AUSTRALIAN RECOMMENDATIONS. The four corner stones of Australian Forestry development are :— (c) The establishment of an organisation. (d) The construction of a system. FORESTRY TRAINING. 1. There should be attached to each State Forest Service, for the purpose of staff training, a School of Forestry. 2. That School of Forestry should be neither a professional nor a trade institution like those of Europe, but a vocational one bearing the same relation to forestry and the timber industry that a School of Mines bears to mining and the mine industries. 3. Both a three (or four) years' undergraduate course for a junior staff in training, and a three months' short course for officers already employed should be provided. 4. An appropriate syllabus is suggested on pages 35-39 of this memoir. 5. The school should be so located as to be of ready access to the forest and its administrative headquarters, the timber industries' operations, a District Forestry Office, a railway, and a town. 6. The students should be selected carefully, and appointed on an apprenticeship basis, with board and residence, and a living allowance of, say, 10s. per week. 7. An appropriation of approximately £3,500 should be allotted to defray capital cost, with a like amount annually for upkeep. 8. The course should include work in the forest, experience in forest assessment camps, forest nurseries and experiment stations, demonstration forests, and forest offices. DEVELOPMENT OF FOREST SCIENCE. Education and research go hand in hand, and considerable advantages flow from the combination. The work of the Forestry School should be not alone instructive, but investigative and experimental also. In some measure, the school should be a clearing house for new ideas-analogous to some extent to the planning and training department of scientific management. Many problems must be solved before Australian forest practice can be established soundly. Due preparation and planning make for economy of administration in the long run. The field of forest research is very wide. The task should be commenced forthwith in a comprehensive way. 9. The important work of forest investigation might be centred with advantage at a Forestry School, which would be styled: "The State School of Forestry and Institute of Forest Research." Provided that— (a) The section relating to Forest Products might be allocated under suitable agreement to institutions such as the Technological Museum of Sydney, and Engineering Schools of Universities. (b) The section relating to Dendrology and Botany might be shared with State Botanists. (c) The work of silvical research should be divided amongst Experimental and Demonstration areas, Forest Nurseries and Forest Stations, and general forest investigations. 10. The State Forestry Museum might be attached to the Forest Institute. 11. The services and records of Forest Officers generally and of Forest Assessors particularly should be available to the Institute in the collection and compilation of data. 12. All specialist and investigative officers might be concentrated with advantage at the Forest Institute until such time as extension of departmental administration justifies the establishment of distinct specialising branches. 13. The research work undertaken at the Forest Institute should include the study of forest and timber industries and markets, with a view to developing improved methods and extended uses for native timbers, and furnishing advice and assistance generally to the public and the Forest Service in all its operations. 14. The research work should include also the systematic investigation of the forest pests, including white ants, borers, mantis, &c., with a view to reducing the tremendous losses due thereto. 15. The research work should include also the study and planning of administrative methods and the application of Scientific Management principles. 16. The functions of the Forest Institute might include the preparation of manuals, circulars, text-books, reviews, and measures of publicity. 17. Generally, the Forest Institute would be used by the Director of Forests as an agency wherewith to mould the new forestry. Therefore, it would come under his immediate control. ORGANISATION OF PERSONNEL. Personnel stock-taking is the first measure in organising an administration. It has been estimated that 75 per cent. of workers are in the wrong avocations. "The ideal for every employee is that he should be employed in that position which he is best fitted to fill, doing work which by natural aptitude, training, and experience, he is best qualified to do." 18. A preliminary measure should be vocational analysis under the Blackford Employment Plan, of each officer, present and prospective, of the Forest Service, with a view to the scientific determination of his especial bent, and his allotment to that line of projected duty in which he is best fitted to engage. Most of the confusion in the world is due to the incorrect placing of the individual. Utopia cannot arrive until the right man is in the right place, whether as leader or follower, .. and working under conditions of natural environment-tools, rates of pay, hours of labour, and periods of rest, superintendence and management, future prospects and education that will develop and make useful to himself and his employer his best and finest latent abilities and capacities." The militaristic and red-tape types of personnel control which involve the "mechanical enforcement of rigid rules," are provocative of antagonism and unrest, and cannot much longer survive the advance of the broader ideals of democracy. The aim should be to develop throughout the Forest Service an atmosphere of mutual trust and co-operative enthusiasm. Officers should be afforded generous encouragement and all opportunity to improve their capabilities of usefulness in the Departments. Credit, as well as blame, should be concentrated on the individual, and, within the broad limitations of policy, officers should be given every possible latitude in initiative and management. These things are of greater consequence to the average human being even than salary increments. There must be room for growth. 19. There should be a scientific study of the needs of the staff, leading to the development of a comprehensive system of credits, and the devising of a procedure calculated to produce a co-operative enthusiasm in work, and provide ample opportunity and encouragement. 20. As far as possible under the administrative policy, officers should be allotted individual spheres of initiative in which to work out their especial tasks and their own departmental destiny. This supreme human need cannot be overlooked. Personal distinction and pride in work constitute the strength of life. Specialists are always hobbyists. 21. Personnel control is a matter for scientists. I recommend the creation in the new Departments, of Personnel and System Bureaux on the lines of the Blackford Employment and Emerson Scientific Management Plans, to undertake the special work of vocational analysis, personnel employment and management, and the planning of systems. In any case, the vocational analysis of cadets and officers who pass through the schools should be undertaken, and, if necessary, the proposed bureaux could be planned at and launched from those institutions. 22. A system of detailing officers to the Forest Institute, District and Head Offices, and other districts should be worked out. Reading courses should also be allotted. 23. District and inter-district conferences should be held periodically— the latter at the Forest Institute. ORGANISATION OF ADMINISTRATION. The reconstitution and extension of the forest staff must be preliminary to the reconstitution and extension of the Forest Service. A business can develop only as far and as quickly as its personnel can carry it. Forest management by contract is impossible. The essential peg upon which to hang the execution of forest work is a resident forest staff. My proposals are 24. That the new position of resident overseer of a State Forest, analogous to that of District Ranger of the United States of America, be created; and that a forest overseer be appointed to each important State Forest, to take immediate charge of all operations thereon, from supervision of timbergetting and grazing to foremanship of forest improvement and fire protection crews. 25. That returned soldiers of suitable bent be given preference in such appointments. 26. That each appointee be given a short course of training at the Forest School before taking up duty. 27. That qualified forest officers be charged with the direct management of groups of State forests under the style of Forest Supervisors, and be given immediate control of the work of the forest overseers. 28. That each State be divided ultimately into forestry districts controlled by district foresters in accordance with the policy and general direction of the Director of Forestry. 29. That as the business of the Department grows sufficiently, the Director of Forests have the services of inspectors to assist him. As far as possible, decentralisation should be aimed at. 30. That the Forest Assessment staff be extended by the appointment of a party in each Forestry District. 31. That forest surveyors be appointed to carry out the secondary control survey work of the State. 32. That the nucleus of a branch of forest engineering be established, whose duty shall be to direct the work of forest survey (but not assessment), road-planning and building, quarters construction, water supply, &c., &c. 33. That similarly the nucleus be established of a Working Plans Branch, charged with the duty of timber sale, assessment, sylvicultural experiment, and working plans, &c. It would work in collaboration with the Forest Institute. 34. That a forest badge be designed and issued to and worn by Forest Officers as an emblem of their authority as such. ORGANISATION OF THE STATE FORESTS. Organisation of the State forests themselves must follow closely on the organisation of the administration. 35. The first measures must be the carrying-out of detailed and accurate topographic forest surveys, and the preparation of forest maps to form a Forest Atlas. 36. The State forests must be subdivided into convenient units of management and operation, and the timber estimates prepared in accordance with those subdivisions. 37. Administrative sites should be selected on each State forest for the establishment of Forest Stations. 38. Road and track systems must be planned, and construction proceeded with in order of urgency. All areas under operation should be made thoroughly accessible in order to cheapen transport and increase stumpage values. 39. Tanks, dams, bores, or other forms of water supply must be provided at Forest Stations and throughout the forests where required for purposes of effective administration and exploitation of the timber and forage resources. 40. Under the unavoidable conditions of bullock team logging of Australian forests, the provision of grass paddocks, &c., is of primary importance. Apart from reasons of necessity, the forest revenue may be increased considerably by the provision. |