© 1952 by Institute of Chartered Foresters
THE PROGRESS OF TECHNICAL FORESTRY IN BRITAIN 1926–1951
The object of the Society and the position of forestry in Great Britain when the Society was founded 25 years ago are given. The entry into the field of large numbers of university-trained men, whose first task was to extend the forest area of the country, was the essentially new development of the post-1914–18 war period and gains in the technical field have been mainly in the solution of problems arising from large-scale afforestation of state forests. The paper considers briefly the progress made here and goes on to discuss the further problems of natural regeneration, irregular structure of forest crops, pure and mixed woodlands, and three urgent problems of today: the restocking of unprofitable woodland, the introduction of broad-leaved species into the new coniferous plantations, and the problem of tending and its bearing on increment, on timber quality, on markets, and on soil development. We have been slow in applying genetics to forestry but progress should now be rapid. Increased mechanization is necessary in the face of rising labour costs. Finally, if we are to make the best use of our resources both of nature and of man-power, economic considerations must be applied more intensively to the whole range of forestry problems.