cover lumber, lath, shingles, crossties, poles, pulp, tanbark, cooperage, veneers, and wood distillation.

Studies of the wood-using industries of various States were completed in Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Oregon, Illinois, Louisiana, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Washington, and Nevada. In a number of cases the reports have been published by the States concerned. Investigations were begun but not completed in Arkansas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Virginia, New Hampshire, and California.

The collection of wholesale lumber prices, f. o. b. market and f. o. b. mill, was continued with the assistance of 5,000 cooperating lumbermen. Early in the year the record of market prices was changed from a monthly to a quarterly basis. This compilation of statistics is expected to serve as a continuous record of prices; to show what the manufacturers of lumber receive for their product at the mill, and what the final cost of lumber is to the retailer and consumer; and, finally, to set forth the important part which freight and selling charges play in the final cost of lumber.

Substitution of other materials for wood is steadily gaining in this country. A summary of answers to inquiries sent by the Forest Service to 3,000 retail lumber dealers in 10 central agricultural States shows that substitution has occurred in certain classes of wood products to the extent indicated by the percentages following: Finish, 0.9; sheathing, 2.4; lath, 3; fence posts, 3.7; siding, 4.1; common lumber, 5.3; dimension stuff, 5.4; flooring, 6; pickets, 9; fencing, 13.7; shingles, 16.2; average, 5.4. These changes have occurred in the last three years. Iron and cement are the chief substitutes. The study of this subject is not yet complete.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Nine hundred and fifty books and pamphlets, obtained either through the department library (of which the Forest Service library is a branch) or by gifts or exchange, were added to the working library maintained in the Washington office, making a total of 14,963. By far the greater number of new books were free publications. The library receives regularly 60 forest and trade journals.

There are now small field libraries in the supervisors' offices, the district offices, the forest experiment stations, the Forest Products Laboratory, and the Office of Wood Utilization at Chicago. The district libraries average about 750 books each and the supervisors' about 88. To these field libraries there were sent out during the year 3,676 publications, of which the majority were free publications, either Government or State. The amount spent for the purchase of books for the field during the year was $2,000.

There are now 25,098 classified and tabulated photographs in the collection, 1,846 of which were added during the year.

Over 200 microsections, covering 150 species of native hardwoods, were added to the collection which is used in the study of the structural characteristics of wood and in the identification of wood samples. The reference collection of native and foreign woods was augmented during the year by the addition of 460 specimens. The entire collection now includes about 6,000 specimens. Approximately 3,000 forest-tree specimens were added to the forest herbarium,

which now contains 5,000 reference specimens, and over 10,000 treerange records were added to those on file. There are now platted 525 maps showing the distribution of trees by species.

During the year the Forest Service issued 31 new publications, as against 27 the year before. The total number of Forest Service publications distributed was about 245,500, as compared with 406,000 in the previous year. During the past two years the Forest Service has greatly increased the number of its bulletins of a technical character, which are meant particularly for the advancement of scientific work.

There were 185 public addresses delivered during the year, usually in response to direct requests from organizations interested in technical forestry, from associations of lumbermen or lumber manufacturers, or from educational bodies or institutions. Exhibits were made at nine expositions, and four of them were supplemented, at the request of the exposition management, by a series of explanatory lectures. The expositions in which the Service participated were: The Appalachian Exposition, Knoxville, Tenn.; the National Corn Exposition, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Kansas State Fair, Hutchinson, Kans.; United States Land and Irrigation Exposition, Chicago, Ill.; Land and Irrigation Exposition, Worcester, Mass.; the Alabama Industrial and Agricultural Exposition, Montgomery, Ala.; Arkansas State Fair, Hot Springs, Ark.; and the International Exposition, Turin, Italy. All expenses for the transportation and installation of material and for travel and subsistence involved in making these exhibits and sending speakers were borne by the exposition authorities or privately contributed, except in the case of the Turin exposition, for which a congressional appropriation had been made. The material used was that on hand as a result either of work done for previous expositions or of the regular laboratory and collection work of the Service. In general, acceptance of requests for public addresses is made conditional on the payment of all expenses involved.

WORK FOR THE ENSUING YEAR.

In the foregoing report reference has been made to many investigations and experiments which were in progress at the close of the fiscal year. Some of these are of such a character that the information sought can be ascertained or the object accomplished within a comparatively short time. In such cases the work will be completed and terminated as rapidly as possible. In many cases, however, the work planned is so comprehensive in character that it must necessarily extend over a considerable period of time. In general, the work for the ensuing year will be along the same lines as that described for past year. Detailed enumeration of all the investigations under way or planned would so largely traverse ground already covered that specific mention of most of them will not be made.

the

The work of bringing about changes in Forest boundaries for which the field investigations were begun in 1908 will be brought to completion. There are still 39 proclamations to be issued before the results of these investigations will have culminated in accordance with the policy outlined in the body of this report. The field work has been completed for nearly all the Forests still remaining, and the reports have been considered and final conclusions reached. The

proclamations putting the changes into effect will be issued in the course of the next few months.

The study of the business side of National Forest management will be continued on certain typical Forests to increase the effectiveness of the field force by cutting out lost motion and misdirected effort. It is true that the organization can not be operated precisely along the lines of a private enterprise having a strictly commercial purpose, but the proper output or the desired results in National Forest management are not wholly intangible. They include protection of the Forests, increase in their productiveness, and proper use of their resources. It can at least be determined on each Forest what is the cost of the work done and what results are produced, whether that cost is excessive, and whether the output in work or results can not be increased.

The better preparation of the rangers for their work will continue to be encouraged, both by regular courses of winter study and by the continuance of rangers' and supervisors' meetings. As the results of the work are shown by the increased effectiveness of the men, it is believed that a stimulus will be applied in the form of a steadily rising standard of qualifications necessary for forest officers. In this connection mention may be made of the very valuable work which is being done by several universities and agricultural colleges in the West, which give short ranger courses each winter. A considerable number of National Forest rangers go on furlough in order to attend these courses each year, and the Forest Service finds it well worth while to permit them to do this and to cooperate with the institutions offering the courses by sending lecturers who deal with. questions of technical administration. One beneficial effect of these schools is to provide the means, which nowhere existed previously, for the training of prospective rangers.

The principal effort in connection with sales of National Forest timber will be to secure the disposal of as large a quantity as possible of the fire-killed timber still unsold. This effort will be combined with the encouragement of large sales under long-term contracts in localities where inaccessible bodies of mature timber exist for which there is no local demand and whose removal will be beneficial to the Forests. The specific objects of this policy will be to improve the Forests by the removal of deteriorating material, putting them in better condition for future production, and to increase receipts to a point which will place the Forests upon a self-supporting basis.

The systematization of the management of the respective Forests based upon working plans in which all of the data secured by the Service is assembled in ready form for administrative use will be particularly emphasized. Another important feature will be the standardization of methods of cutting in similar forest types throughout various portions of the West, in the light of careful study of the results obtained in all of the sales made up to the present time.

In continuing reforestation work an effort will be made to cover approximately 30,000 acres annually, but by periods of years rather than in individual years, the work in any one year being concentrated upon the various processes of seed collection, seeding, and the like, in accordance with the most economical and effective organization. Intensive experiments will be continued in direct seeding, nursery practice, and field planting, and with valuable exotics in restricted

localities to which they are particularly adapted in order to further build up the much-needed knowledge of methods necessary to the effective prosecution of this work.

The most significant feature of the investigative work will be the extension of the system of local experiment stations to include additional forest types and regions. Since the termination of the fiscal year such a station has been established in the exceedingly valuable belt of white-pine timber in northern Idaho. During the next year at least one additional station will be established, probably in the northern Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Further stations are under consideration in Utah or southern Idaho and on the west slope of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon or Washington, and will be developed as soon as local administrative conditions make them practicable. The development of a chain of stations of this character for conducting intensive experiments in the various forest regions of the country will be of the greatest value in reducing our knowledge of silviculture to a more exact basis and will bring a greater return for the cost than any other investment which could be made in investigative work.

It is

In grazing studies the grazing reconnoissance of different Forests will receive the greatest attention, and the energies of the majority of the technical men will be concentrated on this class of work. of principal importance, because it will establish a definite basis for all future scientific investigations connected with the grazing of live stock upon the Forest lands. While the number of technically trained men available for this class of investigations is not adequate to meet the demands being made by the different districts, it will be possible to complete reconnoissance examinations of several of the most important and typical Forests, and so to train the rangers assigned to the work that independent examinations by local forest officers will materially supplement those by the men regularly assigned to the work. While the grazing and lambing pasture experiments upon the Wallowa and Cochetopa Forests will be continued, they will only receive the attention necessary to secure accurate data showing the results secured by the permittees using them, there being no further need for detailed and continuous observations throughout the season. Continued attention will be given to the natural and artificial seeding of depleted ranges, the natural regeneration of certain important types of forage grasses, the study of the effect of grazing upon forest reproduction, and the study of the effect of soil acidity upon various species of important forage plants.

In order to coordinate the investigative work conducted throughout the Service and insure the thorough consideration of all plans of work before it is undertaken, a central investigative committee will be organized in the Washington office, consisting of the most proficient members of the Service in this line of work, whose function will be to exercise general direction and control of the various investigative projects of all kinds in the interest of thoroughness, proper correlation, and the avoidance of duplication. The central committee will be supplemented by field committees in each district exercising similar duties within the district. A series of publications dealing with the progress made in the various investigative projects, current data obtained at experiment stations, and the results of minor pieces

23165°-AGR 1911-27

of investigative work which do not merit separate publication will be issued as a means of stimulating interest in this branch of the work of the Service and of keeping the investigators in touch with one another's work.

The series of sample plots on areas cut over under timber sales will be extended as a means of conducting a continuous and comprehensive study of the results of various methods of cutting on reproduction, production of wood, and general forest conditions.

Cooperation with the States in fire protection will in all probability be materially extended. The most important feature of this work will be close study of the actual protective systems put in effect by the various States, both as a means of insuring efficiency in the results obtained from Federal assistance and to standardize and unify as far as may be desirable the protective systems adopted by the various States. The investigation of forest conditions in States desiring to cooperate with the Government in this work and the compilation of State forest laws will be continued.

The most important work confronting the Forest Service in furtherance of a more general and better application of forestry in the East is the standardization of silvicultural systems applicable to the principal forest types. The data already secured will make it possible to do this with little additional field work. A series of publications covering specific areas, by States or portions of States, and containing the standard silvicultural methods for the various types as developed by the best experience and information, will go far toward making expert information available without cost to the great mass of private owners in the Eastern States.