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Abstract

RESEARCH work in matters pertaining to forestry science has received a great impetus as a result of the War. In the case of forestry in the British Empire, the reasons are more apparent perhaps than in that of Europe. The countries overseas had, during the great struggle, to be self-supporting in several directions where the raw products of the industries concerned came from the forest. The armies in the East and Middle-East were dependent upon the semi-tropical and tropical forests for the supplies required to carry on their operations. Timbers of many kinds were made use of which had not previously found a place upon the markets; and not timbers alone, for other forest produce became marketable on the grand scale, which had only previously been tapped in a tentative manner. That the importance of research work in forestry in the tropical and semi-tropical forest regions came to receive recognition is not therefore surprising. In Europe the need of research work was not so widely accepted before the War. Although scientific forest management had been practised for a long period in several of the European States, yet it was not before 1891 that some effective recognition of the importance of research work was given by the founding, at a meeting held at Badenweiler, of an international union or association termed the ‘International Union of Forest Research Stations.’