  J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
  1914




  COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

  PUBLISHED FEBRUARY, 1914



  PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
  AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
  PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.




  To

  OVERTON W. PRICE
  FRIEND AND FELLOW WORKER

  TO WHOM IS DUE, MORE THAN TO ANY OTHER MAN, THE
  HIGH EFFICIENCY OF THE UNITED STATES FOREST SERVICE




PREFACE


At one time or another, the largest question before every young man is,
"What shall I do with my life?" Among the possible openings, which best
suits his ambition, his tastes, and his capacities? Along what line
shall he undertake to make a successful career? The search for a life
work and the choice of one is surely as important business as can occupy
a boy verging into manhood. It is to help in the decision of those who
are considering forestry as a profession that this little book has been
written.

To the young man who is attracted to forestry and begins to consider it
as a possible profession, certain questions present themselves. What is
forestry? If he takes it up, what will his work be, and where? Does it
in fact offer the satisfying type of outdoor life which it appears to
offer? What chance does it present for a successful career, for a career
of genuine usefulness, and what is the chance to make a living? Is he
fitted for it in character, mind, and body? If so, what training does he
need? These questions deserve an answer.

To the men whom it really suits, forestry offers a career more
attractive, it may be said in all fairness, than any other career
whatsoever. I doubt if any other profession can show a membership so
uniformly and enthusiastically in love with the work. The men who have
taken it up, practised it, and left it for other work are few. But to
the man not fully adapted for it, forestry must be punishment, pure and
simple. Those who have begun the study of forestry, and then have
learned that it was not for them, have doubtless been more in number
than those who have followed it through.

I urge no man to make forestry his profession, but rather to keep away
from it if he can. In forestry a man is either altogether at home or
very much out of place. Unless he has a compelling love for the
Forester's life and the Forester's work, let him keep out of it.

  G. P.




CONTENTS


                                                                 PAGE

  WHAT IS A FOREST?                                                13

  THE FORESTER'S KNOWLEDGE                                         18

  THE FOREST AND THE NATION                                        19

  THE FORESTER'S POINT OF VIEW                                     23

  THE ESTABLISHMENT OF FORESTRY                                    27

  THE WORK OF A FORESTER                                           30

  THE FOREST SERVICE                                               30

  THE FOREST SUPERVISOR                                            46

  THE TRAINED FORESTER                                             50

  PERSONAL EQUIPMENT                                               63

  STATE FOREST WORK                                                84

  THE FOREST SERVICE IN WASHINGTON                                 89

  PRIVATE FORESTRY                                                106

  FOREST SCHOOLS                                                  114

  THE OPPORTUNITY                                                 116

  TRAINING                                                        123




ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                                 PAGE

  A FOREST RANGER LOOKING FOR FIRE FROM A NATIONAL
  FOREST LOOKOUT STATION                                _Frontispiece_

  STRINGING A FOREST TELEPHONE LINE                                32

  FOREST RANGERS SCALING TIMBER                                    43

  WESTERN YELLOW PINE SEED COLLECTED BY THE FOREST
  SERVICE FOR PLANTING UP DENUDED LANDS                            47

  A FOREST EXAMINER RUNNING A COMPASS LINE                         59

  BRUSH PILING IN A NATIONAL FOREST TIMBER SALE                    95

  FOREST RANGERS GETTING INSTRUCTION IN METHODS OF
  WORK FROM A DISTRICT FOREST OFFICER                             105

  FOREST SERVICE MEN MAKING FRESH MEASUREMENTS IN
  THE MISSOURI SWAMPS                                             136




THE TRAINING OF A FORESTER




WHAT IS A FOREST?


First, What is forestry? Forestry is the knowledge of the forest. In
particular, it is the art of handling the forest so that it will render
whatever service is required of it without being impoverished or
destroyed. For example, a forest may be handled so as to produce saw
logs, telegraph poles, barrel hoops, firewood, tan bark, or turpentine.
The main purpose of its treatment may be to prevent the washing of soil,
to regulate the flow of streams, to support cattle or sheep, or it may
be handled so as to supply a wide range and combination of uses.
Forestry is the art of producing from the forest whatever it can yield
for the service of man.

Before we can understand forestry, certain facts about the forest itself
must be kept in mind. A forest is not a mere collection of individual
trees, just as a city is not a mere collection of unrelated men and
women, or a Nation like ours merely a certain number of independent
racial groups. A forest, like a city, is a complex community with a life
of its own. It has a soil and an atmosphere of its own, chemically and
physically different from any other, with plants and shrubs as well as
trees which are peculiar to it. It has a resident population of insects
and higher animals entirely distinct from that outside. Most important
of all, from the Forester's point of view, the members of the forest
live in an exact and intricate system of competition and mutual
assistance, of help or harm, which extends to all the inhabitants of
this complicated city of trees.

The trees in a forest are all helped by mutually protecting each other
against high winds, and by producing a richer and moister soil than
would be possible if the trees stood singly and apart. They compete
among themselves by their roots for moisture in the soil, and for light
and space by the growth of their crowns in height and breadth. Perhaps
the strongest weapon which trees have against each other is growth in
height. In certain species intolerant of shade, the tree which is
overtopped has lost the race for good. The number of young trees which
destroy each other in this fierce struggle for existence is prodigious,
so that often a few score per acre are all that survive to middle or old
age out of many tens of thousands of seedlings which entered the race of
life on approximately even terms.

Not only has a forest a character of its own, which arises from the fact
that it is a community of trees, but each species of tree has peculiar
characteristics and habits also. Just as in New York City, for example,
the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Hungarians, and the Chinese
each have quarters of their own, and in those quarters live in
accordance with habits which distinguish each race from all the others,
so the different species of pines and hemlocks, oaks and maples prefer
and are found in certain definite types of locality, and live in
accordance with definite racial habits which are as general and
unfailing as the racial characteristics which distinguish, for example,
the Italians from the Germans, or the Swedes from the Chinese.

The most important of these characteristics of race or species are those
which are concerned with the relation of each to light, heat, and
moisture. Thus, a river birch will die if it has only as much water as
will suffice to keep a post oak in the best condition, and the warm
climate in which the balsam fir would perish is just suited to the
requirements of a long leaf pine or a magnolia.

The tolerance of a tree for shade may vary greatly at different times of
its life, but a white pine always requires more light than a hemlock,
and a beech throughout its life will flourish with less sunshine or
reflected light than, for example, an oak or a tulip tree.

Trees are limited in their distribution also by their adaptability, in
which they vary greatly. Thus a bald cypress will grow both in wetter
and in dryer land than an oak; a red cedar will flourish from Florida to
the Canadian line, while other species, like the Eastern larch, the
Western mountain hemlock, or the big trees of California, are confined
in their native localities within extremely narrow limits.




THE FORESTER'S KNOWLEDGE


The trained Forester must know the forest as a doctor knows the human
machine. First of all, he must be able to distinguish the different
trees of which the forest is composed, for that is like learning to
read. He must know the way they are made and the way they grow; but far
more important than all else, he must base his knowledge upon that part
of forestry which is called Silvics, the knowledge of the relation of
trees to light, heat, and moisture, to the soil, and to each other.

The well-trained Forester