The number of forest officers in the several grades on the 1st of
January 1908 were: 6 chief inspectors, 26 inspectors, 106 forest
supervisors, 41 deputy forest supervisors, 820 forest rangers and 283
forest guards. The total number of employes of the forest service on the
same date, including the clerical force, was 2034.
Besides the administration of the national forests, the forest service
conducts general investigations, carries on an extensive educational
work, and co-operates with private owners who contemplate forest
management upon their own tracts. This last work is undertaken because
of the need of bringing forestry into practice, the lack of trained
foresters outside of the employ of the government, and the lack of
information as to how to apply forestry and what returns may be
obtained. Co-operation takes the form of advice upon the ground and, on
occasion, of the making of working plans. The educational work of the
service is performed chiefly through publications, the purpose of which
is to spread very widely a knowledge of the importance of forestry to
the nation and of the principles upon which its practice rests. The
investigations which the service conducts extend from studies of the
natural distribution and classification of American forests and of their
varied silvicultural problems to statistics of lumber production and
laboratory researches which bear upon the economical utilization of
forest products. As examples of these researches may be mentioned tests
of the strength of timber, studies of the preservative treatment of wood
for various uses, wood-pulp investigations and studies in wood
chemistry.
_Forest Instruction._--Most of the men now in the forest service
received their training in the United States. There are several
professional schools of forestry. The Yale Forest School, which was
opened as a department of Yale University in September 1900, offers a
two-years' graduate course with abundant field work, and also conducts a
summer school of forestry, especially adapted to the training of forest
rangers and special students, at Milford, Pennsylvania. The university
of Michigan and Harvard University also offer a two-years' graduate
course in forestry. The Pennsylvania State College has recently
established a four-years' undergraduate course in forestry. The Biltmore
Forest School in North Carolina, the oldest of all these schools, offers
a one-year course in technical forestry. A large number of the
agricultural colleges give instruction in forestry. Among these are
Nebraska, Minnesota, Maine, Michigan, Washington and Mississippi
agricultural colleges, the university of Georgia and Iowa State College.
Berea College, Kentucky, deserves special mention as a college which has
done valuable work in teaching forestry without attempting to turn out
professional foresters.
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