activities to those of an educational and protective nature, and shape their legislation accordingly, so as to provide for

(1) A State forestry department,

(2) A State Forester,

(3) An educational campaign, including assistance to private owners in the reforestation and management of their forest lands, and

(4) A system for the prevention and suppression of forest fires.

THE ORGANIZATION OF STATE FORESTRY
DEPARTMENTS AND FIRE PREVENTIVE
SYSTEMS

By PAGE S. BUNKER

STATE FORESTER OF ALABAMA

Organization presupposes varied and specific functions. Thus the organization of a State Forestry Department must be based upon the particular duties with which the department is charged. These duties, of course, are those directly stated in the organic act creating the department and those which by reasonable inference are corollary to the explicit provisions.

To assume a typical case, we may consider that the organic law directs the Forestry Department to:

(1) Investigate forest conditions in the State with reference to all matters pertaining to forestry.

(2) Promote among all classes of the population a proper appreciation of the benefits to be derived from the practice of forestry.

(3) Take such measures as may be reasonable and practicable to protect the forests against fire and other harmful natural agencies.

(4) Afford private owners, as may be practicable, information, advice, demonstration, assistance and coöperation.

(5) Have sole charge of the State's public forestry interests.

(6) Employ a State Forester who shall be the executive officer of the Department, charged with carrying the provisions of the act into effect.

(7) Perform such other duties as may be imposed upon it by law.

The form of the organization, then, must be such as will most readily lend itself to carrying out the stated duties.

If the entire direction is placed in the hands of a single person, the further organization of the department can proceed expeditiously and exactly in accordance with the exigencies of the service as viewed by such officer. On the other hand, in most cases it appears that there are many matters affecting the development of forestry work in the State that hardly lie within. purview of any one person, and are best represented through the aggregate familiarity with local conditions of a board or commission which may direct the broad policies of the department. To afford continuity or adaptive transition of the State's forestry policy, the members of such a commission should have overlapping terms of office so that changes in its personnel should be infrequent and only partial at any one time. To avoid cumbersomeness the membership should not be numerically great, five to nine members usually proving most efficient.

It is perhaps needless to say that the members of the Commission should be selected with primary view to their ability to assist in the development of a sound forestry policy, but the authority by which they are appointed should not be restricted in its choice to individuals selected or recommended by particular persons or organizations. If the appointing authority is the Governor, under every proper theory of statehood the chief executive should have freedom of action in impressing his individual policies upon the administration of public affairs during his term of office.

In general, we may say that with the exception of the Governor, and possibly the Lieutenant-Governor, there should be no ex officio members of the Commission. In most of the southern States public forestry is of sufficient economic and civic importance to be given full departmental grade on a par with the other recognized departments of the State. To include on the Commission the executive officer of another department tends in a certain degree to subordinate the Forestry Department to that administered by such ex officio member. Still less should an employee of another department be elevated to

membership on the directing Commission of the Forestry Department.

The executive officer of the Commission necessarily must be a professional forester with considerable experience and proven ability in the lines of work indicated above. In addition to this, he should have the faculty of organizing and administering public activities. In view of the importance of records in connection with the work, the State Forester should also serve as Secretary of the Commission.

We may also assume that with reference to each of the duties and powers of the Forestry Department the law has used fairly general terms. This, of course, will permit the more detailed organization to adapt itself to the developments of the work as they occur. It is readily apparent that the specific procedures followed in one State may be inapplicable in another, and it would be a serious error to prescribe a uniform treatment for the problems of all of the States.

The creation of a Commission of Forestry and the employment of a State Forester in conformity with the general procedure indicated in the foregoing are the first steps in organization. The next step is fact finding. Before aggressive work can be scheduled it is necessary to ascertain the forestry needs of the State, the general and local conditions under which measures must be applied, the present and prospective facilities for the application of such measures, the sentiment of the local communities, the geography of the State, the character of the channels by which the public is most effectively reached, the principal components of the fire hazard and its relative intensity both geographical and temporal, principal forest types, the traditions, history and civic conditions of the various sections of the State and numerous other factors of great importance in determining the extent and character of the procedures that may prove feasible in the development of public forestry work. Fact finding along these and similar lines is so important that I place it before all other activities of the department. Any procedure based upon inadequate ascertainment of facts is obviously more or less haphazard in character and more than likely to defeat its own object.

With a working knowledge of local conditions the department may then proceed to divide the work to better carry out the intent of the law. It is at this stage that we must be careful not to commit the error of over specialization. To the inexperienced organizer a ramified system of allocated functions may appear attractive. As students we used to admire the diagrams showing the different departments, branches and offices, with their corresponding interrelations, of a large industrial concern, a railroad circus and an army corps. When we reflect, however, that it would be fatal for a country store to copy Wanamaker methods or for a rural blacksmith shop to adopt the Taylor system, we can readily see that over-organization may have a disastrous effect.

Both in human affairs and in nature, efficient organization has been a matter of development. We may safely follow this rule in the inauguration of State forestry work. Thus in a newly created department we may conceive that the division of labor will be somewhat informal. Later, with the increased demands upon the department there will develop a natural differentiation of functions. Even at this stage, however, a safe rule is to require each professional member of the department not only to know as much as possible regarding his particular duties, but also to know enough about his fellow foresters' work to help out in time of need. This is parallel, within the field of forestry, to the old saw that it is well to know everything of something and something of everything.

After a reasonable amount of preliminary publicity and educational work, State forestry must be carried into the woods. We have spoken of work on the basis of kind. We now have to consider it on the basis of place. The same locality is often in need of various kinds of forestry work. The same landowner may require both assistance and instruction in fire protection, planting and management.

Shall all of these functions be performed by one local forestry employee or by several? Or shall part of them be performed by a local man and others by visiting specialists? Obviously it is to the landowner's interest to encounter no confusion in his relations with the State in connection with his forestry interests. A single local forester may appear the

logical solution of such questions. Under present conditions, however, it is very exceptional that persons trained in forestry can be found in many of the local communities. This raises the question as to whether the local man shall be selected from the residents of the community or assigned to the locality from elsewhere. In the South, it may be regarded as a rule that as much of the local work as possible should be done by men selected from among the local residents. This is particularly true in the case of fire protection. The reasons for this are

obvious and need not be detailed here.

Local employees will rarely have an advance knowledge of forestry methods in any line. Assuming that they possess good native qualities and a common school education, the next step in the organization of the field service is the instruction, training and development of these men in the simple elements of fire protection, mensuration and utilization. Other phases of elementary forestry should be placed before them as time and opportunity permit.

The development of the local field force ranks next in importance to the fact finding work that I have referred to. In fact, the latter can hardly proceed independently of the former, since the State Forester must depend to a very great extent for his facts upon the reports of the field force. If the members of the latter have not a clear conception of the meaning of an acre, a thousand feet B.M. and other elementary units of computation, their reports as to area and damage covered by forest fires will be valueless. Other considerations of this sort will readily occur to all of us.

By local employees I mean the men in direct contact with the woods and the local public; in other words the man who actually fights the fires, visits the rural schools and is directly responsible for the condition of a certain specified territory, having no paid employees serving under him at any time. In other words, he is the actual point of contact between the State's forestry policy and the forest. Next to the State Forester himself this man is the most important member of the organization, and no pains are too great to spend upon his selection and development.