NG 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