PROMINENT FORESTERS VISIT HARVARD FOREST

According to The Nature Magazine for July, 1927, "The Harvard Forest at Petersham is a perfect forest laboratory, the most interesting in the United States."

This quotation comes from the annual report to President Lowell for the year 1926-27, of R. T. Fisher, director of the Forest. "That it may not be unduly extravagent one is encouraged to believe from the number and quality of the visitors who resort to the forest," he continues. "During the present year the Forest has been shown to more than 150 men, most of them scientific or professional, who came to Petersham to study the demonstrations of forestry in practice or the methods of research. Among them were the chief of the U. S. Forest Service with a party of supervisors of Eastery national forests, the State Forester's Association, numbering 60 men from 20 states, the director of the Forest Experiment Station of Sweden, together with a number of American forest research men who came to Petersham to meet him, and foresters from Finland. Germany, Denmark, Canada, and Japan.

"The character of the students who come to the Forest for advanced work or research is also significant. Of the five who are registered for 1927-28, all are men from established positions in state or federal service, two from experiment stations and three from executive or extension departments. These five represent as many schools of forestry: California, Minnesota, Pennsylvania State, Syracuse, and Maine. At the last Commencement seven degrees were given, six masters in forestry and one doctor of science. These men also were from widely scattered localities and were in general capable of doing productive advance work. . . ."

One "project which has been completed during the past year is the survey of the wooden box industry of New England, which was conducted at the request of the New England Council. The data gathered in this investigation were summarized and analyzed by the Harvard Bureau of Business Research. The report has been presented by the Council to representatives of the industry and will probably form the basis of important reorganizations.

"In respect to physical equipment, the Forest has received from a number of landowners in Petersham a gift of a portable gasoline pumping engine with nearly a mile of hose. This will facilitate the control of possible forest fires and may prove helpful in the protection of our buildings