BY EDWARD I. KOTOK
ORGANIZED research in the United States on forestry and forest products was first undertaken by Federal Government agencies. Although today much research of this kind is conducted by universities, professional schools, business enterprises, and industrial organizations, the Federal program remains both largest in size and most comprehensive in scope. This article therefore considers primarily the activities of that program and particularly those of the Forest Service and its organizational setup.
The effective management and utilization of forests and ranges in the United States, as elsewhere, must rest upon a basis of scientific fact such as can be obtained and maintained only through continuous research. Forestry research by the Federal Government was first authorized by the United States Congress in 1876, with a small appropriation for forestry investigations by the Department of Agriculture. This was 15 years before the establishment of "forest reserves" from the public domain and 21 years before provision was made for protecting and utilizing these reserves, later called "national forests." Investigations were carried out during the ensuing 50 years on a small but gradually increasing scale in the fields of forest economics, dendrology and silviculture, forest products, forest influences,: forest fire control, forest insects and diseases, and range utilization and management.
By 1908 it had become recognized that in both forest administration and in forest research the natural forest regions, of which there are about a dozen in the U. S. A., would best serve as the unit of work. Thus, in 1908 six regional administrative offices were set up in the western United States and the first regional forest experiment station was established in the Southwest. This regional organization of forest research has, as later explained, continued and been expanded and refined. Chart 1 shows these major forest regions.
In 1910 another basic organization concept was formed and given effect in the establishment of the Forest Products Laboratory in co-operation with the University of Wisconsin at Madison. This, in contrast to forest experiment stations, attacked forest products research from the national rather than regional basis. This pattern, too, with some recent increase in detailed regional research, has continued in full effect.
By 1915 the growing importance of forget and forest products research resulted in the setting up of a Research Branch in the Forest Service, co-ordinate with the main units of administration at that time Forestry research received a major impetus about 20 years ago, when the United States Congress, after considering an exhaustive analysis prepared by a committee of the Society of American Foresters, passed the McSweeney-McNary Forest Research Act on 22 May 1928.
A co-ordinated Federal forest research program was authorized by the McSweeney-McNary Forest Research Act of 22 May 1928. This Act also established specific authorizations for appropriations for different lines of work over a 10-year period and authorized such additional sums as might thereafter be necessary. This authority is adequate to take care of the research program described in this article. The Act authorized the establishment of some 14 regional experiment stations within the continental United States, and one: each in Alaska, Hawaii, and the West Indies dependencies.
In 1938 the United States Congress, through a Joint Committee on Forestry, after an exhaustive study, again called attention to the fact that "From the forest-resource standpoint, America is in transition from a philosophy of exploitation to one of planning and applying sustained management and orderly utilization. The knowledge necessary to accomplish this transition is as varied and complex as are the forest conditions and their economic and social relations. Organized research is the surest, quickest, and most economical way of obtaining the necessary information. "
At the end of World War II, the U. S. Congress again asked for a fresh look at the situation and for the preparation of a national plan of research to serve as the backbone of the -forest and range program of the United States. The war had spectacularly demonstrated the importance of our dwindling supply of natural resources and the need for technical knowledge to ensure the production and utilization of adequate supplies of industrial forest materials. It had emphasized that much better management and more intensive efforts would be needed to provide forest raw materials sufficient for future needs and at the same time to meet immediate requirements and assist in building up a sound economy.
In response to this most recent Congressional request, a study of the forest situation in the United States was made and the current research program prepared. The present position and relation of research in the organization of the U. S. Forest Service are diagrammed in Chart 2. It is recognized that such a full program cannot be financed, organized, and staffed in a single year. Five years is about as far ahead as it is safe to make specific plans.
Badly denuded and eroded middle fork of Ford Canyon, Utah, a source of destructive flood waters.
Terracing and revegetation of such slopes as those shown above can prevent denudation and erosion.
Research has been organized not only on a regional basis, but on the basis of major problems. some of which are found in many of the natural forest regions and some of which are particularly acute in but one or a few regions. This has resulted in a high degree of organizational flexibility. The following typical examples of outstanding problems illustrate some of the highlights of this program.
Timber
Understocking on forest lands is the most general and critical forest problem. For the country as a whole, forest lands have less than half the stock of growing timber that they should have. Actual growth is far short of potential growth. In the South - one of the most highly productive regions of the United States - the average annual yield is less than 200 board feet per acre (2.2 m3 ® per hectare).1 Yet on the Crossett Experimental Forest in Arkansas, for example, the yield has been stepped up to 500 board feet per acre (5.6 m3 ® per ha.) and a yield of 700 board feet per acre (7.8 m3 ® per ha.) seems likely. At the same time, the stand has been more than doubled in volume and remarkably improved in quality. The forest lands of the United States could just as well be growing two trees where now there is only one.
1 In this article volumes of wood are expressed in cubic meters as follows: m3 ® = cubic meters of roundwood; m3 (s) cubic meters of sawn timber.
Diminishing supplies of virgin timber in the Pacific Northwest and the replacement of the virgin forests by second growth present new and entirely different problems of regeneration, protection, management, and utilization. The future of the lumber industry in this region may well rest upon the early solution of the problem of conversion from a virgin to a second-growth timber economy.
Cut-over and burned-over lands in the Lake States should be growing valuable timber trees instead of worthless brush. The main problems include the development of methods of successful planting and tending of the growing stands, and effective fire protection.
Low-grade and little-used species on millions of acres of woodlands in the East must be utilized or otherwise removed before real forest management can be practiced. In order to make a start toward reestablishment and management of high-grade forests in this region, profitable outlets must be found for this huge quantity of low-grade material. This presents one of the country's major problems of wood utilization.
Wood waste is another nation-wide utilization problem. For the country as a whole, a third of each tree cut is now left in the woods. An additional third is lost in processing. These appalling wastes can be reduced through devising and applying improved harvesting and transportation methods and new and improved mechanical and chemical conversion processes
Water
Decreasing supplies of water for industrial and domestic use are important and critical problems the country over. Location and expansion of many industries are dependent on water. Much of the civilization of the West is threatened by decreasing supplies of water for irrigation. At the same time, damages from floods and sedimentation are increasing. These problems are directly related to the treatment of watershed forests. Research must furnish the basis for upstream flood-control programs.
CHART 2 ORGANIZATION CHART FOREST SERVICE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Oct. 15, 1947
Range
Inadequate forage production on several hundred million acres of depleted range lands presents critical restoration problems of vital importance to the permanent welfare of the West. Such lands are subject to severe erosion and damaging floods. The once good grass of earlier days is largely gone. Frequently, 100 acres (40.5 ha.) are required to support one cow through a grazing season. Grazing capacity of these lands can be stepped up from five to ten times through development of improved management and more economical reseeding methods.
Fire
Fires on forest and range lands every year destroy valuable timber and forage and reduce the timber-producing, forage-producing, and water-holding capacity of the land, although much progress in controlling such fires has been made in the last 40 years. The problem of control and prevention of fire is a major element in most of the other problems mentioned above.
The general objective of the proposed research pro gram is to discover and develop solutions to all of these problems.
It is obviously a direct public responsibility to provide a factual basis for more effective management of the millions of acres of public lands. About one-fourth of the forest lands, nearly two-fifths of the timber of the United States, and about a third of the range lands, are now under Federal ownership. This was in fact the orientation of earlier research programs at the regional stations, but it shortly became evident that the Federal Government cannot disregard the national interests in the use of the essentially similar private forest and range lands. Well-managed forests and ranges provide employment, public income, self-supporting communities, watershed protection, inexpensive recreation. and other benefits. This is of particular significance in rural areas.
Some 3,200,000 farmers own forest land and there are some one million owners of commercial nonfarm forest land. Three-fourths of private forests are in ownership of less than 5,000 acres (2,000 ha.). More than 20,000 medium-sized and large establishments manufacture forest products, and even larger numbers of smaller enterprises engage in sawing lumber and in harvesting and processing other forest products. Because of this diversified character of forest ownership and industry, improvements in forest practice, as in other agricultural operations, must depend largely upon institutionalized research. Public research is the most economical, practical, and effective means of providing the information needed for management of such private lands.
Research on public forests and ranges can readily be supplemented and adapted to meet the problems of private ownership. Local research and application of results on a comprehensive, balanced basis for all parts of the country can be accomplished most effectively through co-operation with State and private agencies. The Forest Service has formal co-operative research agreements with practically every State and Federal agency interested in forestry and with many private agencies and individuals. Through such joint action between the Forest Service and other forestry groups, research can be co-ordinated and efforts concentrated in such a way as to meet the most vital forest problems effectively.
This adaptation of Forest Service research to the needs of various classes of forest owners and forest products users and processors, and the co-ordination of Forest Service research with that of other agencies, is furthered by the device of forest research advisory councils or boards. These boards usually consist of representatives of interested public and private agencies, such as State forest services, agricultural colleges and extension services, forestry schools, consulting foresters, forest owners, forest industries, and industries consuming forest products. They advise and assist in the formulation of research programs of the regional forest and range experiment stations.
Further co-ordination of forestry research with the administration and management of the public forests is assured by the close contact maintained between the research and the national-forest administration branches of the Forest Service. An annual research program conference for each regional station further ensures attention to administrative needs. This relationship helps to orient the research program toward the needs of the forest administrators and managers, and also tends to induce the early application of research findings to the national forest lands.
Because of the general interlocking interests that exist in the management and utilization of timber, range, and water resources, a co-ordinated research program obviously is necessary. Forests and range serve multiple purposes. If forestry is to be successful - if millions of acres of land are to be most profitably employed for timber and forage crops - if wood, a basic resource, is to be provided in abundance for use in countless products - then the plans must recognize the essential unity of biological and economic problems of timber, range, and water management and utilization.
The forest is a complex biological unit, in which soil, water, microscopic and macroscopic flora and fauna, microclimate, and trees all interact, so that change or disturbance of one affects all of the others. Likewise, wood is a complex material, with closely interrelated but exceedingly variable physical, chemical, structural, mechanical, and working properties, all of which are influenced by the silvicultural conditions under which the trees grow.
These are the reasons for the modern concept of co-ordinated or group attack on major forestry research problems by specialists in several fields. For example, plant physiologists, soil scientists, entomologists, and pathologists in other bureaus of the Department of Agriculture and in universities and other agencies commonly co-operate closely with the silvicultural specialists at the forest experiment stations.
Shortly after control over the national forests was assigned to the Forest Service, their administration, which had been centralized at Washington, was decentralized by shifting it largely (except for over-all control and policy formulation) to local regional offices, closer to the forests and to the people who use them. Originally there were six of these regions. Now there are eleven, including Alaska and Puerto Rico.
The organization of forest service research has followed much the same pattern. For some years after the national forest regional offices were established, research work was directly under their control. Later, the experiment stations were made independent of the regional offices, but they have continued to maintain close contact with them. Although they are subject to over-all control from Washington, they have a large degree of responsibility for planning and carrying out research programs.
Now the research is conducted within the framework of regional forest and range experiment stations and a forest products laboratory. Twelve such regional experiment stations are now in operation: Allegheny, Appalachian, California, Central States, Intermountain, Lake States, Northern Rocky Mountain, Pacific Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Southern, Southwestern, and the Tropical with headquarters in Puerto Rico. The program provides for two additional regional stations, one in Alaska and the other in the Great Plains, making a total of fourteen.
The relationship of these stations to the major forest associations of the nation are shown in the following analysis. The large number of such associations is indicative of the reasons for regionalization of forest research work.
Testing the strength of a glued laminated wood arch at the U. S. Forest Products Laboratory.
REGIONAL ANALYSIS OF FOREST SPECIES
|
Region |
Key Forest Associations |
Number of Species of Considerable Commercial Importance |
|
Northeastern |
Spruce-fir (Picea-Abies) |
2 |
|
|
White pine (Pinus strobus) |
2 |
|
|
Birch -beech-maple-hemlock (Betula-Fagus-Acer-Tsuga) |
4 |
|
|
Chestnut-chestnut oak-yellow poplar (Castanea-Quercus-Lirio-dendron) |
11 |
|
|
Oak-pine (Quercus-Pinus) |
5 |
|
Southeastern |
Oak-pine |
14 |
|
|
Longleaf-loblolly--slash pines (Pinus palustris-P. echinata-P. caribaea) |
4 |
|
|
Chestnut-chestnut oak-yellow poplar |
19 |
|
Lake States |
Spruce-fir |
4 |
|
|
Jack-red-white pines (Pinus banksiana-P. resinosa-P. strobus) |
3 |
|
|
Birch-beech-maple-hemlock |
5 |
|
Central States |
Oak-hickory (Quercus-Carya) |
25 |
|
Southern States |
Longleaf-loblolly-slash pines |
4 |
|
|
Oak-pine |
11 |
|
|
Cypress-tupelo-sweetgum (Taxodium-Nyssa-Liquidambar) |
19 |
|
Northern Rocky Mountain |
Western white pine (Pinus monticola) |
3 |
|
|
Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) |
3 |
|
|
Spruce-fir |
4 |
|
|
Lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) |
1 |
|
Rocky Mountain |
Spruce fir |
4 |
|
|
Lodgepole pine |
1 |
|
|
Ponderosa pine |
1 |
|
|
Aspen (Populus) |
1 |
|
Intermountain |
Ponderosa pine |
1 |
|
|
Spruce-fir |
4 |
|
|
Piñon-juniper (Pinus - Juniperus) |
3 |
|
|
Aspen |
1 |
|
Southwestern |
Ponderosa pine |
2 |
|
|
Piñon-juniper |
4 |
|
Pacific Northwest |
Pacific Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga) |
5 |
|
|
Ponderosa pine |
3 |
|
California |
Ponderosa-sugar pines (Pinus ponderosa-P. lambertiana) |
7 |
|
|
Redwood (Sequoia) |
1 |
|
Alaska |
Spruce fir |
4 |
|
|
Birch-poplar-spruce (Betula-Populus-Picea) |
3 |
The Forest Products Laboratory is at Madison, Wisconsin. The major part of research in forest, range. and watershed management is conducted in the woods and on the ranges. Experience has demonstrated that widely scattered experimental plots, even on national forests or other public lands, cannot be satisfactorily administered, protected, or utilized for intensive and long-time research. Therefore, in order to provide suitable field laboratories, there have been set aside from existing national forests and other Federal lands, permanent areas for such experimentation in each experiment station region. The schematic organization of regional stations and experimental forests is shown in Chart 3.
CHART 3 FOREST SERVICE RESEARCH CENTERS AND FIELD STATIONS JULY 1, 1942
Timber, Water, and Range Research
As this research program is developed, the territory of the existing regional stations is zoned into a series of areas of perhaps 10 million acres (4 million ha.), each constituting distinctive conditions with respect to forest or other vegetation types, soils, and general land and water management problems. These areas are designed as nearly as possible to fit natural geographic and economic lines. Some 56 such research areas have been established to date. The plan calls for about 30 more. Within each of these are located one or more experimental units representative of important conditions. Upon these experimental forests or ranges, intensive experiments in timber, forage, and water production and management are conducted and new and better methods tested and demonstrated on a scale representative of the small holdings characteristic of most forest and range ownership.
These experimental units provide a place where farm foresters, engineers, extension specialists, forest and range land owners, and all others concerned can come and see good forest, range, and water management and get accurate and specific information on how it is done. Some of these experimental forests and ranges are already functioning and producing valuable results. The program calls for the further development of these and additional units in a planned and orderly fashion.
At some convenient headquarters point, normally at or near one of the experimental forests or ranges, are located a small group of skilled research men with the necessary assistants. These men not only operate the experimental areas but also conduct research elsewhere within the zone tributary to the work center, if it is necessary to meet its research needs. The experimental forests and ranges are thus a distinctive and essential feature of the program, but research effort is by no means restricted to their boundaries. As used here the term experimental forest, watershed, or range includes not only work done on the specific forest, watershed, or range but supplemental research done elsewhere in the general zone. This plan makes it possible to meet the needs of local practice and yet: work collectively toward the solution of regional and national problems.
Wood Utilization Research
The research program on utilization includes studies at the Forest Products Laboratory. In this field there is a three-fold opportunity to meet pressing economic needs: (1) the opportunity to use more of the material not now utilized - 4,000 million cubic feet (110 million m3 ®) of wood and mill waste and 1,500 million cubic feet (42 million m3 ®) of timber killed by destructive agencies out of our 13,000 million cubic feet (370 million m3 ®) total annual timber drain. and defective trees that are left in the woods; (2) the opportunity to convert to useful goods, at a profit, those trees from the forest stand when good management dictates their removal; (3) the opportunity to obtain for the consumer better performance of commodities made from wood, at a lower cost. To these ends the program of wood utilization research includes: improved and extended chemical utilization, the utilization of low-grade and little-used woods; the application to peacetime use of natural and modified wood products developed for war purposes; and continued improvements in such broad fields as structural performance, seasoning, preserving, painting, gluing, and pulping. Pilot plants are operated to overcome the serious time lag that all too frequently occurs between the discovery of a new product or process by forest products research and its industrial application. The program also includes forest utilization units at: the forest experiment stations to provide greater benefits from utilization research to timber growers, forest products processors, and consumers.
Resource Surveys
Fundamental to the development of programs for better forest management and utilization is an adequate knowledge of forest resources. Data on standing timber supply, rates of timber growth and drain, and wood requirements are provided by a national survey of forest resources, set up by a specific appropriation in 1930. In a country as large as the United States, a detailed survey of all forests, property by property or unit by unit of management, obviously would be impractical at the present stage of development and would fail to meet the need for speed in obtaining comparable knowledge for each natural forest region and for the entire country. Consequently, the survey has been based mainly on sampling methods, similar to the strip surveys employed in the Scandinavian countries. Within the last few years, advantage has been taken of the great advances that have been made in aerial surveying technique. Since only about half of the United States has been covered by the forest survey to date, provision is made in this. plan for accelerated efforts to complete the survey as rapidly as possible and to bring information up to date on areas already covered. This will provide basic economic data useful to both public agencies and to private forest owners and industries.
Other economic studies of forest resources are designed to determine better means of organizing and financing forest properties, justifiable public and private expenditures on forest and range lands commensurate with returns, more effective methods of marketing forest products, and possibilities of expanded and permanent forest employment. Such investigations are of direct aid in determining measures and policies whereby maximum returns may be obtained from different uses of the forests.
The principal features of the organization of research in the U. S. Forest Service are:
1. a forest and range experiment station in each of the natural forest regions, set up to attack the problems of forest, range, and watershed of that region;2. widespread co-operative relations with other agencies and institutions in each region, designed to provide the most fully integrated and expert attack;
3. systematic consultation with administrative users of research to discuss needs and programs and to make research results rapidly and fully available;
4. a problem analysis, both regional and national, periodically brought up to date;
5. a system of research centers in each region through which application of methods to local conditions can be worked out, in addition to serving as centers for primary research and as demonstration areas;
6. a central Forest Products Laboratory with regional wood utilization units, which deal with special regional aspects;
7. planning and direction of a nation-wide forest survey, including development and application of inventory and sampling methods; and
8. central office co-ordination of programs and maintenance of technical standards, but with a high degree of regional autonomy in selection and development of research projects.
Photographs and charts for this article were provided by courtesy of the U. S. Forest Service.
