DEPAR TMENT OF AGRICULT URE

United States 

Department of 

Agriculture

Forest Service

Pacific Southwest 

Research Station

General Technical 

Report

PSW-GTR-233

April 2013

The Search for Forest Facts: 

A History of the Pacific Southwest 

Forest and Range Experiment 

Station, 1926–2000

Anthony Godfrey
The Forest Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is dedicated to the principle of multiple use management of the Nation’s forest resources for sustained yields of wood, water, 

forage, wildlife, and recreation. Through forestry research, cooperation with the States and 

private forest owners, and management of the national forests and national grasslands, it 

strives—as directed by Congress—to provide increasingly greater service to a growing Nation.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and 

activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, status as a parent (in education and training programs 

and activities), because all or part of an individual’s income is derived from any public assistance program, or retaliation. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs or activities).

If you require this information in alternative format (Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.), contact the USDA’s TARGET Center at (202) 720-2600 (Voice or TDD).

If you require information about this program, activity, or facility in a language other than English, contact the agency office responsible for the program or activity, or any USDA office.

To file a complaint alleging discrimination, write USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 

Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20250-9410, or call toll free, (866) 632-9992 

(Voice). TDD users can contact USDA through local relay or the Federal relay at (800) 877-

8339 (TDD) or (866) 377-8642 (relay voice users). You may use USDA Program Discrimination Complaint Forms AD-3027 or AD-3027s (Spanish) which can be found at: http://www.

ascr.usda.gov/complaint_filing_cust.html or upon request from a local Forest Service office. 

USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.

Author

Anthony Godfrey is president, U.S. West Research, Inc., 2395 Fisher Lane, 

Salt Lake City, UT 84109. U.S. West Research, Inc. a public history and cultural 

resource management firm. 

Pesticide Precautionary Statement

This publication reports research involving pesticides. It does not contain recommendations for their use, nor does it imply that the uses discussed here have been 

registered. All uses of pesticides must be registered by appropriate state or federal 

agencies, or both, before they can be recommended.

CAUTION: Pesticides can be injurious to humans, domestic animals, desirable 

plants, and fish or other wildlife—if they are not applied properly. Use all pesticides 

selectively and carefully. Follow recommended practices for the disposal of surplus 

pesticides and pesticide containers.

Cover: 1914. John M. Miller (on right), pioneer in Western forest entomology and 

bark beetle control projects with USDA Forest Service. Credit: U.S. Forest Service, 

Pacific Southwest Research Station.
i

Abstract

Godfrey, Anthony. 2013. The search for forest facts: a history of the Pacific 

Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000. Gen. Tech. Rep. 

PSW-GTR-233. Albany CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, 

Pacific Southwest Research Station. 542 p.

In 1926, the California Forest Experiment Station, which later became the Pacific 

Southwest (PSW) Research Station, was established at the University of California, Berkeley. Today, the PSW Research Station represents the research and 

development branch of the USDA Forest Service in California and Hawaii and the 

U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands. The PSW Research Station develops and delivers 

science-based information, technologies, and applications to help people make 

informed decisions about natural resource management, conservation, and environmental protection. This comprehensive history covers forestry science in California, 

Hawaii, and the Pacific Islands by the Forest Service prior to 1926 and then that 

of the PSW Research Station to 2000. The growth of forestry research in America 

and California is described. The publication considers forest research in context of 

the New Deal, World War II, environmental forestry, and ecosystem research in 

California and Hawaii.

Keywords: Forestry, science, history, California, Hawaii, research.
ii

Acknowledgments

As with any project of this scale, there are countless people and institutions to thank 

for their contributions. 

First and foremost, I would like to thank Pacific Southwest (PSW) Research 

Station Communications Staff Marilyn Hartley (retired) and Keiko Williams who 

patiently served as the designated Contracting Officer Representatives (CORs) for 

this project. In late 2005, as I sat in a tiny windowless backroom at the PSW headquarters in Albany, California, pouring through catalogued and neatly boxed up 

historical documents and photographs stored in anticipation of my arrival, Marilyn 

Hartley, along with visual information specialist Martha Shibata, worked closely 

with me and provided daily kindness and encouragement during the project’s initial 

research stage. In 2006, Keiko Williams picked up responsibility for the project and 

thereafter carried it diligently through until publication. During this time period, 

Lynn Sullivan, editor for the Pacific Northwest Research Station, Portland, Oregon, 

made the necessary formatting and editorial changes to meet Forest Service scientific publication requirements. While the manuscript underwent these revisions, Ms. 

Williams, along with Beth Purcille at PSW headquarters, conducted the tedious, but 

very necessary, clerical work involved, such as tracking down literature citations 

and locating and selecting historic photographs for the manuscript. Additionally, I 

am greatful to James R. Sedell for initiating the undertaking before his retirement, 

as Station Director of PSW Research Station.

There are also my debts to various institutions and repositories for their assistance. For instance, I am indebted to Irene Voit, technical information specialist for 

the Rocky Mountain Research Station Library, Ogden, Utah, for providing valuable 

Forest Service publications and photocopying services. I am also appreciative for 

the aid and hospitality of Director Richard Boyden of the National Archives and 

Records Administration at San Bruno, California, as well as his staff, for working 

with me to locate critical material in the holdings of Record Group 95 (Records of 

the Forest Service).

Once a substantial draft was completed, the Forest Service solicited three peer 

reviewers for the project. They included James Lewis, staff historian for the Forest 

History Society, Durham, North Carolina, and author of The Forest Service and 

the Greatest Good: A Centennial History (2005), retired assistant director of the 

PSW Research Station Enoch F. Bell, and former natural resource economist with 

the USDA Forest Service Daina Dravnieks Apple. James Lewis and Enoch Bell 

provided astute, knowledgeable, and comprehensive commentary on the manuscript 
iii

along with detailed edits, while Apple offered new information on Management 

Sciences Staff (MaSS), the internal think tank for the Chief’s office that was part 

of PSW from 1962 to 1988.

Others to whom I owe particular recognition for aid in preparing this book are 

my long-time colleague and friend Roy Webb at the University of Utah Marriott 

Library for his usual stylistic admonitions, and the staff of U.S. West Research, Inc. 

in Salt Lake City for the long hours they put into this project, especially Woody 

“the dog” Mogelthorpe. Finally, I want to extend my gratitude and love to Deborah 

L. Gardner, my wife. Although she had no active part in the production of the book, 

her caring support and sacrifices were indispensable during the final stages of this 

project.

Anthony Godfrey, Ph.D.

U.S. West Research, Inc.

Salt Lake City, Utah

July 2010
iv

CONTENTS

1 Introduction

5 Chapter 1: 1785–1904, Growth of Forestry Research in America and 

 California

41 Chapter 2: 1905–1925, Forest Service Research in California

105 Chapter 3: 1926–1932, Forestry Research Comes of Age in California

167 Chapter 4: 1933–1941, A New Deal for Forest Service Research 

 in California

235 Chapter 5: 1941–1945, Off to War

257 Chapter 6: 1946–1962, Golden State of Research

323 Chapter 7: 1963–1979, Environmental Forestry Research

379 Chapter 8: 1980–1994, Ecosystem Research

433 Chapter 9: 1995–2000, Epilogue

443 Scientific and Common Names

446 References

507 Index of People

520 Index of Subjects
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Introduction

The history of the Pacific Southwest (PSW) Research Station nominally began on 

July 1, 1926, when the California Forest Experiment Station was dedicated. On that 

day, it occupied a modest four rooms in Hilgard Hall on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. For the next 33 years, the California campus would be 

its home. But the Station’s roots stretch back in time more than a century when the 

seed of forestry science first blew ashore from Europe and found fertile ground in 

America. 

Chapters 1 and 2 recount the significant national and California events that led 

in 1926 to the founding of the California Forest Experiment Station. Intertwined 

within their pages are the key scientific ideas, principles, and people who appreciably contributed to the growth of forestry science within the branches of federal and 

California state government from the late 18th and early 19th century to 1926.

From that point, chapters 3 through 5 carry the story from 1926 to the end of 

World War II. These chapters discuss the coming of age of forestry research at the 

California Forest Experiment Station as it transformed in 1932 into the California 

Forest and Range Experiment Station (CFRES). The passage of the McSweeneyMcNary Research Act (1928) helped fund, focus, and direct CFRES research 

projects along six lines, or functional divisions, of research: forest management, 

utilization of wood and other forest products, forest protection, forest influences, 

range research, and forest economics. By 1932, CFRES personnel had grown to 

26 permanent staff, along with many clerks and cooperating personnel from other 

U.S. Department of Agriculture agencies. Additionally at that time, CFRES drew 

upon University of California students, or other short-term assistants to meet the 

station’s research demands. During the remainder of the 1930s, the station continued to grow as it took advantage of the labor and funding provided by Franklin 

Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, like the Civilian Conservation Corps, 

Public Works Administration, and Works Progress Administration. At this time, 

CRFES also increased its forestry research program into genetics—a seventh line 

of research—when in 1935 it acquired the Institute of Forest Genetics, a private 

research institution located at Placerville, California. The station also acquired 

several new experimental forests and ranges in California for various research purposes during the New Deal years, such as the Blacks Mountain (1934), San Dimas 

(1934), and Redwood (1940) Experimental Forests, and the Burgess Spring (1935) 

Experimental Range. By 1939 and the approach of world war, CFRES had the 

personnel, funding, facilities, and experimental forests and ranges to match most 

of its research needs. However, during World War II, the CRFES research program 

diverted resources to the war effort, and retrenchment nibbled the station’s domestic 

research program to the bone.
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

From 1946 to 1962, a postwar boom in California energized CFRES, and it 

eventually regained its former investigative abilities and capacities. By the early 

1960s, the station entered into a “golden state” of research. As described in chapter 

6, CFRES broke away from traditional ways of doing things through an administrative reorganization that moved the government agency off the University of 

California campus. At the same time, CFRES sought and acquired significant 

contributions of cooperative funding. In the 1950s, fundamental forestry knowledge took a back seat as the Forest Service sought to solve intensive management 

problems through applied science. Additionally, by 1959, as a consequence of the 

administrative boundary of the station being extended to Hawaii, the station was 

renamed the Pacific Southwest Forest Research Station. The PSW Research Station 

had by this time a corps of more than 100 research specialists who had acquired 

their scientific skills from the country’s finest universities—including the University of California. In addition to the station’s six experimental forests (Blacks 

Mountain, Yurok, Swain Mountain, Challenge, Stanislaus, and San Dimas), there 

were four experimental ranges (Burgess Springs, Harvey Valley, San Joaquin, and 

Teakettle Creek), three insect laboratories (Hat Creek, Miami, and Orleans), a fire 

laboratory (Pilgrim Creek), two experimental watershed research areas (Sagehen 

and Big Creek), and the Institute of Forest Genetics. However, while station scientists busied themselves in their research and field laboratories trying to meet 

California and Hawaii’s practical forestry research needs, national research shifted 

direction toward university-based forestry that pertained to the public’s growing 

environmental awareness following the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring 

(1962).

During the years 1963 to 1979, as told in chapter 7, the PSW Research Station 

eventually fell in line with the nascent environmental movement, but first had 

to undergo critical administrative changes. The PSW scientists were given more 

opportunity to pursue their interests, and the station improved communication 

between research scientists and the people who used the station’s research results 

with articles in Forestry Research: What’s New in the West. They now worked in 

research work units (RWUs) instead of the old functional divisions of a long-term 

national research program, whereby individual RWU project leaders decided 

independently what aspects of the research to prioritize. At the same time, equal 

employment opportunity issues arose, and station directors were confronted with 

calls for an employee union, followed by charges of discrimination against minorities and women in hiring and promotion—particularly the class action lawsuit 

Gene Bernardi et al. v. Earl Butz. Despite management reform issues, station 

investigations pursued critical research in the environmental era in several ways. 
3

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Interdisciplinary RWUs investigated forest insect control strategies that did not use 

toxic insecticides that disrupted biological systems. Other RWUs investigated the 

effect of air pollution on California’s forests, while yet other PSW scientists studied 

water management and snowpack density in the Sierra Mountains and the ability 

to provide adequate supplies to dependent urban areas below. Fire research was 

as complex as watershed research. Projects such as FIRESCOPE improved communication between agencies fighting fires and developed fire management plans 

for the wild lands of southern California. Recreation and urban forestry were also 

new research assignments for the PSW Research Station. Finally, forestry research 

at PSW included environmental studies in Hawaii, Guam, and elsewhere in the 

Pacific Islands. They studied how fires, insects, diseases, feral animals, and aggressive noxious and exotic plants damaged native forests. All the above research work 

was conducted alongside continued research in more traditional areas in California, 

such as pine and redwood management, genetics, range management, and similar 

research pursuits. By 1979, the PSW Forest and Range Experiment Station had 

reached the apex of its growth as an institution. The station’s investigations during 

the environmental era from 1963 to 1979 continued to reflect an applied science 

philosophical preference.

Starting a year later, faced with high inflation, even higher interest rates and 

other economic problems, the Reagan administration worked for and achieved 

unprecedented tax and budget cuts. They seriously affected the PSW Research 

Station at a time when the public called for ecosystem management of the Nation’s 

resources. By the end of the decade, this new ethos exhibited a concern for a common natural world, and spanned class, region, gender, ethnicity, and political lines 

in the state. This same movement developed among the Forest Service scientific 

community as well, resulting in ecosystem management. Naturally, it took time for 

the station to evolve from a problem-organized institution to an interdisciplinary 

ecosystem research organization. Chapter 8, the final chapter, explains how this 

transition in research goals took place in an era of shrinking budgets, retirements, 

competitive grants, and a relocation to new headquarters. Nonetheless, achievements were made in forest environmental research in California and Hawaii, and 

the station tackled diverse problems in both regions from the spotted owl controversy in California to saving Hawaii’s native rain forests from invasive nonindigenous species. 

An epilogue follows that overviews how Forest Service reorganization plans 

at the end of the 20th century affected the revitalization of the Pacific Southwest 

Research Station in the 21st century.
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general technical report psw-gtr-233
5

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Chapter 1: 1785–1904, Growth of Forestry

Research in America and California

The beginnings of forestry as a science in North America came in the late 18th and 

early 19th centuries—a time when modern American science was just emerging. As 

it materialized, science in America developed along the lines of “fact gathering,” 

whose ultimate aim was to find some specific economic utilitarian goal for the 

gathered facts. In short—applied science. To early American scientists, maximum 

gain clearly overrode any quest or thirst for pure basic scientific knowledge. In 

practice, as one author noted, American men of science hotly pursued the “nearest 

visible fact, counted it a goal achieved, then went on to bag the next.... [And] they 

made no effort to look beyond the necessities of the immediate present” (Bruce 

1987). The full value of theoretical science would not be realized until the 20th

century.

If early scientific interest in America’s forests began as a matter of applied 

science, its earliest students were Andre Michaux and his son Francois Andre Michaux—botanical explorers of North America. During the period 1785 to 1796, the 

elder Michaux traveled around North America’s eastern forests, and his son later 

extended and intensified the work his father initiated. Their work mixed botanical, horticultural, and forestry cultural observations, which found expression in 

several successful writings. They also pointed out one driving detail in the history 

of American forestry research—the Americans’ consumption of the continent’s 

wooded heritage at an alarming rate with no regard for the future. In 1803, Andre 

Michaux in his classic Flora Boreali-Americana observed that unlike Europe, 

“neither the federal nor state governments were reserving forest lands to safeguard 

the nation’s future economy.” Almost 15 years later, Francois Andre Michaux 

finished his notable three-volume work, The North American Sylva: A Description 

of the Forest Trees of the United States, Canada, and Nova Scotia (1819). Worthy 

of note in it was Michaux’s warning of the “alarming destruction of trees proper 

for building.” He again expressed his anxiety over the growing scarcity of timber 

and the “failure of the Federal government or the states to establish forest reserves.” 

Both Frenchmen were not alone in their concerns. Several American writers picked 

up on the theme of an impending timber famine if Americans did not change their 

lumbering practices. They noted the growing disappearance of the eastern forests—

what one author called “the most striking change that man had made in American 

environment up to the end of the nineteenth century” (Dupree 1957). For instance, 

J.D. Brown’s Sylva Americana (1832) and R.U. Piper’s The Trees of America (1855) 

gave pause to some Americans regarding the growing “devastation” of America’s 

 American men of 

science hotly pursued 

the “nearest visible 

fact, counted it a goal 

achieved, then went 

on to bag the next.... 

[And] they made no 

effort to look beyond 

the necessities of the 

immediate present.”
6

general technical report psw-gtr-233

forest resources (Dana 1956, Dupree 1957, Rodgers 1968). Nonetheless, prior to the 

Civil War, most Americans believed the country had inexhaustible forest reserves 

and treated them as such. They cleared as much as 100 million acres of land by 

1850 for agriculture, with no concern for regeneration.

This laissez faire attitude toward the Nation’s natural resources continued as the 

American logging frontier pushed westward to California. In 1816, two scientists 

named Louis Charles de Chamisso and Ivan Ivanovith Eschscholtz landed at the 

shores of San Francisco Bay as members of an around-the-world scientific expedition. During their month-long stay, they recorded many of the region’s unique 

botanical wonders, including the California poppy (see “Scientific and Common 

Names” section) that later was selected as the flower emblem of the state (Mirov 

1934). But it was Thomas Nuttall’s North American Sylva (1849) that added to the 

Nation’s botanical knowledge regarding California trees, and various parts of the 

Western United States, such as Oregon Territory and the Rocky Mountains.

In 1860, America’s laissez faire forestry attitude shifted slightly. In that year, 

the Agricultural Division of the Patent Office’s annual report devoted some 30 

pages to the “Forest Trees of North America.” As a result of people reading it, tree 

planting became a popular movement in the prairie states (Smith 1930), and the 

word “forestry” was defined for the first time in an American dictionary to mean 

“the art of forming or cultivating trees” (McArdle 1955). Nonetheless, the divisiveness and destruction of the Civil War pushed forestry out of most people’s minds. 

But at the end of war, many civic leaders returned to the idea of “forestry” and a 

nascent forestry movement began. 

In looking at the war’s wreckage, some Americans also witnessed the devastation of their forests and concluded that if the rate of deforestation in the Eastern 

United States continued, the Nation would face a timber famine of historic proportions. Many Americans felt that such an event would not just affect the Nation’s 

economy, but would perhaps influence the future of American civilization. This 

shift in thinking stemmed largely from the publication of George Perkins Marsh’s 

Man and Nature: Or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action (1864) 

(fig. 1).

Marsh’s work outlined the history of the destruction of Europe’s forests by the 

late 1700s, and how Europeans had responded to their crisis by developing forestry 

as a science in order to meet wood shortages (Lewis 2005). He clearly synthesized 

the ideas and philosophies of contemporary thinkers of his day (Williams 2004), 

and his conservationist ethic reflected the widespread values of these naturalists. In 

time, his thoughts regarding environmental degradation resonated with more and 

more Americans (Hall 2004, Judd 2004). 
7

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 1—George Perkins Marsh, author of Man 

and Nature and considered to be america's first 

environmentalist. Courtesy of Library of Congress, Matthew B. Brady, photographer

If Marsh’s Man and Nature was the catalyst for raising concern about the 

adverse effects of farm clearing, Reverend Frederic Starr’s American Forests, Their 

Destruction and Preservation (Starr 1866) rang the fire bell for many 19th century 

Americans. Appearing in the 1865 Commissioner of Agriculture’s annual report, 

Starr’s article pointedly predicted a “national famine of wood” (Dana 1956). Even 

though few read Starr’s report, use of the term ‘famine’ was apt, for wood in its 

various forms was among the most widespread and essential materials for domestic 

use and industry at the time (MacCleery 1993). 

The shaping of California forestry policies regarding conservation and preservation measures was inextricably involved with, and often ran parallel to, those on 

a national level. And like those states east of the Mississippi River, California had 

miners, lumbermen, stockmen, and railroaders who wanted the bounties of nature 

open to them and who were unconcerned about either conservation of natural 

resources or management and protection of forested public lands. The plundering of 

California’s public domain resources after the Civil War was the natural outcome, 

but as many in the Eastern United States had realized before them, the general public and some California state officials eventually began to recognize that the their 

state’s timber was not unlimited. For instance, the California Board of Agricultural 

Transactions addressed the problem in their 1868–1869 annual report. One section 

on “Tree and Forest Culture” read, 
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

We have thoughtlessly come to regard our supply of these materials...as 

inexhaustible. The facts are quite different...California is far from being a 

well timbered state...It is now about twenty years since the consumption of 

timber and lumber commenced in California, and yet we have the opinion 

of good judges...that at least one-third of all our accessible timber of value 

is already consumed and destroyed! [Clar 1973: 71]. 

Despite the urgency of the statement, the California legislature responded with 

the passage of only a “mild” state law encouraging the production of trees, while 

the rapid, reckless, and wasteful cutting of trees continued in California and elsewhere. As lumbermen pushed fast and hard into the forests of Michigan, Wisconsin, 

and Minnesota to meet the Nation’s insatiable demands for wood, and as warnings of a timber shortage were voiced by men in and out of government mounted, 

many, like Reverend Starr, began advocating a “program of government-sponsored 

research on the management of forests and planting of trees” (McArdle 1955) to 

mitigate the sustained and disturbing rate of America’s timber consumption.

Franklin B. Hough, Nathaniel H. Egleston, and

Forest Cultural Compilations, 1873–1886

In 1873, as expressions of the Nation’s concern mounted, Franklin B. Hough (fig. 2), 

a physician, historian, statistician, poet, and naturalist from Lowville, New York, 

distilled them into a paper that he presented before the American Association for 

the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS) 1 annual meeting in Portland, Maine. 

Entitled “The Duty of Governments in the Preservation of Forests,” Hough’s paper, 

which drew heavily from Marsh’s Man and Nature, convinced AAAS members to 

urge Congress and various state legislatures to take urgent action against unbridled 

exploitation of the Nation’s timbered regions. The AAAS memorial promoted 

conservative forest policy along with the cultivation of timber and asked for appropriate legislation to create a commission of forestry “to study and report on the 

amount and distribution of woodlands, the influence of forests upon climate, and 

on European forestry methods” (Steen 2004). Three years later, on August 15, 1876, 

Congress passed an appropriation act authorizing the Agricultural Department a 

“staggering” sum of $2,000, to hire a “man of approved attainments” to pursue 

investigations and inquiries into the protection, production, and utilization of 

timber. Fifteen days later, Commissioner of Agriculture Frederick Watts chose 

Dr. Hough to discharge this duty—thus beginning an uninterrupted forestry

1

 The AAAS was organized in 1849 for the purpose of promoting progress in all the fields 

of science.
9

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

investigative (research) program in the Department of Agriculture that exists to this 

day (Dana 1956, Lewis 2005, Smith 1930, Storey 1975). 

Despite limited funding, Dr. Hough took his duties seriously and produced 

three sizeable American forestry reports. Hough’s first volume, published in 

December 1877, spanned a breadth of subjects, but it was largely a compendium 

of collected information from various published sources, along with replies to his 

inquiries about forestry legislation, conditions, and practices in North America. 

Hough’s inquiries sent to leading experts on the influences of forests on climate, 

and measures for the preservation and restoration or planting of forests asked for 

information regarding European conditions along with data on European schools 

of forestry (Storey 1975). Among America’s natural and physical scientists Hough 

contacted were Asa Gray,2

 compiler of the landmark Manual of Botany, Harvard 

botanist George B. Emerson,3 and California state geologist Josiah D. Whitney4

2

 Asa Gray (1810–1888), one of America’s leading botanists, is often credited with bringing 

Darwinism to America and as being the father of American botany. Interestingly, in 

California, Gray often traveled with early ecologist John Muir. Gray even named several 

plants after Muir, who helped him collect specimens (see Fernald 1950).

3

 George Emerson, an important member of the AAAS, in 1849 published his influential 

Report on the Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts.

4

 Josiah D. Whitney wrote The Yosemite Book (Whitney 1869), which called attention to 

the scenery of California and furnished a reliable guide for the time to some of its most 

interesting features, such as Yosemite Valley, the High Sierra, and the geographical range 

of the redwoods in California.

Figure 2—Franklin B. Hough. Congress ordered 

25,000 copies of his report on forestry (1877). 

Later, Hough became first Chief of the U.S. 

Division of Forestry in the Agriculture Department 

(1881–1883). Courtesy of Library of Congress
10

general technical report psw-gtr-233

(Robbins 1985). Hough’s 632-page first volume Report Upon Forestry (Hough 

1877) so impressed government officials that they authorized the printing of 25,000 

copies of the document, making it an instant classic (Williams 2000).

In 1880, Hough, presented his second report to Congress. Two years later, he 

submitted his third and last volume of his lengthy three-volume set—Report Upon 

Forestry.5 Again these volumes were compilations of facts and figures from various 

publications, as well as letters and other reports outlining techniques of planting 

and cultivation of various forest tree species. The second volume (1880) focused 

mostly on export/import statistics with lesser sections on timber on public lands, 

as well as recent state and territorial legislation relating to forestry (Dana 1956). 

In the same year, Harvard professor Charles S. Sargent6 commanded wide general 

interest in forestry when his “Report on the Forests of North America” (Sargent 

1884) appeared in the Tenth United States Census—giving rise to a very general 

discussion in the press on forests and their complex relations to the welfare and 

development of the country (Smith 1930). 

Hough’s third volume, which came out in 1882, continued his examination 

of various aspects of forestry and forest products. Interestingly, the third volume 

titled one section “Experimental Stations for Forest Culture.” This section was 

undoubtedly influenced by a trip that Hough took to Europe the previous year to 

study forestry conditions, and paid for with a $1,000 federal appropriation (Robbins 

1985, Rodgers 1968, Steen 2004), a measure of the growing interest in U.S. forest 

culture. In the section on experimental stations, Hough suggested that the federal 

government create four such stations in America—possibly associated with state 

agricultural colleges7—with one to be located in southern California. The proposed 

California experimental station, according to Hough, would study the introduction 

of nonnative species into the area, such as the eucalyptus (a tall evergreen tree 

mainly active in Australia that provides good timber, resin, and an oil with medicinal properties), the cork oak (a Mediterranean evergreen oak tree whose thick bark

5

 In addition to his official reports, Hough wrote a book entitled The Elements of Forestry

(Hough 1882), which became the first American textbook on the subject (Dana 1956).

6

 Charles Sargent (1841–1927) launched Garden and Forest (1888–1897), an important 19th

century horticultural journal. Sargent often used its pages to crusade for politically charged 

issues such as the conservation of the Nation’s forests and forest-policy reform. He was the 

founding director of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, a post he held for close 

to 50 years. 

7

 Land grant universities were established in each state under the Morrill Act of 1862 

and were the “incubators” for the emergence of forestry research at universities. Then, in 

1887, Congress passed the Hatch Act, which established the present system of agricultural 

experiment stations at land grant universities. Forestry research was considered one of the 

agricultural sciences, but station directors rarely allocated funds to forestry matters until 

after 1962 and the passage of the McIntire-Stennis Cooperative Forestry Research Act 

(Skok 1999).
11

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

was a source of cork), the cinchona (a Southern American evergreen tree or shrub 

whose bark was used to produce quinine and some other drugs), and the acacia (a 

tropical or subtropical shrub or tree) (Dana 1956, Storey 1975).8

Despite the increased interest in forest management and preservation among 

scientists and business and community leaders, for several decades nothing came 

of Hough’s experiment station idea on a federal level. In the meantime, Congress 

favored Hough’s work by temporarily establishing a Division of Forestry in the 

Agriculture Department. Its mission was to advise farmers and agriculturalists that 

wished to know more about trees and shrubbery. Hough was made the Chief of 

this new division (Lewis 2005, Williams 2000). In the end, Hough’s 5-year administration (1876–1882) and his publications provided the “first descriptive statistics 

showing the extent, content, and problems of America’s forests, their potential as a 

basis for commerce, and much more” (Bruce 1999). 

Even though Hough’s reports stimulated the emerging American forestry movement, in 1883, Hough lost political favor with Commissioner of Agriculture George 

B. Loring, and was replaced by Nathaniel H. Egleston, a political appointee (Lewis 

2005). Egleston, a former Congregational minister, had little experience in forestry, 

and according to most historians, was largely ineffective. Even so, Egleston did 

make some interesting recommendations, urging that the federal government establish or support forestry schools nationwide. He also reiterated the need for federal 

forest experiment stations throughout the country, including “that peculiar region, 

the Pacific.” But during Egleston’s 3-year administration (1883–1886), federal forestry research largely lost all sense of purpose or vitality. Egleston’s 1884 Report on

Forestry was uneven and added little to the cause of forestry, even though Division 

of Forestry agents, including Franklin B. Hough, wrote most of the report, which 

generally covered a variety of subjects like tree planting, timber culture, forest 

conditions, and utilization of forest products (Dana 1956, Storey 1975).

As Egleston floundered, the commitment to resource conservation in California 

grew. In 1883, the California legislature authorized the Lake Bigler [Tahoe] Forestry Commission to address a public outcry over the denudation of Lake Tahoe’s 

forested shores. Although the Bigler Commission failed to convince a reticent 

California legislature to set aside Lake Tahoe Basin as a national or state park, the 

uproar over wasteful cutting led to one very positive step—an 1885 statute creating

8

 At this time, southern California civic and business leaders became alarmed by the severe 

erosion of the surface soils of mountain slopes as well as flash floods caused by indiscriminate cutting of timber and overgrazing of livestock in the region. They proposed reforesting 

the area to protect southern California watersheds for metropolitan domestic needs and 

soon thereafter lobbied the federal government to take action (Godfrey 2005).
12

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a state Board of Forestry with a dual mission of education and research. Political 

interest groups—such as farmers, urbanites, and reformers who had tired of federal 

inertia in regulating forestry and grazing practices and the management of critical 

mountain watersheds—pushed the idea through the California legislature. The 

newly established California Board of Forestry (CBF) was the first of its kind in the 

Nation9 and will be discussed elsewhere (Godfrey 2005, Steen 2004).

Bernhard E. Fernow and the “Science of Forestry,” 

1886–98

While a budding forestry movement got underway in California, in Washington, 

D.C., on March 15, 1886, Bernhard E. Fernow (fig. 3),10 a German-trained forester, 

succeeded Egleston.

Shortly thereafter, the Division of Forestry became a permanent part of the 

Agriculture Department, when Congress gave it statutory recognition on June 30, 

1886. Fernow faced many organizational limitations when he took over the post of 

Chief of the Division of Forestry. First, and most importantly, during his administration (1886–1898), the “new” Division of Forestry continued to lack adequate 

funding for staff or programs. Second, the Division had no interested community of 

supporters. Although it was nominally under the Agriculture Department, it drew 

little or no backing from farmer organizations. And third, the Division had no forests to manage. The first federal forest reserves would not be created until 1891,11

but even then, the Nation’s forest reserves were placed under the control of the 

Interior Department’s General Land Office (GLO). They would not be transferred 

to the Agriculture Department until 1905. Therefore, from the onset, Fernow was

9

 At this time, California and Colorado were the only states to have a board or a commissioner charged with executive duties beyond an advisory capacity. However, the forest 

commissioner of Colorado was not given any resources to execute his official duties, 

whereas the CBF had ample means to assert its authority (Fenrow 1892).

10 Bernhard E. Fernow trained at the famous forest academy at Muenden, Germany. After 

coming to America in 1876, he led the newly formed American Forestry Association. 

He later became dean of the New York State College of Forestry at Cornell (1898–1903), 

professor of forestry at State College of Pennsylvania (1907), and faculty dean of forestry at 

the University of Toronto (1907–19). During his lifetime, he was also editor of the Journal 

of Forestry.

11 By 1892, California had four forest reserves—the San Gabriel (Los Angeles and San 

Bernardino Counties), Sierra (Mono, Mariposa, Fresno, Tulare, Inyo, and Kern Counties), 

San Bernardino (San Bernardino County), and Trabuco Cañon (Orange County). The primary object of these reservations was to insure favorable water conditions in these regions, 

which depend for their fertility upon irrigation (Fenrow 1892).
13

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 3—Bernhard E. Fernow, third 

chief of the U.S. Division of Forestry 

(1886–1898) and considered by many as the 

father of american forestry research. Courtesy of Library of Congress, Eckstein's Verlag Berlin-Charlottenburg, photographers

a forester without adequate financial support, patronage, or any forests to manage. 

Even so, his appointment was a watershed moment in American forestry science, 

because Fernow believed that “forestry was, like agriculture, an art and a potential 

science,” and he moved the division from a compiler of forest cultural observations, which it had been under Hough and Egelston, to one of forestry science and 

research. During his tenure, Fernow set up scientific research programs and initiated cooperative forestry projects with the states, giving stability and guidance to 

the fledgling organization (Robbins 1985, Rodgers 1968, Steen 2004, Storey 1975, 

Williams 2000). Professionalism at last came to the Division of Forestry.

During Fernow’s 12-year tenure, American forestry research made several notable advances, and his 1887 Report Upon Forestry outlined his vision of the future 

for the federal agency. Using three very European research-derived components, 

Fernow’s programs were practical, economical, and based upon applied scientific 

principles. His program’s first component was forest biology, or the consideration of 

the growing crop, including timber and forest pathology, or as he described it, the 

life history of species in their individual or aggregate life. The second component 

involved timber physics, which, according to Fernow, was the consideration of the 

grown crop. This second element included the anatomy, chemical physiology, and 

physical properties of wood, as well as influences that determined physical properties and diseases and faults of timber. Fernow’s third and final component was soil 

Professionalism at last 

came to the Division of 

Forestry.
14

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physics, or, in his words, the consideration of conditions for growing a crop (Dana 

1956, Rodgers 1968). Following these three lines of thought, he distinguished himself and moved the Division beyond the mere compilation of scientific knowledge 

that had occurred in the 10 years under Hough and Egleston (Smith 1930). 

Although Fernow strongly stressed to his researchers the need for thoroughgoing investigations involving basic forestry science as well as research on technological problems associated with wood utilization, his attention was given to 

subjects of a more immediate application. Many practicable projects illustrate the 

diversity of work conducted by both the small staff of the division at this time, and 

a nationwide network of others interested in forestry. For example, during Fernow’s 

administration, George B. Sudworth,12 botanist of the Division, prepared his memorable work Nomenclature of the Arborescent Flora of the United States (Sudworth 

1897). Sudworth’s volume was the Nation’s first checklist of common and botanical 

names. It contained 500 forest species and established a Linnaean13 tradition of 

classification in forestry science for decades to come. Alabamian Charles Mohr, 

agent for the division, published notable bulletins dealing with the pines of the 

Southeastern United States and the turpentine industry; Californian Abbott 

Kinney14 wrote about the forests of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and San Diego 

Counties and the connection between watersheds and forestry; and Frederick 

V. Coville15 published a study on sheep grazing and forest growth as a result of 

grazing controversies in Oregon. As if these contributions were not enough, in 

12 George B. Sudworth came to the Division of Forestry as a botanist shortly after Fernow’s 

appointment. He contributed some of the most enduring work of the division and remained 

in federal forest work longer than any employee of the division. He was highly respected 

by Fernow and promoted by Gifford Pinchot to head his Special Investigations Section 

(Rodgers 1968). A monumental amplification of his work—Checklist of the Forest Trees of 

the United States (Sudworth 1927)—was published shortly after his death in 1927 (Smith 

1930).

13 In 1735, Swedish naturalist and physician Carolus Linnaeus in his botanical work 

Systema Naturae devised this system that classified plants and animals under two names, 

one referring to the genus, and one to the species.

14 Abbott Kinney was a remarkable Californian who was deeply involved in southern 

California’s forestry/watershed movement. He was president of the state forestry society 

and several water and forest organizations, as well as an influential publisher, representative of southern California viewpoints. Kinney was chairman of the CBF (1884–1887), 

President of the Southern California Academy of Sciences (1890–1900), president of the 

Southern California Pomological Society (1882–1892), president of the Southern California 

Forest and Water Society (1896–1909), as well as vice-president of the American Forestry 

Association for California. He founded the City of Ocean Park, California (1894), and died 

in 1920 in Venice, California, a community that he had developed as one his many business 

ventures (Clar 1959, Rodgers 1968).

15 Frederick Vernon Colville authored many important papers on botany for the U.S. 

Department of Agriculture. In 1893, he became the curator of the U.S. Herbarium, and in 

1929, became acting director of the National Arboretum.
15

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

collaboration with others, Fernow wrote seminal works on “forest influences,” 

or the relationship of climate, water, and other influences on forests—a field that 

retained its identity until the middle of the 20th century (Rodgers 1968, Steen 1998, 

Steen 2004, Storey 1975). 

Finally, for the first time, wood products and timber physics became the subject 

of scientific inquiry. In 1891, Fernow found funding to push test work on timber, 

and a year later, sought appropriations to establish a test laboratory at San Francisco 

and another in Washington for this original work in addition to the laboratory 

located in St. Louis. Fernow and others in the Division realized that a crucial part 

of the forest conservation question was better economic use of the Nation’s forest products. Appeals were made by them to the wood consumer to employ more 

rational and economical use of forest products. Additionally, he believed that once 

eastern wood consumers used up their home supply of timber, they would, out of 

necessity, turn to Pacific coast timber. Therefore, he felt it was the duty of government to determine the mechanical strength and other qualities of this timber, which 

was unknown at the time (Fernow 1892). 

Fernow’s proposed San Francisco laboratory never materialized. Nonetheless, 

the Timber Physics Section under Filibert Roth16 conducted many early critical 

pioneer studies in this area. These studies emphasized the wasteful use of American 

timber, and Roth’s study of wood structure and properties entitled The Work in 

Timber Physics in the Division of Forestry, 1877–1898 (Roth 1899) soon became a 

classic. Fernow saw timber physics as the “science of wood,” but it was Roth whose 

actual laboratory methods and practices paved the way for wood products science. 

Furthermore, Fernow and Roth’s joint work on wood decay represented the origins 

of the study of American forest pathology.17 But because these studies were more 

in the nature of “pure” science than “applied” science, they were not considered 

germane enough to be funded by Congress. In 1897, despite last-ditch efforts by 

Fernow to save it, timber physics research was discontinued altogether, probably 

at the height of its usefulness. At this point, many did not fully see the value of 

general scientific research work with wood and were unprepared to support such 

research with federal funding (Fernow 1897, Godfrey 1990, Rodgers 1968).

16 German-born Filibert Roth eventually became America’s first great student of timber 

technology (Rodgers 1968).

17 In fact, Emilio Pepe Michael Meinecke, one of America’s first great forest pathologists, 

who later worked closely with California District 5, believed that Fernow and Roth’s work 

was the first genuine attempt at scientific study of the subject in this country (Rodgers 

1968).

Once eastern wood 

consumers used up 

their home supply of 

timber, they would, out 

of necessity, turn to 

Pacific coast timber. 
16

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Fernow was also very interested in forestry conditions in states like California, 

and he often communicated with Eugene W. Hilgard18 (fig. 4), California’s leading 

professor of agriculture, on the subject. Hilgard on many occasions had publicly 

warned of the dangers of fires and wasteful lumber practices in California.

Besides writing Professor Hilgard, Fernow religiously read the reports of the 

CBF, giving Fernow the theoretical knowledge he needed regarding the effect of 

these practices and events on California’s developing fruit industry. That industry 

depended on the surrounding mountain watersheds, where the forests faced depletion from poor practices and overuse. Having never been to California, however, 

Fernow had no practical knowledge of the situation, so he could do little in the way 

of remedying conditions there beyond reporting on them. Circumstances changed 

in 1889, when Fernow traveled to the West, a trip that included a limited visit to 

California, where he quickly passed through the redwood regions of the state and 

into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, with a side trip to the Mariposa “grove” and 

Yosemite (fig. 5). Fernow’s California visit however did include discussing watershed issues with California’s leading watershed conservationist, Abbot Kinney. 

Conversations with Kinney and other conservationists gave him an understanding 

of the influence of forest vegetation on water supply in that part of the country 

(Rodgers 1968). 

In summary, over the years, Fernow expanded the division’s activities and 

established a scientific basis for federal forestry. His annual reports made it evident 

that the agency and its programs provided a valuable service. But in 1898, weary 

of the political nature of his job and the politics of the forestry movement, Fernow 

resigned his position to become the dean of Cornell’s School of Forestry—the first 

in the United States.19 In his final annual report, the division’s “scientific” staff

18 Eugene Woldemar Hilgard received his Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg (1853). 

In 1872, after studying at Columbia University and the University of Michigan, he moved 

to a professorship in soils at the University of California at Berkeley, staying there until his 

death in 1916. He also served as the director of the California Agricultural Experimental 

Station (1888–1904). Hilgard made his early reputation as state geologist for Mississippi 

(1855–1870), but he is credited with the concept of soil layers (later called soil horizons) 

and his visionary work gave birth to modern soil science (Gessel and Harrison 1999). 

Hilgard repeatedly warned California and the Nation about the effects on agriculture 

and horticulture of forest depletion through wasteful lumber practices and fires. In 1890, 

Hilgard, along with other AAAS members, urged President Harrison and Congress to 

withdraw all public lands from sale or entry, an effort that eventually led to the passage of 

the 1891 Forest Reserves Act (Rodgers 1968).

19 Shortly after leaving office, Fernow published his Report Upon the Forestry Investigations of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1877–1898, (Fernow 1899) which summarized 

his administration’s accomplishments, and made a strong case for the Agricultural Department’s involvement in forestry. He suggested the transfer of the forest reserves from the 

GLO to the care of the Division of Forestry in the Agricultural Department (Steen 1998, 

Storey 1975). He believed that such a transfer would not only bring “all of the forest interests of the country under one administrative head, but would tend to maintain the most important purpose of the reservations, their use as sources of supply for the irrigation of the 

agricultural lands of the States in which they are situated” (USDA Division of Forestry 

1897).
17

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 4—Eugene W. Hilgard, California's 

leading professor of agriculture and the first to 

offer forestry instruction in California as part of 

his coursework. Bancroft Library,. University of California, Berkeley

Figure 5—California 

redwoods stretch from 

Crescent City in northern 

California to the Big Sur 

Coast in the south and 

have inspired humankind 

since the dawn of time. U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
18

general technical report psw-gtr-233

included the chief and assistant chief, one dendrologist, one timber expert, two 

statisticians, one field agent, along with five clerks and a messenger. He recommended an increase of appropriations to $50,000 to expand the lines of work that he 

had inaugurated, but Congress denied his request (Fernow 1897). Fernow’s leadership marked the beginning of forestry as a government science, and his reports, 

according to historian James G. Lewis, “played a pivotal role in publicizing the 

cause of scientific forestry” (Lewis 2005: 16–18, 22). However, Fernow left seeing 

the need for much additional research. Unwilling to become a politician, he was 

unable to secure sufficient appropriations needed to accomplish the work (Storey 

1975). Although at an early date in his administration he favored the establishment 

of experiment stations and from his European training knew what they might 

achieve, he also was never able to find the funding, or support for federal experiment stations (Rodgers 1968). These tasks he would leave to his successor—Gifford 

Pinchot.

The Beginnings of California Forestry—

Leading the Nation, 1885–1992

As noted earlier, in 1885—the year before Bernhard E. Fernow took over the Division of Forestry—the state of California had created a statutory Board of Forestry, 

the first in the Nation. One purpose of the BF was to halt the destruction of the 

state’s timber resources. Timber devastation in the state was so great at this date, 

that in 1887 the board supported a movement to have all public forest lands withdrawn from sale and placed in the custody of the army until a commission could be 

formed to determine what forest regions should be permanently retained under a 

national plan of forest management. Soon thereafter key federal legislation passed 

(1891 Forest Reserves Act), placing critical California forests and watersheds into 

federal forest reserves—the San Gabriel Forest Reserve (part of today’s Angeles 

National Forest) being the first. Setting aside federal forest reserves promised not 

just watershed protection, but also fire suppression and judicious cutting—goals 

that many Californians supported (Godfrey 2005, Rodgers 1968).

In April 1885, the first appointed CBF met in the Academy of Sciences at San 

Francisco and included noted botanist Albert Kellogg.20 Eventually led by the energetic and zealous southern Californian Abbott Kinney, its most notable chairman, 

the CBF embarked on experimental studies of the requirements of various timber 

20 Albert Kellogg was a charter member of the Academy of Sciences who wrote and illustrated many articles on native flora. By the time of his death in 1887, he was the leading 

botanical authority of California (Clar 1959).
19

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

trees for regeneration purposes and other matters of forest culture. It openly sought 

to educate the public about California’s forest conditions and address the conservation of California’s natural heritage (Godfrey 2005). But before they could embark 

upon these two goals, CBF commissioners needed information on state forest conditions, as well as geographical and vegetative knowledge of particular regions. As 

there was no such thing as a trained American forester in the country at the time, 

the CBF approached the problem in a piecemeal way. First, it assigned the task of 

inventorying California’s redwood region to Hubert Vischer and a report on forests 

of the Sierra Nevada region to Luther Wagoner. Additionally, board members such 

as Abbott Kinney contributed details on the Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and San 

Diego County forests. Other interested citizens contributed smaller studies of local 

forest conditions and prepared generalized vegetation maps of their regions of the 

state. Finally, as part of the forest inventory, CBF transmitted to each county an 

ambitious questionnaire directed toward obtaining knowledge on (1) areas that had 

been cut and products harvested, (2) areas that had been destroyed by fire, (3) the 

means employed to prevent such destruction, (4) what type of regrowth was appearing, (5) possibilities for success in planting various tree species, and (6) changes in 

weather owing to deforestation. Regrettably, only a fourth of the counties responded 

to the CBF questionnaire (Clar 1959).

In 31⁄2 months on California’s north coast, civil engineer Hubert Vischer compiled an amazing amount of general and statistical information (as reported in Clar 

1959) about the geography, climate, and distribution of flora in California’s redwood areas, as well as data regarding the harvesting of forest products and the issue 

of “light burning”21 (discussed in the next chapter). Vischer estimated that throughout the region, only about 28 percent of raw material felled actually came out as a 

commercial product, although some local operators questioned and objected to his 

calculations. Mining engineer Luther Wagoner’s report on Sierra Nevada region 

(as reported in Clar 1959) was shorter than Vischer’s, and unfortunately offered 

little useful or accurate information regarding Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne, 

and Mariposa County forests. Wagoner concluded his report by stating that in the 

Sierra area the board should begin its reforestation plans by planting hickory, ash, 

and other needed hardwoods. Nonetheless, the CBF was enthusiastic about forest 

regeneration—especially the planting of hardwoods and eucalyptus in the southern 

portion of the state. For instance, in the CBF’s first biennial report (1885–1886),

21 Light burning is the theory and historical practice in California of using fire to rid the 

forest of needles, small dry branches, brush, weeds, and reproduction in order to prevent 

future intense fires; to improve the pasture; to make travel through the woods easier, or to 

drive out game.
20

general technical report psw-gtr-233

there appeared in the appendix a report by the Southern Pacific Railroad 

Company regarding the results of its experimental planting of some 45,000 eucalyptus trees, to be used for ties, along its rights-of-way in Alameda County22 (Clar 

1959). Besides Vischer and Wagoner’s reports, the distinguished California botanist 

John G. Lemmon23 and his wife, artist Sara Plummer Lemmon, contributed an 

illustrated dendrological study on the native trees of California and the Pacific 

slope (Lemmon and Lemmon 1902). Finally, there was also a serious discussion by 

popular California writer and poet Joaquin Miller and San Francisco Mayor Adolph 

Sutro on establishing the last Saturday of January as Arbor Day24 for California 

(Clar 1959, Pratt 1931, Rodgers 1968). 

More important than establishing an Arbor Day, the CBF made regeneration and experimental planting a top priority. They studied the development of 

state nurseries and experimental farms for reforestation, and the question became 

which new species could be successfully introduced into the state’s various climatic regions? For several reasons, southern Californians were very interested in 

establishing conifer plantations. First, they wanted to produce shelter trees for the 

grasslands, and second, they wanted to replace the chaparral-covered mountains 

with verdant evergreens—for at the time, many people accepted the belief that conifers improved climate and assured increased natural water production. However, 

with great stands of “virgin” pine forests in the Sierras and elsewhere, there was 

little inducement in California for scientific studies leading to the regeneration of 

coniferous timber species. On the other hand, northern Californians were attracted 

to the idea of hardwood plantations. Hardwoods were considered a good economic 

commodity, especially for fuelwood, which was in great demand. Finally, a growing urban population, both in northern and southern California, wanted nurseries 

and plantations to produce shade and ornamental trees for parks and planting along 

roadways (Clar 1959).

22 Because of the costs of laying and replacing ties, railroads, particularly in the West, were 

among the first to experiment with tree plantings. “Railroad forestry,” as it was called, 

began in 1870 when the Kansas Pacific Railroad initiated the first experimental plantings. 

Railroads also sought knowledge regarding the adaptability of various tree species to 

differing soils and climates (Rodgers 1968). 

23 In 1886, John Gill Lemmon was appointed California’s first state forester, and later 

produced an intensive study of the cone-bearing tree species of California.

24 Despite their enthusiastic support for the idea, the governor at the time vetoed a measure 

seeking it. An Arbor Day was not enacted in California for another 23 years. Nebraska 

established the Nation’s first official Arbor Day in 1872 (Clar 1959).
21

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

To meet citizen demand for experimental nurseries,25 the CBF adopted a resolution to introduce and raise California tree stock by establishing experimental stations in the north, central, and southern parts of the state—an idea that Franklin 

B. Hough had suggested on a national scale 3 years earlier in his third Report on 

Forestry (Hough 1882). Although the idea for experiment stations in California 

was not revolutionary—indeed, they were common in European countries by this 

date—establishing “state-run” stations in America was innovative and exceptional 

for its time. Following adoption of the resolution, the CBF managed to set up two 

“experimental forest stations” with its modest budget appropriated monies26 and 

appointed board member William S. Lyon as the stations’ superintendent. The 

Santa Monica Station, started in December 1887, was sited on six acres of land in 

Old Canyon, and the Chico Station was placed on 29 to 37 acres along Chico Creek 

in February 1888. Other planting stations were eventually established later at Merced, Hesperia, Livermore, and San Jacinto. These early forest experiment stations 

were perhaps the first and only ones of their kind in the United States at the time 

(Clar 1959). Although California’s early experiment stations tested introducible forest species on a small scale, eventually extensive groves of eucalyptus and acacias 

from experiment station stock were planted in barren and special areas throughout 

southern California. Catalpa, locust, and similar tree species were distributed as 

well (Godfrey 2005, Pratt 1931, Rodgers 1968). In conjunction with the planting stations, the CBF issued three or four bulletins that referred Californians to available 

planting stock that could be had at the state-run nurseries, as well as how to plant 

particular trees (Clar 1959).27 Besides encouraging the planting of exotic species 

throughout the state, the CBF also published the first forest map of the entire state. 

In fact, mapping California’s forests at this early date was one of the most important 

acts of the Forestry Board. The CBF map showed the amount and kind of timber 

standing in different counties as well as each species’ commercial uses and value. 

To create this map, State Engineer William Hammond Hall made his unpublished 

base maps available to the board, and the final native vegetation maps were of inestimable value during a joint federal-state forest study conducted between 1903 and

25 Tree planting and arboriculture for regional distribution and industrial uses was one of 

the dominant national themes of the day, and California certainly followed this trend.

26 With its modest budget of $15,000, the CBF was also supposed to prevent forest fires, 

prosecute depredators, aid forest planters, and make a forest map of the state (Rodgers 

1968).

27 Naturally, such action put the board in direct conflict with the private nursery industry, 

which protested. In spite of this, the board justified its existence to legislators by pointing 

out that they were experimenting with the rarer varieties of trees not grown in quantities 

by private nurseries. This point seemed to satisfy most of the objections. In fact, private 

nursery demands for board planting stock soon exceeded anything the board anticipated. 

Thereafter, the Santa Monica and Chico Stations grew to meet these demands (Clar 1959).
22

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1907. The board’s map work also served as the foundation for the state forester’s 

first published forest type map for California (1911) (Clar 1959.).

On the education level, the CBF distinguished itself as well. In keeping with 

the times, CBF members believed that the California university system should 

teach forestry science and conservation. Starting in the late 1870s, the University 

of California had provided limited forestry instruction to its students. As early as 

1876, Berkeley’s College of Agriculture and Mechanics reported that its college 

farm grew experimental crops, illustrating the state’s capabilities for special crops, 

such as forests. Additionally, since 1882, Berkeley professor Eugene Hilgard offered 

forestry instruction as part of other coursework, and also experiment station work 

(Rodgers 1968). Although California’s education system had already begun to 

differentiate itself by its support for forestry science, it was the board’s awareness 

that the scarcity of trained men was a “practical difficulty confronting the advancement of forestry in California” that began a movement to establish a forestry school 

in California. To achieve this end, the CBF tried to persuade the University of 

California to inaugurate such a school, stating that “If this school is carried on as 

it has been planned [by the board and various supporters], it will be of great value, 

and will be the one complete forest school in the United States. We hope that the 

University of California at Berkeley will advance the great interest of forestry in 

the same way.”28 Although this early effort failed, the board continued to press the 

point. For instance, in the CBF’s fourth biennial report for 1891–1892 (CBF 1892), 

board member and statistician Fred M. Campbell continued to stress the need for 

western men trained in forestry—who, Campbell suggested, might go on to educate 

citizens to seek better forestry practices elsewhere as well. He urged the University 

of California to establish a Chair of Forestry, and even recommended that the board 

memorialize Leland Stanford29 by providing for a professor of forestry at Stanford 

University.30 Meanwhile, Abbott Kinney, CBF’s very active and influential chairman, began an intermittent lecture series at the University of Southern California 

(USC) on general forestry as it applied to southern California’s mountains. Kinney 

boasted that his lectures constituted a forestry school, and led a group of men connected with USC in a plan to establish a school of forestry in the forests of Tulare

28 Remarkably, the board’s statement preceded the establishment of the first collegiate forest school in the United States at Cornell University in New York (1898) by a dozen years.

29 Leland Stanford was one of the “big four” (the others being Charles Crocker, Mark 

Hopkins, and Collis P. Huntington) who built the Central, Pacific, and Northern Pacific 

Railroads. In 1891, he opened Stanford University to perpetuate the memory of his only 

son, who died of typhoid at the age of 15.

30 Apparently, enthusiasm for the idea of a School of Forestry at Stanford mounted after 

Gifford Pinchot visited the school in 1903, but financial losses caused by the 1906 San 

Francisco earthquake ended all hope of starting such a program (Clar 1959).
23

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

County (Clar 1959, Rodgers 1968). In the end, California schools, such as Berkeley, 

Stanford, or USC, were just not adequately funded or staffed at this early date to 

educate and train professional foresters. However, that event would not be too far in 

the offing. 

Failure of California Forestry Movement, 1893–1903

In the interim, the forestry research atmosphere in California waned, and then lost 

most public support and influence with the legislature. Then, in 1893, lawmakers 

unexpectedly abolished the state Board of Forestry. There appear to be several reasons why California’s Board of Forestry died in its frail youth. Bernard Fernow in 

his final report for the Division of Forestry and his Brief History of Forestry (1909) 

blamed the event on political complications and graft, which he felt undid the 

board’s early work. Fernow harshly deplored the “political decrepitude,” which he 

felt had set back progress in California, a state that had very early on recognized the 

advantages of a forestry organization (Clar 1959, Rodgers 1968). Others believed 

the board’s dissolution was an economic necessity during a time of a serious business depression. Basically, the cost of the experiment stations could no longer be 

borne by the state of California. The nurseries at Merced, Hesperia, Livermore, and 

San Jacinto were abandoned as early as 1890 because of the lack of maintenance 

funds. Still others alleged that by 1893, new board members had drifted from the 

California forestry movement’s larger aims to create, organize, and direct public 

sentiment toward real forest conservation and scientific forest use. According to 

the press at the time, members of the board were “apparently without the slightest convictions, knowledge, or taste in forestry.” By 1893, the movement, which 

campaigned to prevent forest waste, established state forests, and undertook a forest 

survey of the entire state, had settled down to the care of a small arboretum on 

Chico Creek and another one in Santa Monica Canyon, from which many thousands 

of young acacias and eucalyptus were annually distributed throughout southern 

California.31 Finally, some believed that the board’s demise could be attributed 

31 When state appropriations ceased altogether, the University of California took over 

the two small remaining stations and added them to their system of farm stations. As late 

as 1896, the experiment stations at Santa Monica and Chico still functioned and another 

station was established on the slopes of Mount Hamilton to discover what hardwoods grew 

best on the Coast Range (Rodgers 1968). The Chico Station, which was presented to the 

state of California for the planting and testing of tree seeds and tree growth, was said to 

be in very bad condition. There were only eight acres on which 4,000 trees were growing 

in plantation form as well as a few nursery beds. Furthermore, at this time, California 

disposed of the bulk of her state forest possessions by the sale of its school lands at a low 

price of $1.25 per acre (Clar 1959, Pratt 1931). Unfortunately, the Santa Monica Station 

burned down in 1905, and all of its field notes on important indigenous and exotic acacias 

growing in the United States were lost (Pinchot 1905).

New board members 

had drifted from the 

California forestry 

movement’s larger

aims to create, 

organize, and direct 

public sentiment toward 

real forest conservation 

and scientific forest 

use.
24

general technical report psw-gtr-233

to the fact that this period of experimentation was before its time. It did not have 

enough citizen and industry support to sustain itself (Clar 1959).

With the dissolution of the CBF, the state entered into a decade of official indifference to forest lands. The years 1893 to 1903 marked a period of state government 

inertia, a decade during which lumbermen from the Lake states and Southern pineries flocked to California to invest in timberlands and when California disposed of 

its school lands at ridiculously low prices. Although it was a period during which 

land fraud flourished, it was also a decade during which many of today’s national 

forests were set aside as reserves thanks in part to California forest conservationists, such as Abbott Kinney and others, who united and did not give up on their 

ideas. They moved forward by founding several key groups, such as the California 

Society for Conserving Waters and Protecting Forests (CSCWPF). This important 

organization focused on the status of water and forest conditions in California and 

advocated the establishment of federal forest reserves to protect watersheds from 

fires, devastating lumber practices, and erosion caused by overgrazing (Clar 1959).

Fortunately, during this decade, federal forestry efforts filled the vacuum left 

by CBF’s demise. Under the 1891 Forest Reserve Act, California acquired its first 

federal forest reserve—the San Gabriel Forest Reserve (1892). Thereafter, the 

federal government set aside additional forest reserves in California. After the first 

reserve, came the Sierra (1893), Trabuco Canyon (1893), San Bernardino (1893), 

Stanislaus (1897), and San Jacinto (1897) Forest Reserves. Following the passage 

of the Organic Act on June 4, 1897, which provided the main statutory basis for 

management of forest reserves by the GLO, other forest reserves were set aside in 

California. They included the Pine Mountain and Zaca Lake (1898), Tahoe (1899), 

and Santa Inez (1899) Forest Reserves. Finally, in 1903, the Santa Barbara Forest 

Reserve (a combination of the Pine Mountain, Zaca Lake, and Santa Inez Forest 

Reserves) was created. Much of the push for creating and expanding federal forest reserves in California prior to 1898 came from local citizen groups like the 

CSCWPF, who asked for federal protection from forest watershed destruction 

caused by mining, lumbering, and livestock interests, or by uncontrolled fires and 

erosion attributed to the denudation of nearby forests. After 1898, leaders from 

other influential state groups, such as the California Water and Forest Association, 

California State Board of Trade, and the Sierra Club supported the push (Godfrey 

2005).32 During this push for federal forest reserves, forestry research in California 

for the most part was left aside.

32 Shocked by the demise of the California Board of Forestry, Kinney and others turned to 

the federal government and supported the establishment of federal forest reserves.
25

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Gifford Pinchot and the New Era in the Science of 

Forestry, 1898–1904

Meanwhile, in the post-Fernow years, forestry research in Washington, D.C., also 

appeared moribund. As noted previously, on July 1, 1898, Bernard Fernow resigned 

as head of the Division of Forestry. With Fernow’s sudden departure, Assistant 

Chief of the Division, Charles A. Keffer, was left behind to write the division’s 

annual report with little help because other staff members had quickly severed their 

connections with the division as well. In the first half of 1898 Division of Forestry’s 

report (Pinchot 1898), Keffer summarized the division’s state of affairs and research 

work over the past year in two very somber pages. He briefly described the conclusion of all timber physics investigations, the completion of a few biological studies 

on various species, and a few other programs. The second half of the report, written by Gifford Pinchot (fig. 6), Fernow’s successor, was also only two pages long. 

Entitled “Plans for the Ensuing Year,” it provided a more optimistic view. 

Under America’s first native-born professional forester, a fresh era in forestry 

research had begun (Pinchot 1898). With Pinchot, the Division of Forestry found 

the leader it needed. Where Bernard Fernow struggled with small appropriations, 

Figure 6—Gifford Pinchot took charge of the U.S. Division of Forestry in 1898. Although not particularly research-minded, Pinchot 

ushered in a new era in the science of forestry as first Chief of the 

Forest Service (1905–1910).

U.S. Forest Service
26

general technical report psw-gtr-233

political red tape, and difficulties with Congress, the young, aggressive Pinchot succeeded because he was a consummate politician who had gifted capabilities as both 

an administrator and organizer. Emphasizing the economic side of forestry, he ably 

acquired the needed appropriations from President William McKinley’s administration to fund Division of Forestry investigations.33 Almost immediately, the funds 

annually allowed to forestry were doubled and more, and personnel increased as a 

result (Rodgers 1968). For instance, the division staff grew from 61 during Fernow’s 

tenure to 123 a year later under Pinchot (Pinchot 1900). By March 2, 1901, the Division of Forestry had been elevated to full Bureau status, and Pinchot had obtained 

appropriations to make and continue investigations on forestry, forest reserves, 

forest fires, and lumbering. The Bureau of Forestry was now called upon to give 

practical assistance and advice in the management of national, state, and private 

forests on close to 50 million acres (Pinchot 1901, Rodgers 1968, Storey 1975).

Upon taking the position of the Nation’s “forester,” Pinchot was critical of his 

predecessor. The Yale graduate, who had once spent a year in France and Germany 

studying forestry and had gained practical forestry experience while managing 

George Vanderbilt’s estate in Asheville, North Carolina, thought that Fernow had 

overemphasized technical and theoretical aspects of forestry. Pinchot—who was 

not particularly research-minded and had terminated his formal forestry education in Europe before “gaining a thorough knowledge of the sciences underlying 

forestry”—wished to move forestry research toward “practical” solutions. In 1899, 

with this in mind, he established a Special Investigations Section, initially headed 

by George B. Sudworth. Its first mission was to find ways to reduce the number of 

destructive forest fires and to obtain and develop a body of knowledge that would 

allow orderly use of the resources of the forest reserves, and later the national 

forests (Lewis 2005, Pinchot 1900, Steen 2004, Storey 1975). 

Around the time that the Division of Forestry became the Bureau of Forestry, 

there was strong local sentiment in California toward natural reseeding of the 

burned mountain slopes in southern California. Many Californians hoped to use 

seeds from surviving trees to accomplish this reforestation goal, or to experiment 

with direct seed planting of western yellow pine, Torrey pine, and Monterey pine in 

denuded areas. Pinchot’s Bureau saw little direct value in this effort, but felt that a 

protective cover of trees would make it possible for the later introduction of more

33 It is important to note that from 1898 onward, Pinchot changed forestry rhetoric from 

“research” to “investigations” in order to reflect the practical nature of the work and make 

it more appealing to industry. Ironically, after 1905, western cartoonists referred to Pinchot 

as “Professor,” an epithet he vigorously deflected because he wished to counter strong 

western opposition to his policies by emphasizing his practical approach to forest management (Steen 1998).
27

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

useful timbers. Fire work also included a unique study of the effect of forest cover 

on the flow of streams in southern California, conducted with the cooperation of 

the Arrowhead Reservoir Company of San Bernardino. This study was without 

parallel for its day and included observations of precipitation, run-off, evaporation, 

and temperature. Strong hopes were entertained for its valuable results from the 

comparison of the runoff from various types of cover, and research continued into 

1903. Working with lumbermen, the division conducted studies related to important 

commercial trees in the state, such as redwoods, sugar pines, and western yellow 

pine. In conjunction with this effort, in 1900, the division prepared a short account 

of the “Big Trees of California” for the Senate Committee on Public Lands, which 

was fully illustrated with maps, tables, and photographs of Fresno and Tulare 

Counties by Stanford University’s first botany professor, W.R. Dudley, a collaborator with the division. This work continued until 1902. A number of sequoia groves, 

hitherto unrecorded, were also examined and mapped in the course of a cooperative investigation of the northern part of the Sierra Forest Reserve with the U.S. 

Geological Survey (USGS). Special attention was also given to the kind, quality, 

distribution, and stand of trees in the Sierra Forest Reserve, including the effects of 

lumbering, fire, and sheep grazing. By 1902, a general study was also underway in 

northern California with a view toward its protection against fire, overcutting, and 

overgrazing (Pinchot 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903). 

In 1903, a major change occurred in the research program of the Bureau of 

Forestry that had a direct effect on California forestry investigations. That year, a 

Forest Products Division was organized in the Washington office (WO) with two 

sections: wood preservation and timber testing. Soon thereafter, research on forest 

products became an integral part of the Forestry Bureau’s program. The Division 

of Forest Products was headed by Hermann Von Schrenk,34 who specialized in the 

study of various methods of wood preservation. In this field, the division cooperated with major timber users like railroads and pole companies to comprehensively 

test preservatives on timber under climatic conditions found nationwide. When 

compared to research conducted by a single railroad, the division’s preservation 

experiments demonstrated the effectiveness of inquiries by a central federal 

laboratory and resulted in lessening the adverse effects of these businesses on a 

shrinking timber supply. Preservation testing would also be a mainstay of research 

in California, particularly regarding marine borers.

34 Prior to his appointment in 1903, Herman Von Schrenk headed the Mississippi Valley 

Laboratory located in St. Louis, Missouri. Schrenk’s early work as a pathologist aimed at 

development of effective wood preservatives, particularly to meet the needs of the railroads 

in preservation of crossties (Rodgers 1968).
28

general technical report psw-gtr-233

The Division of Forest Products undertook projects in another important area— 

timber testing, which more directly involved California forestry research. Timber 

testing or timber physics had begun in the United States under Fernow in 1891, but 

had been discontinued in 1896 largely because Fernow’s program related principally 

to testing southern pine. Pinchot revived this field of forest investigation in September 1902, and thereafter instituted a systematic testing of other American timbers. 

These tests focused on the direct practical value to engineers and to others interested in the utilization of timber (Pinchot 1902, 1903). Assistant Forester Frederick 

E. Olmsted35 initially was placed in charge of timber testing for the new Division 

of Forest Products (Pinchot 1903). One of Olmsted’s initial tasks was the publication of Tests on the Physical Properties of Timber, (Olmstead 1902), in which he 

outlined the timber-testing work conducted in Europe, the work accomplished in the 

United States under the Division of Forestry (1876–1901), and the new investigations planned by the Bureau of Forestry (Rodgers 1968). Thereafter, the Pinchot 

administration conducted a series of studies on the principal structural timbers 

currently found in the marketplace (Godfrey 1990). To meet this task, Pinchot 

established four timber-testing laboratories nationwide—one of which was located 

at Berkeley.36 Under a cooperative agreement with the Bureau of Forestry, Loren 

Hunt established and operated the Berkeley timber testing laboratory in April 

1903. Its initial purpose was to determine the mechanical and structural properties 

of Douglas-fir and western hemlock, the first step in a series of investigations of 

Pacific coast timbers, and the first federal forestry research in California.37 Later, 

the Berkeley facility was used to study western yellow pine or ponderosa pine as 

a structural timber and for telephone and telegraph poles and railroad ties, and the 

commercial possibilities of eucalyptus (blue and red gum) in southern California 

(Clar 1959, Pinchot 1905). They also investigated the Pacific coast tanbark industry, 

with important results (Clar 1959, Pinchot 1905). In California, the region of principal supply and work included the collection of data on the commercial range of 

the species, the effect of cutting and bark peeling on the tree’s reproduction, the

35 Interestingly, Frederick E. Olmsted was a charter member of the Society of American 

Foresters (1900), later headed California Inspection District 5, and thereafter became the 

first Forester of California District 5 (1908–1911) (Godfrey 2005).

36 The other timber-testing laboratories were at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; 

Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana; and USDA, Washington, D.C. (Pinchot 1904).

37 Pinchot hoped to establish a fourth laboratory in Seattle, which would allow the Berkeley 

facility to work on determining the mechanical properties of redwood (Pinchot 1909).
29

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

tannin content of various types of bark, and the relationship of the consumption of 

bark and methods of cutting to future supplies (Pinchot 1903).

In the end, the Pinchot administration’s early timber testing program demonstrated that wood exhibited a remarkable increase of strength when dried to a 

certain moisture content—the so-called “fiber saturation” point of wood. This 

discovery and others later set standards for private industry. Unlike earlier research 

conducted by the Division of Forestry under Fernow, these Forestry Bureau projects emphasized “applied” science over “pure” science, and studies of this nature 

were funded without question because they addressed specific industry problems 

and produced immediate practical results. Furthermore, the Bureau of Forestry 

cooperated with wood users directly in their studies, eventually setting precedents 

for interaction between government, industry, and universities on wood research 

problems (Godfrey 1990).

In 1904, Gifford Pinchot expanded forestry research even further when he 

established the Section of Silvics, or silviculture, in order to “contribute to ordered 

and scientific knowledge of our forests” (Robbins 1985). Silviculture has been defined as the “art and science of controlling the establishment, growth, composition, 

health, and quality of forests and woodlands to meet the diverse needs and values 

of landowners and society on a sustainable basis.” Specific silvicultural techniques 

to improve forests came to America from Europe, where theories of fundamental 

biological and social sciences for managing forests had merged into silvicultural 

science and research practices. Silviculture comprised individual activities or 

operations done at discrete, short times in order to alter a stand’s structure and 

development. Silviculturalists hoped that by coordinating specific operations systematically over time—namely thinning, regeneration, and other techniques—they 

could achieve a desired long-term change in a stand’s structure and development. 

North American silvicultural studies appeared in American universities soon after 

Fernow left office and started teaching at Cornell University (Boyce and Oliver 

1999). Eventually, the rise of silvicultural studies dramatically influenced Forest 

Service research policy and practices.

Additional Cooperative Research Within the 

Department of Agriculture

The Bureau of Forestry, and its predecessor, the Division of Forestry, did not 

conduct all federal government scientific research on topics related to forestry 

by itself. For instance, in cooperation with the Bureau of Chemistry, the Forestry 

Bureau began studies of tannin and resin-bearing trees in connection with the 

The Pinchot 

administration’s early 

timber testing program 

demonstrated that 

wood exhibited a 

remarkable increase 

of strength when dried 

to a certain moisture 

content—the so-called 

“fiber saturation” point 

of wood.
30

general technical report psw-gtr-233

wasteful harvesting “box” method used by naval stores industry.38 Pinchot also 

commissioned cooperative “practical” work with the same bureau to determine 

the tanbark, resin, and gum yield of 50 or so American and Philippine trees. 

Finally, using Bureau of Forestry funds, the Bureau of Chemistry created a dendrochemical laboratory to test various species of southern pine to determine the effect 

of moisture on the strength of these woods (Godfrey 1990, Storey 1975). Another 

USDA agency that Pinchot worked with was the Bureau of Entomology (BE),39

which conducted investigations in forest entomology. The life histories and depredations of forest insects were studied in the Nation’s principal timber. In California, 

they included the study of tree yuccas in southern California, and redwoods and 

tanbark oaks elsewhere. There were also cooperative planting projects with the 

War Department, such as when the Bureau of Forestry consulted on plans for the 

Presidio Military Reservation in San Francisco. There the Bureau and the War 

Deparment worked together to thin the stand planted between 1888 and 1895 and to 

plant an additional area of just over 100 acres. 

The bureau also worked directly with other California cities. For example, an 

extensive planting plan was laid out by the Forestry Bureau for Griffith Park in 

Hollywood, near Los Angeles. To promote reforestation of the watersheds and 

to extend the range of experimental planting, over 8,500 trees were given to Los 

Angeles. More importantly in southern California, the bureau began at this time 

an urgent program to reestablish forests on the GLO-controlled San Gabriel Forest 

Reserve, particularly on Brown Mountain, the western extremity of the reserve. 

It had been heavily damaged by fire and was bare of timber and scantily covered 

with brush. To meet this need, the bureau constructed a seedbed in Pasadena, where 

there was ample water. Seed planting included mostly knobcone, sugar, gray and 

western yellow pine, with a sprinkling of incense-cedar, and Coulter and Torrey 

pine. However, the bureau soon decided that San Gabriel Reserve needed a nursery 

nearer to where the planting was to be done, and thereafter established one on an 

80-acre site at Henninger Flats. Some 30,000 trees were transplanted from

38 This method inflicted a severe wound on the tree, but Forest Products Division studies 

resulted in the “cup and gutter” method, which did not injure the tree and proved economically feasible to the industry.

39 In 1854, the Office of Entomology was created in the Agricultural Section of the Patent 

Office. Later, a Division of Entomology was established in the Department of Agriculture 

in 1863, and confirmed by statute in 1878. It was redesignated the Bureau of Entomology 

(BE) in 1904, a name it maintained until 1934. In addition to its many duties and functions, 

which included studying and controlling insects in cooperation with the states to prevent 

plant diseases, the BE studied ways for combating insect damage in America’s forests, and 

issued extensive reports on the ravages of forest insects. The Bureau of Forestry, and later 

Forest Service, enjoyed an extensive cooperative relationship with the BE that lasted for 

decades (Smith 1930).
31

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

the Pasadena seedbed to the Henninger Flats nursery, and field germination tests 

were conducted (Pinchot, 1903, 1904, 1905). Finally, in view of the extremely high 

value of water near Santa Barbara and the denuded conditions of drainage basins 

in the vicinity, reforestation work was begun on the Santa Barbara Forest Reserve. 

Fire had killed the larger and younger growth. After a fire, dry winters, grazing, 

and lumbering took their toll, presenting a gloomy outlook for increasing coniferous 

woodlands in the area anytime soon. Nonetheless, the bureau established a nursery 

just outside of Santa Barbara to supply at least an effort (Guthrie 1904a, 1904b; 

Pinchot 1905). 

But perhaps the greatest cooperative efforts performed by Pinchot’s Bureau of 

Forestry came when the agency dealt directly with the various government forestry 

boards. For example, in 1901, the Hawaii territorial government sought assistance 

from the bureau inspecting the Hawaiian Islands forest situation. Prior to that date, 

Hawaii’s forested lands had suffered years of destruction by commercial exploitation of its resources (sandalwood, koa, ohia, tree fern), by demand for fuelwood, by 

extensive cattle ranching operations, by the sugar industry, by fires, and by feral 

cattle, goats, and sheep. Pinchot sent assistant forester E.M. Griffith to Hawaii, who 

immediately recommended a policy of forest protection and natural rehabilitation 

of watershed cover to minimize loss of forest cover, thus avoiding the consequent 

need for expensive and slow artificial reforestation. Griffith also recommended 

establishing a Hawaiian forestry organization to carry out protection and reforestation work (Nelson 1989). Two years later, the legislature of Hawaii passed a bill 

creating a Board of Agriculture and Forestry to control Territorial forest lands and 

to administer forest affairs in the islands. Upon the Hawaii Board’s request, in 1903, 

Pinchot detailed William L. Hall40 to examine further the conditions and needs of 

the Hawaiian forests. Hall’s report eventually advocated preservation, protection, 

and rehabilitation of large forest-land areas, and it suggested that forest policy first 

concentrate on protecting watershed resources by establishing forest reserves, 

and practically ignored any potential for local commercial timber development. 

Throughout the early 1900s, the bureau, and later the Forest Service, continued to 

assist the Territory of Hawaii in implementing this forest policy. Despite this early 

interest in additional assistance, Forest Service research in Hawaii was sporadic 

until 1926 and the establishment of the California Experiment Station41 (Nelson 

1989, Pinchot 1904).

40 William L. Hall was in charge of forest extension for the Bureau of Forestry.

41 Hawaii Bureau of Forestry and Forest Service agents, like professional forester Ralph S. 

Hosmer (1903–15), did test the adaptability of many introduced timber species to sites in 

Hawaii and determined the technical qualities of the wood of many native tree species. But 

Hosmer’s successor showed little interest and the work was dropped (Nelson 1989).
32

general technical report psw-gtr-233

California-Bureau of Forestry Joint Forest Survey, 

1903–1904

Pinchot’s Bureau of Forestry was more directly involved in California research 

needs, than in Hawaii needs. During his first few years in office, Pinchot operated 

“practically” when it came to forestry research, as evidenced by his support for 

investigations regarding wood products utilization or silviculture and by cooperative agreements with other divisions of the Agriculture Department. But like 

Hough, Egleston, and Fernow before him, Pinchot continued to stress the need for 

knowledge about the actual conditions in the various forests before wise regulatory 

or administrative forest policies could be developed. His agency, which provided 

technical assistance to the GLO-controlled forest reserves, to state governments, 

and to industry, busied itself during the McKinley administration by initiating 

small-scale surveys of forests and forestry conditions nationwide and outside the 

country in U.S. territories like Hawaii (Clar 1959). 

However, once Theodore Roosevelt—a leading Progressive42 and a close 

personal friend of Pinchot—took office upon President McKinley’s death in 1901, 

Pinchot began to restructure the bureau, which became ever more visible in the 

public eye. Comprising a staff of mature European-educated foresters on the top, 

and an understory of enthusiastic young graduates from eastern forestry schools, 

Pinchot’s Bureau of Forestry was ready to come out of the shadows. This was no 

more evident than in California, where the Bureau of Forestry took on its largest 

forestry survey to date with the help of Governor George Cooper Pardee43 (fig. 7), 

a native son (Clar 1959). With Pardee’s election, California’s decade of government 

indifference to forestry research officially ended.

During his one term in office, Governor Pardee fought off a California legislature antagonistic to the further creation of forest reserves in California. As a result, 

42 Progressivism may be considered as an aggregate of political causes and philosophies 

rather than a single movement. However, in certain respects, most of the men and women 

in the progressive ranks believed that government, whether it be federal, state, or local, 

ought to be stronger, more active, and more efficient in serving the public welfare against 

the so-called “interests.” All strata of society in California eventually enlisted in this 

crusade for “social justice,” resulting in the election of crusading governors, like George 

Cooper Pardee and later Hiram Johnson (Godfrey 2005).

43 Pardee was a Progressive in the vein of Theodore Roosevelt, and a conservationist who 

covered many forestry issues in his 1903 inaugural address—making him known as the 

“father of natural resource conservation in California.”

Pinchot continued to 

stress the need for 

knowledge about the 

actual conditions in 

the various forests 

before wise regulatory 

or administrative forest 

policies could be 

developed.
33

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

the federal government set aside two new forest reserves—the Warner Mountains 

and Modoc Forest Reserves (1904), the northeastern-most of California’s forest 

reserves. Overall, between 1892 and 1904, the federal government had created 

in California a remarkable 12 forest reserves with more than 9.4 million acres of 

“reserved” forested lands. This was close to one-tenth of the entire state. But more 

importantly for forestry research in California, on March 16, 1903, the California 

legislature approved and Governor Pardee signed an act that provided for a comprehensive study of California’s forests. Furthermore, this act authorized the state of 

California to enter into an agreement with the Bureau of Forestry with two primary 

purposes: to study the forest resources of the state and their proper conservation, 

and to formulate a proper state forestry policy (Pinchot 1904). This simple language 

resulted in a landmark agreement between the state of California and Bureau of 

Forestry to conduct a joint survey regarding six mutual areas of forestry interest: 

preventing loss by forest fire; improvement of forests following logging; reforesting 

parts of southern California; regulating grazing; producing a vegetation type map; 

and developing a plan to administer forest lands. Expenses for the survey were 

borne equally by the state and federal governments (Godfrey 2005). 

Shortly after Pardee’s election, Gifford Pinchot arrived in San Francisco to sign 

the historic federal-state joint survey agreement for a technical investigation of 

California’s forest situation. Prior to its signing, Pinchot delivered the last in a series 

of forestry lectures at Berkeley, and then attended a banquet given by a select group 

of Bay area scholars. Guests included the presidents of the University of California 

and Stanford University. Following this fanfare, two of his young professionals, 

Figure 7—California Governor George 

Cooper Pardee (1903–1907). He ordered 

a Joint State and Federal Commission to 

inspect and survey California’s forests, 

and created a board of forestry to monitor and supervise logging, land usage, 

and forest fires in California. Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
34

general technical report psw-gtr-233

William Churchill Hodge, Jr.,44 and Albert F. Potter45 initiated an arduous four-year 

survey, which began on July 1, 190346 (Clar 1959).

Although William or “Bill” Hodge and his assistants were responsible for 

southern California, they set up their center of operations in San Francisco. All the 

same, they immediately set out to study problems occurring in southern California’s 

forest reserves. According to Hodge’s first report, the survey attacked five major 

problems: state cooperation, reserve boundaries, fire protection, forest replacement 

studies, and cooperative planting of eucalyptus. The great hope when the survey 

began in southern California was to develop a method of securing “high forests” 

on chaparral slopes. Many southern Californians were optimistic that the bureau 

could replace dense native mountainside chaparral with conifers or some other 

tall exotic species. To this end, L.C. Miller and his crew, along with W.J. Gardner, 

worked on studying chaparral and watersheds, as well as forest reproduction. 

Growth and site studies embraced plantations in the San Joaquin Valley as well as

44 William or “Bill” Hodge started out his career in forestry in the summer of 1899 by first 

working for the old Division of Forestry as a student assistant. In 1903, at the age of 27, 

Hodge received his Master of Forestry degree from Yale and was immediately assigned to 

the California survey. Although considered by his peers as talented and of unusual intelligence and conservative judgment, he was also seen as a dreamer who could not long apply 

himself to monotonous or burdensome tasks (Clar 1959).

45 Albert F. “Bert” Potter was not a trained forester but a local boy who made good. Potter 

was born on November 14, 1859, in Ione, California, near the Sierra foothills. Son of a 

Sacramento merchant during the California Gold Rush, Albert, at the age of 24, moved 

to eastern Arizona for health reasons where he established a cattle ranch. His years as a 

cattleman exposed him to the consequences of unregulated rangelands and large landowners. In Arizona, Potter met Pinchot, who enticed him into the Bureau of Forestry. Potter, 

according to Pinchot, was the “cornerstone” of Pinchot’s grazing control policy. In 1905, 

when the Bureau of Forestry was transformed into the new United States Forest Service, 

Gifford Pinchot appointed Albert Potter as his grazing expert to handle grazing matters on 

the forest reserves. Thereafter, Potter chose W.C. Clos, a westerner with a background in 

animal husbandry and botany, for his staff. Rule-of-thumb guesses by early range managers eventually were replaced by knowledge rooted in tests, experiments, and analysis of 

detailed knowledge of rangelands. However, true range management science had to wait 

until the Forest Service assumed full responsibility for grazing research. But for the time 

being, the Bureau of Forestry made cooperative agreements with the Bureau of Plant Industry for joint studies and experiments with limited results (Rowley 1985). When Pinchot was 

dismissed in 1910, Potter was the leading candidate for the top job, but reportedly stepped 

aside in favor of Henry S. Graves (Clar 1959). Potter had initially joined the Forest Service 

as an Inspector of Grazing and went on to become Assistant Forester (Chief of Grazing) in 

1907 and Associate Forester (Chief of Grazing) in 1910, a post he held until William Barnes 

replaced him in 1916. Potter retired from the Forest Service in 1920 (Prevedel and Johnson 

2005).

46 Hodge and Potter were assisted by other young men in the field—many of whom had 

attained or were working for degrees from either Cornell or Yale Forestry Schools, and 

many of whom were thereafter destined to spend their careers with the Forest Service 

in California. They included young foresters like Wallace I. Hutchinson and Robert W. 

“Bummer” Ayers, who started their careers working on this survey and eventually became 

District/Region 5 officers. Both men retired in 1930 as the Forest Service celebrated a 

quarter-century of progress (Godfrey 2005).

Rule-of-thumb 

guesses by early range 

managers eventually 

were replaced by 

knowledge rooted in 

tests, experiments, 

and analysis of 

detailed knowledge of 

rangelands. 
35

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

southern California. But before long, these early scientific foresters began to realize 

that brush cover was very important to conserving moisture in the absence of tree 

cover. For instance, in 1904, one assistant forest expert wrote regarding the relative 

merits of conifers and chaparral that he found a “fine humus of leaves and litter, 

and in many cases, a green moss,” which he believed was “equal to, if not superior 

to a coniferous growth” (Guthrie 1904b: 10). Furthermore, these young foresters 

concluded that fires had caused the chaparral to extend beyond its normal range. 

Artificial regeneration of a “high” or conifer forest would be very slow and difficult, and even impossible in their opinion, unless fire could be eliminated. Nonetheless, it would be a decade or longer before the federal agency would give up on 

“reclaiming” the chaparral (Clar 1959, Guthrie 1904b, Pinchot 1904). In the end, 

these forest investigations resulted in the first completed reports on fire conditions in the San Bernardino, San Gabriel, Santa Barbara, San Jacinto, and Trabuco 

Canyon forest reserves; in Monterey County, on the western slope of the southern 

Sierras; and in the Lake Tahoe region (Pinchot 1905).

Albert Potter, who was responsible for northern and central California, set up 

headquarters in Sacramento. Unlike Hodge, Potter’s crew was more directly involved with the grazing and lumber industries. One special study by them on 

the effect of grazing on forest lands led immediately to grazing regulations 

within the forest reserves. But generally speaking, Potter and his assistants were 

mostly concerned with fire control work conducted cooperatively with the state of 

California and two progressive lumber companies—the Diamond Match Company 

(Butte County) and McCloud Company (Siskiyou County). The Diamond Match 

study stressed and embraced in its investigations a fire plan, the establishment of 

call boxes, and what some have called the first forest fire lookout in California, and 

probably in the Nation, at Bald Mountain. Another probable first was the employment of special crews who were constantly ready for fire duty. Two “fire wardens” 

also rode the trails throughout the summer. The McCloud study focused on developing a systematic plan of fire protection for lands owned by the company. It looked 

at yield estimate and management costs for a system of fire protection consisting 

of firebreaks, fire patrols, signage, and tool caches. The final report satisfied the 

owners that protection was affordable and practicable. The McCloud study’s fire 

management analysis was reported as The Control of Forest Fires at McCloud, 

California by Albert W. Cooper and Paul D. Kelleter (1907), and was one of the 

first of its kind nationwide (Clar 1959). 

The above describes only a limited amount of the work conducted in north, 

central, and southern California under the survey. When completed, the survey 

included 17 comprehensive scientific reports on various subjects, and 45 special 
36

general technical report psw-gtr-233

papers. Unfortunately, this large body of scientific literature on California’s forests 

has never been compiled into one study under one cover, and regrettably, much of 

it is unpublished and the manuscripts are either deeply buried in national and state 

archives, or are lost. Important titles of reports range from Edward T. Allen’s47

National Forest Reserves for the State of California (in Clar 1959), to Hodge’s A 

Report on a Forest Policy for the State of California (Hodge 1959) and his Forest 

Conditions in the Sierras (in clar 1959), to Ralph S. Hosmer’s48 Forest Conditions 

in Southern California (in Clar 1959). Each document broke new ground. For 

instance, Albert Cooper’s Sugar Pine and Western Yellow Pine in California

(Cooper 1906) went beyond John G. Lemmon’s earlier dendrological reports. 

It was a treatise on the botanical and silvicultural features of the two valuable 

lumber species, and additionally discussed the economics of lumbering and forest 

management and the relationship and effect of fire on their production (Clar 1959, 

Godfrey 2005).

Ultimately, the joint survey recognized that the forest conditions in California 

were deplorable and that watersheds were being damaged yearly by fire, widespread overgrazing, and land clearing. Timber management was nonexistent and 

exploitive, and heedless logging had badly deteriorated the forests to the point 

where some open stands lacked the ability to reproduce. Regarding fire control, the 

survey pointed out that postsettlement, human-caused fires were increasing owing 

to general carelessness and an indifference to fire. Most important of all, the joint 

survey’s conclusions led to the passage of a series of laws by the California legislature, the most important being the Forest Protection Act of 1905, which provided

47 Edward Tyson Allen was among the charter founders of the Society of American 

Foresters in 1900, and in 1905 he served as a Forest Service inspector and thereafter was 

appointed California’s first State Forester (Rodgers 1968). Allen had to leave office the 

following year for personal reasons (Thorton 1994).

48 In 1894, Ralph Sheldon Hosmer received his Bachelor of Agricultural Science from 

Harvard and thereafter served in the USDA Division of Soils (1896–1898) but transferred 

to the Division of Forestry where he was a field assistant to Gifford Pinchot and then Chief 

of the Forest Replacement Section until 1903. During the interim, he became one of the 

charter members of the Society of American Foresters (1900) and was admitted to the 

first class of the Yale Forest School, obtaining his Master of Forestry in 1902. In January 

1904, on Pinchot’s recommendation, he became Territorial Forester of Hawaii. Hosmer 

recognized that the most important resource of Hawaiian forests was water for irrigation of 

agricultural lands. He also realized that the two greatest hazards to maintaining adequate 

forest cover on the watersheds were grazing and fire. He proposed and enacted a system of 

forest reserves, which at the time embraced approximately one-fourth of the total area of 

the islands. He also advocated extending the forest area by planting and began large-scale 

test planting of exotic trees to determine those best suited for such extension. Because of 

his contribution to forestry in Hawaii, a grove of timber on the slopes of Mount Haleakala 

in the Hawaiian National Park was set aside to memorialize him as being the “father of 

Hawaiian forestry” (Journal of Forestry 1957).

Ultimately, the joint 

survey recognized that 

the forest conditions 

in California were 

deplorable and that 

watersheds were 

being damaged yearly 

by fire, widespread 

overgrazing, and land 

clearing.
37

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

for the protection and management of the forests within the state and reconstituted 

the state Board of Forestry along with a technical administrative force consisting of 

a State Forester and two assistants. Robert W. Cermak, a leading California Forest 

Service historian, called the California Forest Protection Act a “milestone in the 

progress of forest conservation in California” (Clar 1959 in Cermak 2005). Passage 

of the Forest Protection Act ended California’s decade of official indifference to 

forestry. With its passage, the state of California entered an era of modern forestry, 

and a state-level interest in the well-being of its natural resources materialized (Clar 

1959, Godfrey 2005, Pinchot 1905).

The Dream of California Forestry Education Continues, 

1899–1904

Alongside the growth of federal forest reserves in California and the return of statelevel interest in forestry came a parallel interest in educating foresters. As detailed 

above, the idea of forestry education in California was rooted deeply in the past, 

going as far back as 1876. Men like Berkeley Professor Eugene Hilgard had 

provided forestry instruction to some students, and others, like watershed conservationist Abbott Kinney, lectured on the subject. However, their activities did not 

amount to a formal forestry school curriculum. Starting in 1899, interest in forestry 

education on the university level in California was picked up again, this time by 

Benjamin Ide Wheeler, President of the University of California. In his inauguration speech, President Wheeler spoke about the need to expand university studies, 

and he dwelt at great length upon the rising profession of forestry. His speech was 

no doubt inspired by and urged on by early advocates of forest education, such as 

Professors Willis Linn Jepson and E.J. Wickson of the Botany Department, and by 

Julia Lemmon of the California Federation of Women’s Clubs (Clar 1959). Although 

nothing came of Wheeler’s words, the early seeds for California forestry education 

were nurtured along.

Three years later, former Chief of Division of Forestry Bernhard Fernow came 

to California, and his visit planted the idea that someday California would have its 

own forestry school. In 1902, Fernow delivered a course of lectures during the summer session at the Idyllwild health resort in the San Jacinto Mountains. The success 

of Fernow’s appearance inspired Professor Jepson to inaugurate an annual summer 

forestry lecture event at the resort, starting in mid-summer 1903. The primary 

object of the lecture series was to “correct the sentimental views which were so 

prevalent and to bring an understanding of the economic principles underlying the 

science of forestry” (Clar 1959, Rodgers 1968). At this initial event, Jepson spoke 

on the life histories of a number of California species, and Ralph Hosmer from the 
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Bureau of Forestry covered his current investigation regarding the forest resources 

of southern California under the California-federal joint forest survey project. Even 

Gifford Pinchot at one time was listed as a summer lecturer (Rodgers 1968). This 

lecture series, as well as the continuing work of the joint California-federal forest 

survey which had begun in July, may have inspired legislative action on behalf 

of establishing a California forestry school. By late 1903, two funding bills were 

introduced in the California legislature for appropriations to establish and support 

a school of forestry at the University of California at Berkeley. The bills failed 

to receive favorable action, but nevertheless, University President Wheeler and 

Professor Wickson continued to carry the torch of forestry education. In an article 

entitled “Forestry in the University” published after the demise of the bills, Wheeler 

stated: “The University of California is ready and anxious to undertake instruction 

in Forestry. There is frequent inquiry from students who wish to devote themselves 

to the work. The demand too for trained foresters is making itself heard” (Clar 

1959). The demand for foresters greatly increased after February 1, 1905—the day 

that Congress transferred the Nation’s forest reserves from the Department of the 

Interior to the Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Forestry became the 

U.S. Forest Service. With this transfer there was also a need for a larger research 

effort to provide the technical information needed to manage the many resources 

of these lands so that they could provide goods and services on a sustained basis.

Rise of Forestry Science in America and California

In summary, early scientific interest in America’s forests began in the late 1700s 

and in California’s forests in the 1810s. However, the development and growth of 

federal forest research did not occur until 1876, when national fears of an impending timber famine led the Department of Agriculture to study forestry conditions 

in the United States. This action was 15 years prior to the establishment of “forest 

reserves” from the public domain, and 21 years before provision was made for 

protecting and using these reserves, later called “national forests.” During the 

ensuing years, the role of forestry science increased in importance as its adherents 

struggled to define it and its terminology, while trying to develop useful science. 

Under the various administrations of the Division of Forestry—Hough, Egleston, 

and Fernow—and Pinchot’s Bureau of Forestry, forest cultural data were compiled 

and interpreted. Investigations were then made nationwide, gradually increasing in 

scale in the fields of forest regeneration, dendrology and silviculture, forest products, forest influences, forest fire control, and forest insects and diseases.

“The University of 

California is ready and 

anxious to undertake 

instruction in Forestry. 

There is frequent 

inquiry from students 

who wish to devote 

themselves to the 

work. The demand too 

for trained foresters is 

making itself heard.”
39

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

In California, a forestry science movement emerged after 1883. By this date, 

Californians statewide protested the denudation and mismanagement of critical 

mountain and other watersheds. This public outcry caused the legislature to establish a California Board of Forestry to compile scientific information regarding the 

condition of the state’s forests through research and investigations, to study the use 

of state nurseries and experimental farms for reforestation purposes, and to educate 

the public regarding forestry science and conservation through the California 

university system. The statewide mood supporting forestry research waned after the 

legislature dissolved the CBF in 1893. A decade later, interest in forestry research in 

California revived as leadership on the federal, state, university, and industry levels 

endorsed cooperative research projects, an event notably reflected by the State of 

California-Bureau of Forestry joint forest survey begun in 1903. From this point 

forward, a new forestry research period began in California, with the U.S. Forest 

Service taking the lead.
This Page Left Blank Intentionally
41

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Chapter 2: 1905–1925, Forest Service 

Research in California

Before February 1, 1905, the Forest Service—then the Bureau of Forestry—was 

without executive duties. Instead, it was engaged in research aimed at promoting the best use of all forests and forest products throughout the United States by 

collecting and disseminating both technical and scientific information on American 

forests and the forestry movement. The Agricultural Department had been doing 

this more or less effectively since 1876, but after 1905, when the Interior Department transferred control of the national forests to the Forest Service, the role of 

research took secondary place in Gifford Pinchot’s administration. Whatever 

research that was accomplished was not of the same quality as in the past, and 

would not be, until the Forest Service recovered its central role in forestry research 

in the country. “The great task of placing the national forests under administration 

so completely absorbed the thought and activities of Forest Service personnel that 

research was very largely ignored” (Pinchot 1908, Storey 1975). 

From 1905 to 1925, national forest research went through three basic development periods. During the early years, 1905 to 1914, forest research was largely 

haphazard and unstructured; nationwide, forest research received smaller and 

smaller parts of the total Forest Service appropriations.1

 However, starting around 

1909, officials in the Forest Service began to reemphasize research and worked to 

better coordinate research programs, which led to the formative years of the Forest 

Service’s research program from 1915 to 1919. This initial promise of progress was 

temporarily interrupted by the outbreak of World War I. However, following this 

era came a maturing period, 1920 to 1925, and forestry research grew into a fully 

developed national program by mid-1925 and led to the funding of the California 

Forest Experiment Station—what is now known as the Pacific Southwest (PSW) 

Research Station.

The Early Years, National Forest Research, 1905–1914

In the early years, from 1905 to 1908, Forest Service research had no clear conception of major objectives, or for that matter, a body of manpower trained in scientific 

techniques. All forest officers from national forest superintendents and rangers to 

technical field men considered themselves researchers. Each felt the urge to set out 

upon some investigative study or another; indeed, not to do so was seen as cause

1

 For example, general investigations, including state and private cooperation, amounted 

to only about 6.8 percent of Forest Service expenditures for fiscal years 1908 and 1909 

(Pinchot 1908, 1909).
42

general technical report psw-gtr-233

to suspect the “genuineness of their conversion to the faith.” Without a scientific 

education or guidance, and sometimes even without the knowledge of their supervisors, they often produced voluminous reports regarding their personal silvical 

observations. Under such circumstances, many of the required annual silviculture 

reports “degenerated into meaningless wordiness” (Hill 1931). Some semblance of 

coordination in research appeared when permanent sample plots were laid out on 

many national forests. Using these plots, Forest Service personnel aimed to secure 

accurate data through experiments on such matters as the recovering of denuded 

areas, thinning and reproduction cutting, sowing and planting, the introduction of 

new species, and the best effects of different methods of cutting. However, many 

of these early studies lacked working plans or were not carried out properly by 

supervisors, rangers, or technical field men. Additionally, measurements on many 

of these early experimental plots were begun but never completed, and there was 

little coordination on research standards. Personnel and scientific interests changed 

frequently. In later years, Forest Service researchers expended much energy in 

trying to get something of value from the incomplete, intermittent, and poor records 

left behind by these early “earnest” scientists (Storey 1975).

Significant change in the Forest Service’s research organization came on 

May 6, 1908, when Raphael Zon (fig. 8),2 head of the Division of Special Investigations in Washington, proposed the creation of forest experiment stations (Pinchot 

1909, Storey 1975, Williams 2000). This idea to decentralize research was promptly 

approved, and during the summer of 1908, the Forest Service established the 

Fort Valley Experiment Station on the Coconino National Forest near Flagstaff, 

Arizona, with G.A. Pearson in charge.3 Similar stations soon followed. They 

included the Fremont Experiment Station (1909) in Colorado, directed by Carlos 

G. Bates,4 and the Priest River Experiment Station, in Idaho (1911), directed by 

Donald B. Brewster.5

 The Forest Service soon added research stations to other

2

 Raphael Zon graduated from Cornell’s first forestry school class (1901) under guidance of 

Bernard Fernow. With a Forest Engineer degree in hand, on July 1, 1901, Gifford Pinchot 

appointed this Russian immigrant, who also had collegiate work in Russia, Belgium, and 

England, as a student assistant at the munificent annual salary of $300. In January 1, 1902, 

Zon was permanently hired as an assistant forest expert. Advancement came quickly for 

Zon, who was strongly research minded. By 1905, Zon headed the Division of Investigations and thereafter laid the foundation for Forest Service silvicultural investigative work 

and exercised a major influence on forestry research during his long years of service 

(Clapp 1956, Rodgers 1968, Storey 1975).

3

 For a history of this station, see Gaines and Shaw 1958 and Olberding 2000.

4

 The Fremont Experiment Station was located near Manitou Springs, Colorado, in a 

pleasant mountain valley on the east slope of Pikes Peak. For a brief history of the Fremont 

Experiment Station, see Price 1976.

5

 For a recent history of the Priest River Experiment Station see Graham 2004. Experiment 

stations in California will be discussed in detail later in this chapter.
43

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

states, including California, Washington, and Utah. All of these early Forest Service research stations were very small and had limited facilities. Nonetheless, they 

investigated important silvicultural problems that could only be answered satisfactorily by long years of ongoing research in their states or districts. Their research 

activities supplemented the research carried out by the administrative men within 

each state or district (Storey 1975), such as California District 5 (Godfrey 2005).

Starting in 1909, the Forest Service set nationwide research priorities and goals. 

As noted in the previous chapter, in 1891, Bernhard Fernow started forest products 

research in the form of a “timber physics” program, but this research was discontinued in 1897. In 1903, Gifford Pinchot reestablished forest products research, which 

utilized four timber-testing laboratories nationwide. It soon became evident that 

better coordination, laboratory supplies, and equipment could be provided if products research was consolidated into one centralized laboratory. Therefore, in 1909, 

the Forest Service announced that it would build a laboratory at the University of 

Wisconsin-Madison under the direction of McGarvey Cline.6

 A year later, the

6

 As early as 1907, bills were introduced into Congress to establish a centralized woodtesting laboratory in America. The idea for a new laboratory was moribund until 

McGarvey Cline, head of the Section of Wood Uses within the Forest Service’s Branch 

of Forest Products, proposed that a cooperative agreement with a high-grade technical 

school be undertaken to establish a national laboratory. Seven universities enthusiastically 

received Cline’s idea and they competed for the new forest products research facility. 

The University of Wisconsin received the highest scores in a ranking among them and on 

June 4, 1910, the Forest Products Laboratory opened there with Cline as its first director 

(1910–1912) (Godfrey 1990).

Figure 8—Raphael Zon directed the 

Division of Special Investigations 

(Research) (1902–1909). He was the 

first to propose the creation of forest 

experiment stations to decentralize 

research. Zon also pioneered studies 

of the relationship of forests to streams 

and flooding. U.S. Forest Service, Forest History Society
44

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Forest Service dedicated the Forest Products Laboratory (FPL). Initially the FPL 

was organized into eight sections: wood preservation, timber tests, wood chemistry, 

wood technology, engineering, wood pathology, wood distillation, and pulp and 

paper (Storey 1975), and was considered a “forward step in forest conservation, a 

symbol of optimistic faith of the day, and part of the larger Progressive movement 

aimed at bettering modern society through rational planning based on science and 

technology” (Godfrey 1990).

The search for order in national forest research continued in January 1912 

under Forest Service Order 41, which established a Central Investigative Committee 

(CIC) in Washington, D.C. Chaired by Raphael Zon, head of the silviculture branch, 

the other CIC members consisted of the heads of the grazing and forest products 

branches, James T. Jardine and Howard Weiss, respectively. The CIC was charged 

with setting up a plan for organizing national Forest Service investigative work.

Along with the CIC, district investigative committees (DICs) were created. 

They consisted of one representative of each of the major lines of investigation conducted at the district level (silviculture, grazing, and products) and one supervisor 

who had technical training. The creation of the CIC and DICs was an improvement 

over prior conditions, but only marginally (Storey 1975).

Meanwhile, the newly formed Forest Service continued to cooperate with other 

federal agencies on range and forest insect research as the agency had done in 

previous years. In 1905, following the transfer of the forest reserves to the Forest 

Service, the agency became directly concerned with problems associated with range 

use, protection, and rehabilitation. Initially, there were limited cooperative agreements with the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI)7

 for joint studies and experiments to 

discover under what conditions and in what localities it would be possible to secure 

natural reproduction of valuable forage grasses and plants, and how and where to 

plant new seed successfully (Pinchot 1907). But in 1908, a Branch of Grazing was 

created within the Forest Service, and the agency soon began conducting its own 

7

 To handle grazing developments throughout the Nation, Congress established the Division of Botany (1868), and then the Bureau of Animal Husbandry (1884). By 1895, however, 

deterioration of ranges in California and other Western States caused by the introduction 

of great numbers of sheep, which rapaciously consumed limited range resources, had 

become critical. Congress responded to these range problems by creating the Division of 

Agrostology, whose mission centered on studying major questions related to rotation, range 

reseeding, and grazing. In 1901, the Divisions of Botany and Agrostology were combined 

into the Bureau of Plant Industry, which aimed to rectify range problems by applying 

scientific principles to the study of forage plants, reseeding, and grazing impacts on 

public rangeland. But because its new director, W.J. Spillman, was interested more in crop 

agriculture than in range stock problems, federal range work was actually curtailed. There 

appears to have been little cooperative work on range matters between the Bureau of Plant 

Industry and Bureau of Forestry at this early date (Rowley 1985, 1999).
45

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

applied range science8 projects, exploring areas such as handling livestock, planting 

seed, studying poisonous plants, and exterminating animals injurious to rangeland. 

Two individuals, agricultural scientist James T. Jardine9 and plant ecologist Arthur 

W. Sampson10 (fig. 9)10, conducted reseeding studies, and reports on growth habits 

and requirements of important range plants to furnish important information for 

determining grazing capacity on Western ranges (Pinchot 1908, Storey 1975). 

Meanwhile, in 1910, the Forest Service moved closer to establishing its own range 

research program when the Office of Range and Forage Plant Investigations was 

set up in the Branch of Grazing. James Jardine was placed in charge. This step 

marked the beginning of a formal recognition of range research within the Forest 

Service as an important field of investigation. Subsequently, in 1911, district range 

research offices were established in the Pacific Northwest, and the Intermountain, 

Rocky Mountain, and Southwest regions. The primary work of these offices was to 

conduct range reconnaissance surveys, although limited studies of the relation of 

grazing to erosion and floods were conducted as well (Storey 1975).

8

 Actually, the development of western range science may have begun in California, for 

in 1883, William H. Brewer published his influential essay “Pasture and Forage Plants” 

(Brewer 1883). Brewer’s article was the first publication in the Nation to actually identify 

the taxonomic distinctions between western versus eastern rangeland. In his study, Brewer 

used the valleys and lower ranges of the western Sierra in identifying and classifying 

California’s vegetation conditions. Interestingly, at that time, Brewer also recognized the 

area’s growing overgrazing problem. Brewer’s California observations may have foretold 

the catastrophic stock losses caused by overstocked ranges and depleted native grasses 

that occurred on the southern plains in the winter of 1885–1886, on the northern plains in 

1886–1887, and in the Great Basin during the winter of 1889–1890 (Rowley 1999). With no 

regulation of grazing, mountain meadows were severely overgrazed by cattle and sheep, 

with some ranges in California completely denuded of vegetation and trampled out by 1890 

(Godfrey 2005).

9

 Born in Idaho, James Tertius Jardine graduated from Utah State Agriculture College 

in 1905 with a bachelor’s degree and soon joined the Forest Service as a special agent. In 

1910, Jardine was made “inspector of grazing” in charge of national forest range investigations and surveys. From 1920 to 1931, he served as the Director of the Oregon Agricultural 

Experiment Station in Corvallis. 

10 Arthur W. Sampson joined the Forest Service in 1907 as an assistant plant ecologist 

and was hired to work with Jardine on urgent range problems in the mountains of eastern 

Oregon. Their work furnished essential information for determining ways and means 

of using the forage consistent with the growth requirements of local vegetation. In 1911, 

Sampson’s work led him to California, where he worked with William A. Dayton on the 

relation of grazing to timber production on the Shasta National Forest (Sampson 1913). 

Thereafter, he became the first director of the Great Basin Experiment Station, a post he 

held from 1912 to 1922. Sampson was one of the first Forest Service researchers to study 

grazing and watershed problems. In 1922, he accepted a position as associate professor of 

forestry at Berkeley, where he introduced courses in range management, and taught at that 

institution until his death in 1940 (Cassamajor 1965).
46

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Besides cooperating with BPI on range research, starting in 1907 the Forest 

Service began working with the bureau’s newly established Washington, D.C., 

forest pathology laboratory on forest disease research.11 The BPI’s D.C. laboratory gave major attention to nursery diseases—especially those afflicting conifers 

because of the Forest Service’s efforts to reforest denuded areas in western forests—but was essentially responsible for all disease research, except for research 

on wood preservatives, which fell to the Forest Service. Additionally, by 1908, the 

laboratory began a survey of forest diseases in the West, and in 1910, the Forest 

Service reached an agreement with BPI to assign pathologists to each of the western 

forest districts. By that year, BPI pathologists focused their early studies on subjects 

like dwarf mistletoes (see “Scientific and Common Names” section) of western 

11 Forest disease research began in 1899 under Hermann von Schrenk, whose work led to 

the creation of the Mississippi Valley Laboratory at the Shaw School of Botany, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri. The Bureau of Forestry and its successor, the Forest 

Service, worked with the St. Louis laboratory until 1907, when a disagreement occurred 

between the Forest Service and the Mississippi Valley Laboratory over areas of responsibility in different areas of pathology. The dispute led to the establishment of a new laboratory 

of pathology within the Bureau of Plant Industry in Washington, D.C. (Storey 1975).

Figure 9—Arthur W. Sampson, 

pioneer range scientist in the Forest 

Service (1907–1922) and noted 

University of California grazing 

expert who introduced courses in 

range management at the Berkeley 

campus. U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
47

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

conifers and heart rots of Pacific coast firs. In 1912, white pine blister rust (fig. 10)12

assumed epidemic proportions and thereafter came under the watchful eyes of 

western pathologists (Storey 1975). 

Finally, the Forest Service also continued work on insect research projects 

with the Bureau of Entomology’s (BE) Office of Forest Insect Investigation, which 

had been created in 1902. During the period 1905 to 1914, BE’s forest insect effort 

focused first on assessing important insect problems nationwide, and then on developing both control and research programs, especially in the Nation’s western forests. By 1905, BE had developed a regional approach to the study of forest insects, 

and California fell into the Pacific coast region. The first control work in California 

began in 1910, and for the next several years, a major part of the effort of the forest 

insect group was controlling outbreaks of bark beetles there (Storey 1975).

Early Development and Growth of Forest Research in 

California and the Pacific Islands, 1905–1914

The year 1905 was a legacy year in California conservation history. In that year, 

not only did the General Land Office (GLO) forest reserves in California come 

under the control of the newly established Forest Service, but new forest reserves 

were carved out of public land in the state.13 At this time, the Forest Service had 

no “formal” forest research program in California, and would not have one until a 

few years later. Therefore, from 1905 to 1908, the Forest Service leaned on its own 

untrained personnel, or on California college professors of botany, for the small 

amount of formal research that was conducted in forest management, forest extension, forest products, and dendrology. 

Important forest management studies conducted by Forest Service personnel 

included the inspection of timber cutting on District 5 forest reserves; the study of 

white fir; the formation of working plans for portions of the Sierra Forest Reserve; 

12 Blister rust is not native to North America, and it is generally believed that the rust’s 

original host was Swiss stone pine in northern Asia. The rust made two critical moves into 

North America through imports of infected nursery stock. Imported pine seedlings brought 

the fungus to the Northeastern States in 1898, if not earlier. A separate shipment from 

France brought the fungus to the Pacific coast in 1910 at Vancouver, British Columbia. In 

the 1920s, the rate of spread picked up momentum, and by 1930, the rust had progressed 

as far south as the sugar pine stands in northeastern California and as far east as the white 

pine stands of western Montana (Miller and Kimmey 1958).

13 In 1905, they included the Diamond Mountain, Klamath, Lassen Peak, Plumas, Shasta, 

Trinity, and Yuba Forest Reserves. The Monterey (1906), Pinnacles (1906), San Luis 

Obispo (1906), and Stony Creek (1907) Forest Reserves soon followed. With the addition 

of the Stony Creek Reserve, California had the largest number of forest reserves in the 

country—20. The task of managing the “old” California GLO reserves and the “new” Forest Service reserves was left to forest reserve supervisors and rangers (Godfrey 2005).
48

general technical report psw-gtr-233

and the examination of proposed cuttings on the Santa Barbara Forest Reserve. 

Forest extension projects comprised the study of state forest land; the preparation 

of planting plans with various landowners; and nursery and planting work on the 

Santa Barbara Forest Reserve. Forest products research and dendrology projects research were left largely to a cooperative field program with various universities and 

individuals who were drafted to conduct this research by the collaborator method. 

Dendrology projects included the study of the new and little-known eucalypts for 

the United States; the investigation of tanbark oaks of the Pacific coast; special 

studies of little-known California trees like the four-leaf pine, Torrey pine, and 

Bishop pine; and the examination of native and exotic acacias. Forest products 

research continued to look into the strength of various woods, through cooperation 

with the University of California at Berkeley. Studies carried out in Los Angeles 

centered on wood preservation. Forest Service personnel such as Robert Ayers14

 ran 

experiments in the preservative treatment of fence posts with creosote in open tanks 

and experimented in seasoning and treating telephone and other poles for electric 

wires in close cooperation with southern California electric companies (Hill 1931).

The California research situation changed somewhat in December 1908 when 

Gifford Pinchot reorganized the Forest Service into districts and transferred a 

good part of his clerical staff from Washington to district offices, which became 

14 Robert W. Ayres joined the Forest Service in 1902 and retired in 1943. By the time of his 

retirement, he had served under every district and regional forester of the California region 

and typified old-time forest officers (Godfrey 2005).

Figure 10—Blister rust is probably the most destructive disease of pines in the United States, and the 

Forest Service works diligently to control blister rust 

in America's forests. U.S. Forest Service, Pacific South- west Research Station
49

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

small replicas of the Washington office (WO) with the same branch organization. 

California and a small portion of Nevada was designated as District Office 5, and 

Frederick E. Olmsted15 was placed in charge of District 5’s small staff, located in 

San Francisco. Any formal forest research conducted within District 5 by the Forest 

Service was left to the branch chiefs, and the superintendents, rangers, and technical field men under them. George M. Homans16 led the silviculture branch with 

the practical and blunt New Englander T.D. Woodbury17 as his assistant. George 

Peavey18 conducted planting work and F.R. Cooper19 headed investigations. John 

H. Hatton20 was made chief of grazing, and C. Stowell Smith was made chief of 

products, a position he held until 1917 (fig. 11). There were assistants and project 

leaders as well for operations, silviculture, grazing, and products (Hill 1931, Show, 

n.d). From this point onward, the development of Forest Service research work in 

California was given direction by these men and took a productive form.

During the period 1905 to 1914, two district foresters administered California 

District 5. Frederick Olmsted carried District 5 through its initial years from 1908 

to 1911. However, even at this early date, District 5 staff started to complain about

15 Frederick “Fritz” Erskine Olmsted was a young discipline-minded engineer, who, after 

attending Yale, entered the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) as a surveyor, where he met 

Pinchot. Following his advice, Olmsted attended the Biltmore Forest School and then 

trained in forestry in Germany and India. In 1900, he returned to America and joined the 

USDA Division of Forestry. In 1908, Olmsted became California District 5’s first district 

forester, a post he held until June 1911, when he left the Forest Service. Olmsted then 

worked as a consulting forester, served as president of the Society of American Foresters 

(1919), and wrote numerous articles promoting effective fire protection and good forest 

management (Godfrey 2005).

16 In 1910, George Morris Homans was appointed California’s third State Forester, following E.T. Allen (1905) and George B. Lull (1906–1909).

17 T.D. Woodbury joined the Forest Service in 1904 and was a key member of California 

District 5’s timber management program from the 1910s to the 1930s, where he was 

in charge of the Branch of Timber Management, and after 1935, the Division of Forest 

Management. According to Woodbury, the policy of national forest management in 

California was very simple: “It consisted in selling mature timber wherever the operator 

wants it unless some reasons were known why the sale should not be made.” In other 

words, silviculture and timber sales took precedence over all other forest management 

areas and responsibilities. During World War I, Woodbury was made Assistant District 5 

Forester when Coert DuBois was furloughed to the war effort and later Assistant Regional 

Forester until his retirement in September 1941 (Godfrey 2005). 

18 George W. Peavey left the Forest Service soon thereafter to become the first Dean of 

the Forest School at Corvallis, Oregon, and then President of Oregon State University 

(Godfrey 2005).

19 No information could be located regarding F.R. Cooper.

20 Hatton later transferred to another Forest Service district. His successors were M.B. 

Elliott and later C.E. Rachford; both had worked as cowboys before joining the agency 

(Show, n.d.).
50

general technical report psw-gtr-233

the level of useable information and scientific fact regarding California forestry. For 

instance, at the 1910 supervisor’s meeting for District 5, old-time forest examiner 

Louis Margolin succinctly summarized the history and current state of Forest 

Service forestry research in this way.

When the old Division of Forestry was first organized it was a purely 

technical office engaged in two different lines of work. Its chief task was 

propaganda—the spreading of the gospel of Forestry amon[g] an uninterested nation. The second task was of a scientific character, and some our 

most valuable publication[s] date from that period...

When the transfer of the Forest Reserves from the Interior Department 

to the Department of Agriculture occurred on February 1, 1905, a great 

change took place in the policy of the old Division of Forestry. From an 

insignificant scientific office it developed into a great administrative 

Figure 11—District 5 officers. left to right: T.D. Woodbury, Forest Management; L.A. Barrett, Lands; Paul G. Redington, District 

Forester; Frank E. Bonner, District Engineer; S.B. Show, Research; J.W. Nelson, Grazing; Dr. E.P. Meinecke, Pathology; W.I. 

Hutchinson, Public Relations; A.W. Smith, Finance and Accounts; R.L. Deering, Operations.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Region
51

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Bureau.... As a consequence the scientific force of the Bureau was greatly 

reduced and was overshadowed in every way by the men in administrative 

positions. Scientific work was at a discount and the best men fought shy of 

it. This state of affairs was entirely justifiable at that time, but as order is 

now being brought out of chaos a change is taking place [USDA FS 1910: 

36].

Under Olmsted, District 5 undertook to do something about this situation. Men 

like Olmsted saw that science played an important role in timber, forest products, 

and forest influences, and he supported the classic fields of European forestry on 

which investigations had centered since Bureau of Forestry days. Most California 

research efforts in these early years focused on reforestation research, especially 

the reclamation of brushfields in southern California through nursery and planting 

programs. Besides reforestation, District 5 personnel also recognized the value of 

research in other important areas such as forest products, although Olmsted considered it “more or less separate and distinct from the Forest Service” (USDA FS 

1910). Nonetheless, research accomplishments under Olmsted were limited prior to 

his resignation in June 1911.

With District Forester Olmsted’s departure, Coert DuBois became District 5’s 

second district forester, and served from 1911 to 1919. During DuBois’ administration, research efforts in California increased in some research areas, and changed 

directions in others.21 Much like his predecessor, District Forester DuBois saw 

products research as a service only to lumbermen and he believed it had no place 

in a district organization whose main business was the running of public forests. 

He maintained that if lumbermen wanted products research, they should establish 

and finance it themselves, and argued that such work should be confined to the 

FPL (Hill 1931). On the other hand, DuBois did believe in research in silviculture, 

forest pathology, entomology, range management, and especially fire protection and 

control.

21 Starting in 1911 and under the direction of District Forester Olmsted, District 5 supervisors were required to prepare silvicultural work plans for their forests based upon a 17-page 

questionnaire that asked for past, present, and future information regarding all classes of 

forest business, as well as timber management on their forests. Although these plans were 

supported by a mass of related data, in one supervisor’s opinion, they were mostly made to 

give the files a “scientific aroma.” In 1914, DuBois suspended the effort (Godfrey 2005).
52

general technical report psw-gtr-233

California Forest Service Research Program, 1905–1914

Silviculture Studies

During the first decades of the 20th century, silvicultural studies covered a broad 

spectrum of research topics. District 5 carried out a number of such studies during 

the period 1905 to 1914, to resolve forest management problems through scientific 

investigations. For instance, there were minor studies regarding the different methods of cutting, the influence of forests on streamflow, the breeding of trees, and the 

differences in the growth owing to seed source.22 Forest economics and marketing 

studies were made in cooperation with the state of California on white fir and other 

important commercial trees of the Sierras. Cooperative state forest studies also 

included a commercial tree study of the redwood and the completion of a series of 

studies on California’s forests (Pinchot 1906, 1907, 1909). But without question, 

in these early years, forest regeneration studies dominated silvicultural research 

in California, particularly in southern California. Southern Californians, such as 

Theodore P. Lukens23 and George B. Lull,24 agitated for this reforestation research, 

and planting investigations were the order of the day. 

To meet reforestation needs, between 1905 and 1908 District 5 expanded the 

capacity of the Henninger Flats nursery in southern California, building sleeping 

quarters, a tool house, and increased working equipment there. By the end of the 

22 The policy of the Forest Service at this time was to reestablish by artificial means, as 

rapidly as possible, areas of forests that would not within a reasonable time be reforested 

naturally. Seeding was seen as a viable means to this end, and a large amount of experimental work in seeding and planting was done to determine the best methods. As early as 

1909, various comparative methods of seeding and planting were being investigated on the 

Angeles, Cleveland, and Santa Barbara National Forests (Pinchot 1909).

23 Theodore Parker Lukens was a Pasadena civic and business leader and citrus grower who 

actively crusaded for watershed protection in southern California. Starting in the 1880s, 

Lukens pushed for regeneration of California’s forests by planting efforts and believed that 

the burned-over southern California mountainsides could be covered with timber and the 

watershed protected. He and others like Abbot Kinney were conservationists for pragmatic 

reasons—they wished to conserve watersheds for nearby metropolitan areas’ domestic and 

commercials needs. Lukens’ perseverance with reforestation eventually earned him the 

sobriquet “father of California forestry” (Godfrey 2005).

24 George B. Lull joined the Bureau of Forestry shortly after graduating from Cornell and 

was one of Gifford Pinchot’s youthful assistants. He worked on the California-Bureau of 

Forestry Joint Forest Survey (1903–1905), where the boy from the East became deeply 

impressed with the eucalyptus tree (Clar 1959). In 1906, Lull became California’s second 

State Forester—an office he held until 1909. Lull devoted much energy toward fire protection, but his administration is best known for his support for the planting of eucalyptus 

for future hardwood timber supplies. He mistakenly believed that the eucalyptus industry 

would one day be a more fruitful source of revenue to the state of California than the 

orange industry (Pratt 1931).
53

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

year, nursery rows at Henninger Flats contained approximately 387,000 two-yearold trees, which were set out in the mountains to fill in spaces in previous plantings. 

Small experimental plantations were also set out at 500-foot intervals all the way to 

the summit of Mount Wilson, where the famous observatory now stands. Besides 

these actions, the Henninger Flats nursery supplied 30,000 trees for planting on the 

Santa Barbara Reserve. An additional 3,100 ended up at Griffith Park,25 and almost 

12,000 were given to individuals to plant on watersheds for experimental purposes. 

While improvements were being made at Henninger Flats, District 5 established 

nursery and planting programs elsewhere on California forest reserves. Meanwhile, 

in the spring of 1905, a new nursery was built at Marcos Pass on the Santa Barbara 

Forest Reserve, where the beds were seeded with knobcone, Jeffrey, and gray pine 

(Pinchot 1906), and the next year, District 5 made extensive preliminary examinations for reserve planting plans in northern California on the Modoc and Warner 

Mountains. By the following year, planting efforts took place on the San Bernardino National Forest26 with 42,000 trees planted. Forest rangers on the San Luis 

Obispo and the Monterey National Forests experimented with planting as well, 

setting out 5,100 and 4,700 trees, respectively, on these forests. All of these work 

projects tested the value of different kinds of trees and planting situations while 

training the field force in planting methods (Pinchot 1906, 1907). 

Reforestation efforts also spilled over to one special investigation that involved 

extensive cooperation with the state of California. This extension project included 

a study of forest planting for watershed protection and wood supply in California’s 

agricultural regions; an important investigation of the relation of forest cover to 

streamflow for water power and irrigation companies; and completion of a report 

submitted to the California State Board of Forestry on the location and extent of 

state forest lands with Forest Service recommendations for legislation (Pinchot 

1906). Soon everybody in the state seemed to be forest extension minded—even 

in northern California, where planting or seeding was thought necessary to assist 

natural reproduction in the reclamation of areas deforested by fires (Pinchot 1909). 

Furthermore, by 1909, cooperative experiments in nursery and planting were also 

expanded to Hawaii, when Ralph S. Hosmer (fig. 12), the Territorial Forester for 

25 Griffith Park, one the biggest state parks in California, is situated in the eastern part of 

the Santa Monica Mountains, and covers 4,000 acres. In the park are the Los Angeles Zoo 

and the Griffith Observatory. The park bears the name of its founder Griffith J. Griffith, 

who donated the greater part of the park land to the city in 1896.

26 On March 4, 1907, all forest reserves were renamed national forests.
54

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Figure 12—Ralph Sheldon Hosmer, Hawaii's first Territorial 

Forester for the newly established Division of Forestry in Hawaii. 

He helped establish forest reserves throughout the islands. Courtesy of Forest History Society, Durham, NC

Hawaii 27 conducted experiments to determine which trees were best adapted to 

regional use there. Cooperative experiments with state institutions and with the 

support of the Territorial Legislature in Hawaii soon centered mostly on nursery 

and planting work (Pinchot 1909).

Notwithstanding the above accomplishments in Hawaii, there were major 

problems with reforestation in southern California at the onset, for despite their 

investment in money, time, and labor, District 5’s determined efforts to convert 

indigenous chaparral into forest land desired by southern California residents fell 

far short. Unlike the rest of the Nation, where the expense of growing and planting 

was within reason ($0.81 per thousand 1-year-old seedlings), in southern California, 

the average cost of setting trees out on the chaparral-covered watersheds of reserves 

such as the San Gabriel and Santa Barbara Forest Reserves was much higher ($17.22 

per thousand 1-year-old seedlings), and difficult besides. Tree-planting rangers, 

their backs aching from the grueling labor, knew well before their superiors did, 

27 In 1894, Ralph Sheldon Hosmer received his Bachelor of Agricultural Science from Harvard and thereafter served in the USDA Division of Soils (1896–1898) but transferred to the 

Division of Forestry where he was a field assistant to Gifford Pinchot and then Chief of the 

Forest Replacement Section until 1903. During the interim, he became one of the charter 

members of the Society of American Foresters (1900) and was admitted to the first class 

of the Yale Forest School, obtaining his Master of Forestry in 1902. In January 1904, on 

Pinchot’s recommendation, he became, for a decade, Territorial Forester of Hawaii. Hosmer 

recognized that the most important resource of Hawaiian forests was water for irrigation of 

agricultural lands. He also realized that the two greatest hazards to maintaining adequate 

forest cover on the watersheds were grazing and fire. He proposed and enacted a system of 

forest reserves, which at the time embraced approximately one-fourth of the total area of 

the islands. He also advocated extending the forest area by planting and began large-scale 

test planting of exotic trees to determine those best suited for such extension. Because of 

his contribution to forestry in Hawaii, a grove of timber on the slopes of Mount Haleakala 

in the Hawaiian National Park was set aside to memorialize him as being the “father of 

Hawaiian forestry” (Journal of Forestry 1957). For a history of the early years of forestry in 

Hawaii, see Cox 1991.

Tree-planting rangers, 

their backs aching 

from the grueling labor, 

knew well before their 

superiors did, that the 

reforestation work was 

futile in this part of 

California. 
55

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

that the reforestation work was futile in this part of California. Each season, they 

watched a large percentage of recently planted pine seedlings be eaten by rabbits, 

birds, wood rats, and other rodents. What trees survived these assaults withered 

under the heat and drought conditions of southern California. For instance, the 

San Gabriel nursery lost more than 90 percent of its trees planted in 1906, and 

wild animals destroyed nearly 50 percent of those planted the next year. A full 

95 percent of those trees planted in the brush were seriously injured. In 1907, the 

Santa Barbara nursery lost 66 percent of their plantings because of late summer 

dry weather. To combat these setbacks, the Forest Service tried to give greater care 

to choosing planting sites and to perfecting its field planting techniques. To this 

end, the Henninger Flats and Marcos Pass nurseries were closed in 1907, and the 

Pasadena nursery, which had been in operation for 4 years, was moved to Lytle 

Creek, because this location on the renamed Angeles National Forest offered a more 

reliable source of water. By the next year, the 75,000-acre Lytle Creek nursery had 

an annual productive capacity of 500,000 trees and had some 65,000 trees ready 

for planting (Pinchot 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909). In spite of these actions, attrition 

of young trees continued to frustrate the efforts to reforest critical watersheds. 

For instance, at the 1910 supervisors meeting, Angeles National Forest Supervisor 

R.H. Charlton noted that 50 percent of the 54,000 conifers he planted only 6 weeks 

before were now dead. Hearing this statement, another supervisor admonished him, 

stating that the “brush cover is the [emphasis in original] cover in southern California. Go and ask the people who have lived there for years and they will tell you that 

brush cover is the best cover.... Water is the main question down there” (USDA FS 

1910). District 5’s reforestation problems appeared hopeless. Anxious to find a solution, the Forest Service turned to the eucalyptus tree, a tall Australian evergreen 

species, as the answer to their prayers.

Experimentation with eucalyptus began in 1906, when the Forest Service in 

cooperation with the State Forester explored the silvical characteristics and methods of propagation of eucalyptus. Initially, this study was undertaken because of 

a newly appreciated value of eucalyptus for posts, telephone poles, pilings, and 

railroad ties based on timber testing by the University of California at Berkeley. 

These experiments aroused great interest among consumers of structural timber 

in California because initial testing promised to bring to California a new usable 

species that would help promote a more conservative utilization of the native timber 

supply (Pinchot 1906, 1907). Therefore, this cooperative project began limited 

experimental planting of the species, with 4,000 acres of eucalypts put out in 1907 

(Pinchot 1907). A year later, the Forest Service issued a revised circular on eucalyptus describing the trees’ characteristics, and distributed 30,000 copies of the 

circular in California (Pinchot 1908). Additionally, during the winter of 1908–1909, 
56

general technical report psw-gtr-233

District 5 planted nearly 45 acres of eucalyptus in its nurseries, which grew rapidly 

and even withstood an exceptional drought that year. At this point, Forest Service 

officials naturally concluded that eucalyptus forest (fig. 13) might protect southern 

California land at least as well as chaparral, and provide added value as timber for 

the public (Pinchot 1909). By 1910, many in the Forest Service thought there was 

even a good possibility of successfully replacing southern California brushland 

with eucalyptus at a reasonable cost (Pinchot, FS 1910).

Southern Californians themselves became ever more interested in the fastgrowing evergreen as well. Bolstered by private studies, and now by Forest Service 

scientific studies, the general public came to believe that the aromatic tree, which 

Figure 13—Eucalyptus were imported into California as early as the 1860s. Many 

plantations were established on the bare hills of southern California at the turn of the 

century because of the tree’s reputation for fast growth and hardwood production.

Forest History Society
57

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

also produced an oil with medicinal properties, could yield as much as 100,000 

board feet in 10 years. Before long, extravagant claims by speculators led to a 

“Eucalyptus Gold Rush” in California, where overnight more than 50 eucalyptusgrowing companies were incorporated. An investment boom resulted in exorbitant 

stock sales, and before long these companies represented stock valued at several 

million dollars. Concomitant with the stock fever came a land rush fueled by 

outlandish real estate promotions of eucalyptus plantations. The Forest Service 

was not immune from eucalyptus fever either. Based on its own initial, but limited 

information, District 5 immediately started nurseries on southern forests geared 

to fill eucalyptus demands. New nurseries were built at Oak Grove (Cleveland 

National Forest), Los Preitos (Santa Barbara National Forest), Cerro Alto (San 

Louis Obispo National Forest), and Merrick Canyon (Angeles National Forest). But 

the miracle was not to be. The proverbial eucalyptus bubble burst when additional 

tests and studies by District 5’s Office of Products proved that the yield and return 

on the eucalyptus species did not meet the exaggerated expectations that earlier 

studies found regarding both growth rate and timber quality. Furthermore, young 

growth—which constituted the present stands in California—could not be commercially converted into high-grade lumber because of kiln drying concerns. To warn 

the public, Assistant District Forester T.D. Woodbury published Circular No. 210, 

Yield and Return of Blue Gum in California (1912). With this new research knowledge, the Forest Service almost immediately abandoned their eucalyptus nurseries. 

Nonetheless, eucalyptus fever lasted in California for several more years. When it 

finally died out, it left behind many penniless investors (Ayres 1958; Brown 1945, 

1945b; Graves 1910, 1913; Pinchot 1909; USDA FS 1910, 1912, 1913).

The surge of reforestation on California’s national forests came to an end as 

well because of the eucalyptus bust. Even though District 5 contracted with the War 

Department for the afforestation of Angel Island, Fort Barry, Mare Island, and, later 

on, Yerba Buena in northern California, by 1911, Forest Service employees had 

become disillusioned with reforestation efforts. The almost complete failure of 

direct seeding both in northern and southern California had become more and 

more evident, except on the Shasta National Forest in northern California. Here the 

Pilgrim Creek nursery28 continued to generate real interest in nursery and planting

28 The Pilgrim Creek nursery was established in 1910. By 1913, it had 338,000 seedlings 

and transplants on hand, but was one of the smallest national forest nurseries at the time 

(Graves 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916). The bulk of trees cultivated here were Austrian pine (40 

percent), yellow pine (23 percent) or sugar pine (14 percent), which were to be used on 

the Shasta National Forest, and stock was made available for establishing experimental 

plantations on other forests in the northern portion of District 5. The Pilgrim Creek nursery 

also propagated stock of eastern hardwoods for experimental planting at low elevations on 

forests bordering the Sacramento Valley (USDA FS 1910, 1912).

Before long, 

extravagant claims 

by speculators led to 

a “Eucalyptus Gold 

Rush” in California, 

where overnight more 

than 50 eucalyptusgrowing companies 

were incorporated. 
58

general technical report psw-gtr-233

research among foresters (Show, n.d.). But on the whole, planting failures in southern California were found to be nearly universal. In 1912, because of drought, frost, 

rodents, and birds, and because past failures with planting and artificial seeding 

on a large scale were so persistent, District 5 postponed further reforestation work 

in southern California until methods that promised success could be developed. In 

a “doleful” report written by Assistant Chief of Silviculture T.D. Woodbury and 

Forest Assistant Edward Munns, forest extension work in southern California was 

declared a “foolish” failure. Despite the Forest Service’s failure, Woodbury’s report 

suggested that planting should continue as a research matter, and recommended that 

the Feather River Experiment Station, which had been established on the Plumas 

National Forest in 1912, take up the subject of reforestation work with the aim of 

restoring burned areas in the main forest belts in northern California (Ayres 1941; 

1945a, 1945b; Buck 1974; Munns 1913). In 1913 in southern California, the closed 

Converse Flats nursery on the Angeles National Forest was converted into the 

Converse Experiment Station—California’s second experiment station. Under the 

direction of the energetic Edward N. Munns,29 the station’s designated mission was 

to study southern California watersheds, which were heavily used for municipal 

supply, including wherever extension of forest growth would better both the regularity and the purity of streams (Graves 1912, 1913, 1914).

Besides the Forest Service’s obsession with its planting and nursery reforestation programs, and the intense effort and expense put into the promotion of eucalyptus as the answer to the tree planter’s prayers—at least in southern California—

starting in 1909, District 5 conducted a number of other silvicultural studies. The 

aim of these investigations was to resolve forest management problems through the 

collection of data for growth and volume tables for leading commercial species in 

the Sierras30 through the establishment of permanent sample plots laid out on many 

29 Edward Norfolk Munns joined the Forest Service in 1912 as a regular employee after 

undergraduate work at the Bradley Polytechnic Institute of Illinois, and obtaining a Master 

of Forestry degree from the University of Michigan. His first assignment was as a forest 

assistant on the Angeles National Forest, comprising the critical watersheds of southern 

California. There, the study of the effects of fire and other forms of cover depletion on 

water erosion and flooding influenced his entire career. In 1913, he was made head of the 

Converse Experiment Station. With the closure of the station during World War I, Munns 

did some war work and then returned to District 5 after the war to conduct a logging and 

cutting methods study for the state of California. Eventually, Munns went to Washington, 

D.C., and served as Chief of the Office of Experiment Stations (1925–1928), where his 

influence was great and unique. In 1937, his extensive knowledge regarding watershed 

management led to his selection as chief of the Division of Forest Influences when it was 

established that year (Show, n.d.; Watts 1951).

30 S.W. Allen, Gerald Kennedy, and Frederick Thomas, out of Sonora, California, 

conducted these studies (Hill 1931).
59

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

forests.31 These plots were designed to secure accurate data through experiments 

concerning such matters as recovering denuded areas, the introduction of new species, and the best effects of different methods of cutting (Hill 1931; Pinchot 1906, 

1907, 1909).

Although growth and volume studies began under District 5 Forester Olmsted, 

they did not become fully established throughout the district until 1911, when Coert 

DuBois took over. In that year, DuBois directed Forest Assistant R.S. Maddox to 

set aside a 24-acre plot on the Plumas National Forest in order to study growth 

and reproduction, following logging in mixed conifers by the Feather River Lumber Company in 1910. In July 1912, at the urging of Forester Henry S. Graves32

and Raphael Zon, chief of the Division of Silvics in Washington, D.C., DuBois 

established the Feather River Experiment Station on the Plumas National Forest 

in northern California to oversee this experiment. The station was to give chief 

attention to the problems most typical of the region and most urgent in District 5, 

including the study of sugar and yellow pine forests and the reforestation of the 

brushfields on California’s northern national forests. In 1912, the vast brushfields 

on a number of national forests of northern California totaled roughly 1.5 million 

acres. Additionally, District 5 studied the possibility of reforesting the extensive 

bear clover or tarweed areas in the central and southern Sierras, which had been 

created largely by repeated forest fires. They believed that planting or seeding 

would ultimately play a large part in reclaiming deforested areas and assisting 

natural reproduction in northern California (Graves 1910, 1912; Show, n.d.; USDA 

FS 1912). DuBois’ actions became one of the most significant events for scientific 

forestry in California.

The Feather River Experiment Station was located 4 miles north of Quincy, 

California, and was the fourth experiment station established in the Nation. DuBois 

31 As early as 1906, a plot had been established on the Stanislaus Forest Reserve. These 

plots were maintained from 1906 to 1909, with the purpose of studying growth of residual 

stands, establishment and growth of regeneration, and decay of logging slash (Fowells 

1978).

32 Henry Solon Graves started his career by first studying forestry in Europe before being 

appointed assistant chief of the Division of Forestry in 1898 under Gifford Pinchot. In 

1900, he resigned that post to become director of the Yale University School of Forestry, 

where he taught many of District 5’s foresters. In 1910, he became the second Chief of the 

Forest Service and served until 1920. One of his many contributions during his tenure was 

to strengthen the foundations of forestry by putting them on a more scientific basis when 

the Forest Products Laboratory (1910), the Central Investigative Committe (1912), and the 

Research Branch of the Forest Service (1915) were organized and established during his 

tenure (Clepper 1971).
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picked H.A. Greenamyre33 to direct the station, but Acting Director D.K. Noyes 

(1914–1915) soon replaced him. However, during the station’s first year of operation, Greenamyre put in a small nursery and constructed a residence and barn, 

which got the station underway (Fowells 1983). The station was placed under the 

administrative control of District Forester DuBois, who was located in San Francisco. However, District 5’s Central Investigative Committee devised the Feather 

River Station’s research program.34 This situation created a dual authority over the 

station and its research program that caused many problems in the early years of the 

station’s operation. Although the Feather River Experiment Station supplemented 

rather than replaced research activities conducted by District 5 administrative staff, 

there appeared to be concerns and disputes between station and District 5 personnel 

(Fowells 1983). Nonetheless, the establishment of Feather River under H.A. Greenamyre lifted the burden of making everyone with a forest school diploma in District 

5 into a scientist (Show, n.d.). Besides, the average forest assistant was “not naturally inclined to do any more scientific work than he could help” and even preferred 

administrative work to scientific studies (USDA FS 1912).

From the onset, the Feather River Experiment Station was designated primarily to serve national forest needs in northern California and parts of Nevada. The 

station’s initial scope of work defined three areas for research emphasis: forest 

problems, which included silvical volume and growth and stand studies; forest influences, which included mostly meteorological observations; and artificial reforestation, which included nursery practices, test planting, and seed sowing (USDA FS 

1912). At the time of the station’s establishment, the forest was old-growth mixed 

conifer of medium site quality. To determine the best practices for converting oldgrowth stands to managed forests, eight permanent plots, each 6.4 acres, were 

established in the drainage of Massack Creek. In 1913 and 1914, two plots were cut 

at 10 percent, two at 20 percent, two at 30 percent, and two at 40 percent of volume. 

Following logging, some reproduction plots were put in. From their initial cutting 

to just after World War II, a veritable who’s who of District 5 researchers regularly 

participated in reexamining and collecting important data from these plots35

33 Not much is known knowing Greenamyre. However, Stuart Bevier, or “S.B.” Show, the 

indefatigable and outspoken leader of District/Region 5 from 1926 to 1946 stated in his 

memoirs that Greenamyre was a “bad choice” but gave no explanation for his opinion (Show, 

n.d.). One reason he may have grated on Show was that upon taking his position, Greenamyre 

injudiciously criticized the past scientific work of forest assistants, stating that “in some cases 

the basic principles have not been sound” and that though a mass of information had been 

gathered by them, their data had not been correlated and applied (USDA FS 1912).

34 The actual membership and annual programs of District 5’s CIC are unknown because of 

gaps in the historical record.

35 They included R.S. Maddox and R.W. Taylor (1914 and 1915), Duncan Dunning (1917), 

Dunning and S.B. Show, E.N. Munns, and J.A. Kittredge (1920), Howard Siggins (1925), 

Dunning, U.A. Clements, and A.L. Hormay (1926), A.A. Hassel (1930), P.G. Haddock and P. 

Burris (field assistant) (1941), and R.F. Nelson (1946) (Fowells 1983).

The establishment of 

Feather River under 

H.A. Greenamyre 

lifted the burden of 

making everyone with 

a forest school diploma 

in District 5 into a 

scientist. 
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

(Fowells 1983). The Feather River Station also conducted planting and nursery 

studies. Following the development of the little nursery by Greenamyre in 1912, 

T.C. Zschotte put in a seed spotting study in an area near Meadow Valley the next 

year. A year later, Greenamyre, along with G.H. Wiggins and D.K. Noyes, also 

started a study of various tree species in an experimental area of the Bear Creek 

drainage. Here, they measured soil temperatures, soil moisture content, and evaporation36 (Fowells 1983).

Forest Products Research

Whereas silvical studies, discussed above, aimed at increasing the productive power 

of the forest, forest products studies were designed to improve economy in the use 

of what the forest creates. At this date, the Forest Service sought to promote economy of use, first, through learning and making known the actual situation as 

to demand and supply of forest products, and second, through investigations to 

discover how forest products might be put to better service. As a result of forest 

product scientific studies, the Forest Service was increasingly able to give advice 

concerning methods of handling, seasoning, manufacturing, and utilizing woods, 

as well as the extraction and manufacturing of forest products and many similar 

matters (Pinchot 1908, 1909). In California, forest products studies were not a 

major emphasis of District 5’s research program largely because of the prejudices 

of District Foresters Olmsted and DuBois. Nonetheless, some such studies did take 

place under the direction of C. Stowell Smith, District 5’s chief of products. 

Prior to 1908, Forest Service forest products research had focused on timber 

testing in cooperation with the University of California at Berkeley. This testing 

aimed at learning whether certain species, such as eucalyptus, redwood, red fir, and 

tanbark oak, could be used in place of such structural timbers as hickory and oak 

(Pinchot 1906, 1907). By 1908–1909, timber testing at Berkeley found California 

tanbark oak suitable for use as a substitute for eastern hardwoods, and that a number of species of eucalyptus might be used in place of hickory and oak, although 

this conclusion was later proved to be wrong. Additionally, cooperative testing was 

conducted on redwood with the California Redwood Association (CRA) to determine its value as a structural wood (Pinchot 1908, 1909). District 5’s staff of five 

Office of Products technicians concentrated their work on other problems. These 

included seasoning of various kinds of lumber and the determination of their best 

uses; investigations into the value of different barks for tanning purposes; the 

36 These early planting and nursery studies were followed until 1922, when S.B. Show 

summarized them in USDA Circular 92 (Fowells 1983, Show 1930).
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

quality of paper or cardboard yielded by different pulpwoods; the amount and kind 

of products that could be extracted from California woods through distillation; the 

heating value of different species and the relative durability of different woods 

when exposed to influences of decay and other destructive agencies, such as marine 

wood borers37 in salt water (USDA FS 1910).

At the same time, Smith’s District 5 Office of Products spent a great deal of 

time and money investigating the efficiency of various preservatives and methods 

of application. As a result, Smith carried on a vigorous campaign to educate and 

induce wood users to adopt methods that had already been proved practicable38

(USDA FS 1910). In 1908, a number of electric light and power companies took 

Smith’s advice. In cooperation with the Forest Service, they erected a number of 

experimental open-tank plants at Fresno and Los Angeles at which several thousand western yellow pine and red cedar poles, used for telephone and power poles, 

were treated. Many of these poles were placed in an experimental line between 

Los Angeles and Whittier, California, to test the relative merits of the different 

preservatives (mostly creosote and zinc chloride) and methods of treatment. This 

cooperative work continued the following year when the investigative work with 

five electric light, railway, and power companies in southern California worked 

out methods of handling and preserving western yellow pine and redcedar poles, 

together with designs for a commercial pole-treating plant (Pinchot 1908, 1909; 

USDA FS 1910).

Meanwhile, the Forest Products Branch within the WO underwent a slow reorganization, which affected California research. At first, various sections were 

renamed or combined to solve administrative problems (Pinchot 1907). However, 

by 1908, it became clear that the Forest Service needed a more centralized organization to be efficient. To consolidate the timber testing work and bring it into close 

cooperation with the wood chemistry and wood preservation sections, the Yale 

and Purdue testing laboratories were discontinued. This action left the laboratories 

at the Universities of Colorado, California, and Washington to work on problems 

directly concerned with the utilization of products of the national forests. After 

37 Marine borers are organisms that make their home in immersed timber or stone. They 

can be divided into two classes: mollusks and crustaceans. The former burrow into the 

interior of the wood, and from the surface their attacks are not very apparent, whereas the 

latter eat inward from the surface, destroying one layer of wood at a time. By this early 

date, these marine pests had done incalculable damage to harbor pilings in San Francisco 

and San Diego Bays, and in other coastal areas of the country (USDA FS 1910).

38 One story goes that Smith would rig up an old tank and fill it up with hot creosote. He 

would then grab nearby ranchers by the neck, bring them to his operation and say: “Come 

here with your fence posts: stick `em into the tank; I know what’s good for you” (USDA FS 

1910).

Smith would rig up 

an old tank and fill it 

up with hot creosote. 

He would then grab 

nearby ranchers by the 

neck, bring them to 

his operation and say: 

“Come here with your 

fence posts: stick `em 

into the tank; I know 

what’s good for you.”
63

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

1910, and the establishment of the FPL in Madison, Wisconsin, the investigative 

work and research methods of these remaining university laboratories were to be 

closely correlated with the FPL (Pinchot 1908, 1909). Other forest products research 

work was also gradually centralized under the direction of the FPL, leaving the 

California Office of Forest Products very little research to do. C. Stowell Smith and 

his staff still ventured into a variety of areas, such as conducting experiments in 

turpentining western yellow pine because there was such a high national demand 

for naval stores products (Graves 1912), or studying the practicability of obtaining 

hardwood distillates, wood alcohol, acetate of lime, and charcoal from California 

black oak (Graves 1914). But, for the most part, District 5’s Office of Products was 

relegated to wood preservation projects in cooperation with the FPL. These projects 

constituted the bulk of the program for several years to come.39

Fire Research

Beyond silvicultural studies and forest products research, District 5 spent research 

time on fire protection and control research, which by 1915 had evolved into a 

systematic study of fire in the California region. First, there were the easy years 

prior to the creation of District 5 when fire seasons were mild. Nonetheless, starting 

in 1906, the Forest Service worked closely with the state of California to develop 

fire-protection plans. These plans aimed to prevent fires from starting by means 

of patrols along carefully laid out routes, by locating telephone and tool stations at 

key places for the patrols, and by building broad firelines. In 1907, this cooperative 

effort led to the building of a permanent fireline on the San Bernardino National 

Forest. Two years later, the state of California commissioned forest rangers in the 

state as fire wardens, and in that same year, the value of firelines was shown in 

southern California, where one fireline stopped a serious fire without human help, 

and another prevented a dangerous valley fire from extending into the mountains. 

Burned areas in California were greatly reduced in these years by this thinly spread 

out line of protection improvements, along with a few rangers and fireguards (Pinchot 1906, 1907). “Light burning,” or the intentional burning of forests to improve 

grazing, became a major issue at this time as well. Some proposed that all forests 

“should be burned over every year or two in order to prevent the accumulation of 

vegetable litter on the ground.” Nonetheless, at this time, the Forest Service took the 

39 Cooperatively engaged with various companies, the FPL designed wood preservation 

plants and set standards for the physical and chemical requirements of wood preservation, using the data obtained earlier by District 5. The laboratory eventually determined 

that wood-treating plants used 1-1/2 times as much zinc chloride, and 10 to 20 times as 

much creosote as necessary to prevent decay. These kinds of findings put the preservation 

industry on a sounder scientific basis than it had been before (Godfrey 1990).
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

position that although there were a “few open forests of mature timber where the 

ground might be burned over annually or periodically by a light fire under complete 

control without injury to the forest,” there was only an “exceedingly limited area” 

in the mountains where this could be safely done and at great expense (Graves 

1910). 

Then came the disastrous 1910 fire season, when 2.5 million acres on western 

national forests burned. In Idaho, the “Milestone Blaze,” dubbed so for its effect 

on the public conscience, killed 85 people, 72 of whom were firefighters. California 

was not struck as hard during the 1910 fire season, compared to the disaster that 

befell the northern Rockies, but by the end of the summer, 278 fires had burned 

thousands of acres of California national forest land. People had caused two-thirds 

of them, either accidentally or deliberately (Cermak 2005, Godfrey 2005). 

Fire research in California grew out of this devastating fire season, for in the 

wake of that fateful summer, District 5 officials produced an unprecedented wave 

of innovation in fire control. This ingenious rush of ideas included adapting automobiles, motorcycles, and even balloons and fixed-wing aircraft for fire patrols. 

Beyond these technological developments and others, district personnel conducted 

some of the earliest fire research studies in the state and perhaps the country. For 

instance, in 1911, Roy Headley, District 5’s Chief of Operations, produced the first 

fire case study in California when he analyzed the Waterman Canyon Fire on the 

San Bernardino National Forest, “taking into account fire suppression costs and 

fire damage” (Cermak 2005). A year later, Richard H. Boerker,40 a ranger from the 

Lassen National Forest, thoroughly discussed the issue of light burning versus forest management in northern California in an article for Forestry Quarterly (1912). 

In that year, a large number of fires were deliberately set in northern California. 

These were not started by vandals or criminals, but were set according to the theory 

of light burning practiced by certain influential timbermen of the state (Graves 

1912). After reviewing the known data and using a rather complicated mathematical 

formula based on measuring the relationship of yield, thinning, value of the soil, 

capitalized value of the annual expenses, age of the stand destroyed, a 100-year 

rotation factor, and interest rates, Boerker concluded that “fire should be used only 

after careful consideration of both the advantages and disadvantages which its use 

carries with it.” In short, only “where the fire danger was great; where there is no 

young growth; where the fire can be controlled; with fire-resistant species; and 

where the injury to the soil is justified by advantages of protection” (Boerker 1912). 

40 Richard H. Boerker later wrote an early popular history of America’s national forests 

entitled Our National Forests: A Short Popular Account of the Work of the United States 

Forest Service on the National Forests (1918).
65

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

District Forester DuBois (fig. 14) urged his supervisors in the same direction as these studies. Other fire studies soon followed. Paul G. Redington41 of the 

Sierra National Forest, Robert W. Ayers of the Stanislaus National Forest, and R.H. 

Charlton, from the Angeles National Forest provided several contributions in fire 

prevention studies. Supervisors E.W. Kelley of the Eldorado National Forest and 

W.P. Rider from the Klamath National Forest studied fire organization, David P. 

Godwin, from the California National Forest, analyzed fire detection, and J.D. 

Coffman of the Trinity National Forest provided data on fire causes. The results of 

this work by District 5 supervisors, and other work,42 were reported to DuBois at 

the 1913 forest supervisors’ meeting in San Francisco. Thereafter, DuBois read their 

work and distilled it into his path-breaking monograph Systematic Fire Protection 

in the California Forests (DuBois 1914)—probably the “most influential single 

document in United States forest fire control history” (Cermak 2005). Furthermore, 

the 1910 fire season had stimulated DuBois to begin the application of science to 

a new field—fire science research. Systematic Fire Protection was a rational and 

orderly analysis of the fire problem and a brilliant and imaginative postulation of a 

science of fire control that called for a determined program to get private ownership 

to carry its share of the load (Show, n.d.).

Along with this major achievement, District Forester DuBois believed that District 5 should make the methodical study of fire a priority. Contrary to the thought 

of most foresters of his day, DuBois concluded that science could contribute to the 

solution of the problem. Accordingly, DuBois made fire research a major line of 

investigation for the Converse Experiment Station, along with erosion control, 

streamflow studies, and silviculture (Watts 1951). Meanwhile, District 5 cooperated 

with other USDA agencies to address other District 5 forestry problems, such as 

forest pathology and entomology research.

41 In 1919, Paul G. Redington became District 5’s third district forester and served in that 

post until 1926. Redington had joined the Forest Service in 1904 after graduating from 

Dartmouth and Yale Forestry School. Redington rose rapidly in the ranks of the Forest 

Service. He served for 5 years as supervisor for the Sierra National Forest, but then left the 

agency, taking a job as city manager for Albuquerque, New Mexico. When he returned to 

the Forest Service as district forester, his management style differed greatly from the dictatorial style of his predecessors Olmsted and DuBois. Instead, Redington’s style depended 

on finding good men and then listening to them (Godfrey 2005).

42 During the same time, District 5 officials conducted studies to determine the actual damage done by fires and the recovery of environments such as chaparral from fire (USDA FS 

1912).

DuBois read their 

work and distilled it 

into his path-breaking 

monograph Systematic 

Fire Protection in the 

California Forests 

(DuBois 1914)—

probably the “most 

influential single 

document in United 

States forest fire 

control history.”
66

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Forest Pathology and Entomology Research

Research in the area of forest pathology took off in California shortly before 

District 5 Forester Olmsted resigned in June 1911. This progress can be credited to 

consulting pathologist E.P. Meinecke (fig. 15), who was assigned by BPI to District 

5 in 1910. Meinecke “recognized the vast problem of converting ragged, irregular, 

defective, over mature, stagnant and only partly merchantable forests into productive and managed stands” (Show, n.d.).

The energetic Meinecke immediately got to work by lecturing the first gathering of District 5 supervisors. He warned his attentive audience that the most 

dangerous enemies of the forest besides fire were insects, mistletoes, and fungi. He 

then went into great detail educating them regarding these threats (USDA FS 1910). 

Shortly after coming to California, Meinecke had a clear vision of forest pathology 

as something radically broader than mycology, or the study of fungi. The perspective was to be not the fungus itself, but the tree attacked by the fungus and the 

effect of such attacks upon the forest complex (Hill 1931). By 1912, Meinecke had 

Figure 14—Coert DuBois. California District 5’s second 

District Forester. Under his administration, research efforts 

increased especially in fire protection and control. He also 

established the Feather River Experiment Station—the fourth 

station in the Nation.

U.S. Forest Service
67

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

conducted a pathological survey of the Mono, Tahoe, Eldorado, Stanislaus, Sierra, 

Lassen, Klamath, and Shasta National Forests, and prepared a small field manual 

entitled Forest Tree Diseases Common in California and Nevada (Meinecke 1914) 

for the use of forest officers (Graves 1912). In 1913, Meinecke and others studied 

the diseases of white fir and incense-cedar in California, species peculiarly subject 

to defect from wood-destroying fungi. To help rid the forest of this menace by removing diseased trees, they advocated the creation of special requirements, called 

“sanitation clauses,” for timber sales (Graves 1913). A year later, nearly all timbersale contracts in California carried this sanitation clause requiring the cutting of 

snags and diseased trees.43 A study on the Shasta National Forest at that time had 

determined that the economic operation of this clause showed a substantial gain 

43 In 1910, District 5 originated the first forest sanitation clause in the Forest Service. By 

1912, the entire Forest Service had adopted it. The clause offered three advantages to the 

Forest Service. One, it removed a serious fire menace. Two, sample marking eliminated 

friction between the purchaser and the Forest Service and put timber contracts on a strictly 

business basis. And three, the merchantable timber contained in diseased and malformed 

trees was saved and the Forest Service got paid for it (USDA FS 1912).

Figure 15—E.P. Meinecke, leading forest pathologist in the United 

States and author of Forest Tree Diseases Common in California 

and Nevada.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
68

general technical report psw-gtr-233

in the amount of merchantable timber yielded by the cutting, not to mention the 

improved condition of the forest (Graves 1914). Meinecke would become a major 

force in bringing about the period of organized and effective disease research in 

California, especially after the publication of his Forest Pathology in Forest Regulation (Mienecke 1916).44 In this latter publication, he argued persuasively that 

forest pathology should be an integral element of forest management (Hill 1931).

Safekeeping of the national forests included not just protection against disease 

but also control of insect infestations. In October 1910,45 John M. Miller (fig. 16) 

of the Sierra National Forest, who had trained in entomology at Stanford, became 

the first Forest Service entomologist in the West. At the 1910 supervisors meeting, 

Miller pointed out to his superiors that the amount of damage caused by insects in 

District 5’s national forests had never been carefully estimated. After this statement, he set out to educate the supervisors on the subject by producing that year, 

his Study of Insect Infected Timber—a manual of the insect enemies of California’s 

forests, stating that rangers in the saddle would probably be the first to notice any 

fresh appearance of insect damage (USDA FS 1910, Wickman 2005). 

In 1911, Ranger Miller46 was detailed to the BE’s Yreka Station47 to assist on 

the control work that was being developed on the Klamath National Forest (Burke 

1946; Show, n.d.; USDA FS 1910). In 1912, Miller warned that the forest resources 

44 In his Forest Pathology in Forest Regulation, Meinecke (1916) further developed the 

concept of forest sanitation in connection with timber sales and the concept of pathological 

rotation. To him, forest pathology was an integral element of forest regulation and management. He believed that regulated forests of the future must be something fundamentally 

different from just a reproduction of another such forest as those that had been cut down 

(Hill 1931).

45 The first information on extensive insect depredations in western forests was brought to 

the attention of the Bureau of Entomology around 1898. However, any control work in the 

West was not undertaken until circa 1909 Bureau of Entomology, (BE), and that research 

took place in the Black Hills and parts of Colorado. So, insect control work in California 

was not far behind (USDA FS 1912). Interestingly, two early attempts to start insect control 

work in California were made prior to 1909. In 1905, a Santa Barbara Forest Reserve ranger 

reported bark beetle infestations in the southeastern part of this reserve. His report went 

to the BE, which made recommendations for control measures by letter, making it the 

first recorded attempt to control bark beetles in any western area. The next attempt to set 

up control work in California occurred in 1908. In that year, a surveyor for the Diamond 

Match Lumber Company noted bark beetle infestations east of Oroville, California, but no 

action was taken on the matter (Burke 1946, Wickman 2005).

46 J.M. Miller later headed the BE’s Ashland, Oregon, substation, and also conducted the 

first forest insect control work in any national park, at Yosemite National Park (Burke 

1946, Wickman 2005).

47 Apparently, although Miller had official Forest Service orders to survey, collect insects, 

and make entomological reports, his work was irregular and impinged on the BE Division 

of Forest Insect Investigations. Miller was transferred to the BE to resolve this conflict 

(Wickman 2005).

At the 1910 supervisors 

meeting, Miller pointed 

out to his superiors 

that the amount of 

damage caused by 

insects in District 5’s 

national forests had 

never been carefully 

estimated. 
69

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

of California were being seriously impaired by insect damage, much of which could 

be prevented if greater interest had been manifested and the proper precautions 

taken by those directly responsible for the forest administration (Miller 1912). 

In the meantime, the BE moved Field Station No. 5 from Yreka to Placerville, a 

more central location, and placed it under Harry E. Burke,48 a former assistant to

48 Harry Eugene Burke was educated at Washington State and Stanford Universities and 

was appointed to the Bureau of Forestry in 1902. In 1903, the BE instituted a regional 

approach to the study of forest insect problems and the country was divided into four major 

forest areas, one of which was the Pacific coast. Burke was selected to oversee the Pacific 

coast because he was from that part of the country and was already familiar with some of 

the conditions. In 1904, he transferred from the Bureau of Forestry to the BE and designated as head of the region. Burke was placed in charge of Forest Insect Station 5 (Yreka, 

California, 1911–1912; Placerville, 1911–1916), the Pacific Slope Station (Ashland, Oregon, 

1916–1920), the North Fork Station, California (1920–1924), and then in 1924 moved to 

the Stanford University campus, where the North Fork and several other field stations were 

consolidated (Burke 1946).

Figure 16—1914. John M. Miller (on right), pioneer in Western forest entomology and bark beetle 

control projects with the Forest Service. 

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
70

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Andrew D. Hopkins49 the “Father of Forest Entomology” (Burke 1946, Hill 1931). 

Burke became a central figure of forest entomology in California during the first 

two decades of the 20th century (Burke 1946, Wickman 2005). Under his direction, 

the first cooperative insect control work in District 5, known as the Barkhouse and 

Craggy Mountain projects,50 took place in early 1912 on the Klamath National Forest (Burke 1946, USDA FS 1912). Entomological research in California grew more 

resolute thereafter. District 5 engaged the BE as a serious source for information 

to help prevent additional losses from forest insects. Through reconnaissance and 

expert inspection of the national forests, District 5 officials learned what damage 

was being done and how to locate incipient attacks where control was most needed. 

Control operations concentrated on the more accessible and valuable timber stands 

that were threatened. In 1913, the first prevention of insect depredations through 

control operations began on California’s national forests (Graves 1913). 

By the next year, 10 national forests in District 5 were covered. During this 

reconnaissance effort, approximately $10,000 was expended in stamping out attacks 

of Dendroctonus brevicomis (fig. 17) in yellow pine timber on the Stanislaus, 

Sierra, Trinity, and Klamath National Forests (Graves 1914).

Range Management Studies

As in the fields of entomology and forest pathology, District 5 relied upon other 

USDA agencies for range management research. From 1905 to 1914, District 5’s 

immediate concerns in range management included establishing grazing fees, issuing permits and establishing driveways for sheep,51 and stopping trespassing on the 

national forests by stockmen.52 The quiet-spoken John Hatton, District 5’s Chief of 

Grazing, sought to reach these goals (Godfrey 2005), but also looked to improving 

the health of livestock by eradicating disease from California’s national forest 

ranges. Toward this end, District 5 worked closely with the Bureau of Animal 

Husbandry (BAH). Starting in 1905, owners of stock were required to submit their

49 Andrew Delmar Hopkins (1857–1948) was the first chief of the Division of Forest Insect 

Investigations and directed this work in the Bureau of Entomology from 1902 to 1923. He 

first visited California in 1899 as an entomologist for the West Virginia Experiment Station 

to collect specimens and make notes, which resulted in his publication A Preliminary 

Report of the Insect Enemies in the Northwest (Hopkins 1899). He then periodically visited 

the state in 1911 and 1915 as he made the rounds of western field stations (Burke 1946).

50 For a detailed description of these projects, see Wickman: 2005.

51 In 1905, the Forest Service established the first such driveways on the Stanislaus and 

Sierra Forest Reserves to allow sheep to cross forest reserve lands to reach area of private 

lands within the Sierra mountains (Pinchot 1905).

52 District Forester Olmsted saw grazing on national forests as a “necessary evil,” and 

Hatton, his Chief of Grazing, saw it as a problem “thrust upon” the Forest Service and 

simply sought ways to harmonize grazing and silvicultural interests. However, they viewed 

grazing as secondary to silviculture (USDA FS 1910).
71

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 17—The western pine beetle aggressively 

attacks and kills ponderosa pine trees and is most 

damaging in California. USDA Bureau of Entomology 

animals to inspection in districts infected with contagious diseases, and the Bureau 

of Animal Industry began working with Forest Service officials in California to 

require dipping of permitted sheep for scab and mange. By 1907, all sheep permitted to graze on the Tahoe, Stanislaus, and Diamond Mountain National Forests53

were being inspected and dipped when found to have been exposed to or infected 

with scab (Pinchot 1905, 1907).

One particular problem of concern for southern California ranges was Texasfever tick, which infected almost every portion of the national forests in this region. 

Together with BAH, District 5 worked diligently to free the ranges from this disease, borne and transmitted by cattle coming up from Mexico. By 1910, their efforts 

paid off. Texas-fever tick was eradicated on all the southern California national 

forests, except for the Cleveland National Forest, where it was confined to a small 

area along the international border. In 1912, a quarantine drift fence was completed, 

which within a comparatively short time made the Cleveland National Forest free of 

Texas fever (Pinchot 1908, 1909; Graves 1910, 1912, 1913).

Regarding range conditions, John Hatton wanted to promptly and permanently 

restore California’s “beat up” ranges to their past state of pristine productivity, even 

though forage conditions seemed adequate at the time (Godfrey 2005). Starting in 

1907, the Forest Service recognized the urgent need for investigations to improve 

the production of forage on ranges that had been overgrazed. In cooperation with 

BHA, the Forest Service commenced such investigations to discover under what 

53 The Diamond Mountain Forest Reserve was proclaimed in 1905, but consolidated with 

the Plumas National Forest in 1908 by executive order (Godfrey 2005).
72

general technical report psw-gtr-233

conditions and in what localities it was possible to secure natural reproduction 

and in what areas planting new seed would succeed (Pinchot 1907). At the 1910 

District 5 supervisors meeting, the topic of the range reconnaissance was considered. Sierra National Forest supervisor H.A. Benedict had just completed the first 

classification of range types and District 5’s first range reconnaissance, and presented several colorful type maps to the supervisors illustrating his classification 

system. Hatton’s work very much interested them, especially the scientific phase of 

the subject (e.g., the identification of different grasses and the determination of their 

forage value). However, in response, Hatton lamented that in the last year or two, he 

was unable to get “scientific men assigned to the District for that purpose” (USDA 

FS 1910). The effect of grazing on reproduction was also taken up at the supervisors 

meeting. Anecdotal information and general observations surfaced, but no definite 

experiments were reported upon, although 14 supervisors eagerly stated that they 

expected to have experiments underway by the next year. Next, supervisors from 

several national forests (e.g., Eldorado and Tahoe) discussed experimental range 

improvements conducted in protected areas near ranger stations using a variety of 

grasses. But their experiments appeared to be small, uncoordinated projects (USDA 

FS 1910). Despite these range discussions, in 1912, with the concurrence of WO 

grazing inspector James Jardine, District 5 officials decided officially that it was 

not advisable to conduct intensive reconnaissance on most of the timbered forests of 

the district, largely because of cost and the uncertain value of such research (USDA 

FS 1912). About the only range experimentation that took place in District 5 prior to 

1915 occurred on the Lassen National Forest in 1909 to aid goat breeders in California, who were unable to obtain range because cattle and sheep owners monopolized 

the permit process. The 2-year project allowed free ranging of 3,000 head of goats 

on the forest to reduce the cost of forest planting on burned-over areas grown up to 

brush (Graves 1913, Pinchot 1909).

In the interim, some science made its way into range affairs on District 5. The 

initial idea of range management science came from Jardine, but the capable Hatton 

welcomed it to California. Beginning in 1910, District 5 conducted various small, 

range management studies. District 5 installed a series of fenced “sample plots,” 

started an herbarium of range plants, and made a frustrating attempt to have forest 

assistants collect range information along with the silvical notes while on timber 

reconnaissance projects. For instance, on the Shasta National Forest, a study 

attempted to determine the effect of grazing on the reproduction of conifer forests, 

and worked out a plan of grazing management to secure the maximum use of all 

resources (Graves 1915; Show, n.d.). On the Inyo National Forest, a 1913–1916 study 

sought data on the advantages and advisability of more complete stock control by 

With the concurrence 

of WO grazing 

inspector James 

Jardine, District 5 

officials decided 

officially that it was 

not advisable to 

conduct intensive 

reconnaissance on 

most of the timbered 

forests of the district, 

largely because of cost 

and the uncertain value 

of such research.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

grazing cattle within enclosures as compared to letting them roam free on open forest lands. Another study looked at erosion in small but important mountain meadows of the high Sierras caused by grazing (Graves 1914, 1916). District 5 officials 

soon embraced the idea that the business of grazing could benefit from scientific 

study in four areas: determining range capacity, the importance of forage crops, 

the influence of grazing on reproduction, and its role in protection against fire 

(USDA FS 1912). However, a district grazing research office was not established 

in California until 1915 (Storey 1975), most likely because favorable periods of 

above-normal precipitation (with the exception of the 1912–1913 drought, which 

severely affected parts of the state) obscured the effect of deleterious overgrazing 

on California’s range.

California University Developments

While District 5 made many contributions to research in silviculture, forest 

products, range management, forest pathology, entomology, and fire control in 

California, important forestry developments also occurred on the Berkeley 

campus. From 1911 to 1914, a group of devoted preforestry student activists led 

by A. Everett Wieslander54 (fig. 18) organized themselves into a forestry club and 

persistently lobbied the university administration, the Forest Service, the lumber 

industry, and the state legislature to establish a forestry school at the university. 

They finally succeeded in 1914 when the university appointed Walter Mulford55

54 A. Everett Wieslander (1890–1992) was born in Oakland, California, and enrolled at the 

University of California, Berkeley in 1910 in a preforestry curriculum. He graduated from 

the university’s first forestry school class (1914). From Berkeley, Wieslander went to the 

University of Michigan where he earned his Master of Forestry degree (1916). After World 

War I, Wieslander joined the Forest Service, first spending 7 years on the Lassen National 

Forest, then in 1926 becoming one of the initial staff of the California Forest Experiment 

Station (Bradshaw and Jensen 1992). As later chapters will indicate, Wieslander had a long 

and extensive career with the Forest Service’s California Forest and Range Experiment 

Station in Berkeley, which he detailed in his autobiography California Forester: Mapper of 

Wildland Vegetation and Soils (Wieslander 1986).

55 In 1899, Walter Mulford received his B.S. (agriculture) and his F.E. (forest engineer) 

degree in 1901 from the New York State College of Forestry at Cornell. He then established 

Connecticut’s forestry program, becoming the first to hold the title of State Forester in the 

country. During 1904–1905, he briefly had an assignment with the Bureau of Forestry in 

the southern Appalachian Mountains, before serving as an assistant in the Yale School of 

Forestry. After teaching silviculture at the University of Michigan (1911–1914), he became 

head of the Division of Forestry, University of California, Berkeley and directed the 

department until 1939, and the School of Forestry until 1946, retiring as dean. In 1948, he 

planned and supervised the construction of the forestry building on campus, which bears 

his name—Mulford Hall (Clepper 1971, Rodgers 1968).
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Figure 18—Albert Everett Wieslander, scientist 

and researcher in the fields of wildland vegetation and soil mapping and forest inventory. He 

pioneered the use of aerial photographs in those 

activities as well. University of California, Berkeley

to the faculty, and the first classes of the Division of Forestry, or the forestry school, 

opened at the University of California, Berkeley. Under Mulford’s training, several 

important foresters and forestry scientists emerged from Berkeley’s program of 

forestry education to serve in the Forest Service.

The founding of Berkeley’s Division of Forestry injected a new element and 

direct opportunity for forestry research in California. Deciding what role the 

division would play in the field was a difficult one. There were three directions 

Berkeley professors could take. They could simply duplicate the Forest Service’s 

work in order to verify it; they could apply similar studies to different species or in 

a different area; or they could pursue fundamental studies of a laboratory character, 

which the Forest Service had not done to any great extent. In the end, Berkeley and 

the Forest Service struck a “gentlemen’s agreement” under which the school, for the 

most part, conducted their research in all three areas, but did not directly investigate areas that were thoroughly covered already by Forest Service researchers. 

For example, in the redwood region, where the Forest Service had done practically 

nothing because of the absence of national forests therein, the Berkeley school cultivated all lines of silvicultural research with marked success. This research included 

nursery and planting investigations, testing of a large number of imported species, 

thinning experiments in mixed redwood second-growth stands, and forest products 

investigations tied closely with logging and sawmill problems of the redwood 

industry. In the area of forest management, Berkeley scholar Donald Bruce studied 
75

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

the cost of logging, transporting, and milling different-sized timber, adding to, 

and complementing, similar work conducted by W.W. Ashe for the Forest Service 

since 1909. Finally, in range management, Berkeley’s Division of Forestry checked 

the results of experimental research in range management that came out of the 

Great Basin Station in Utah, and at the Santa Rita56 and Jornada57 Range Reserves 

in the Southwest, as they applied to grazing practices on California’s national forests (Hill 1931).

The Formative Years, Forest Service Research 

Program, 1915–1919

During Gifford Pinchot’s administration, as previously noted, forestry research was 

almost totally set aside in favor of Pinchot’s efforts to administer the national forests. The mission of providing scientific information was subsumed under an 

agency bent on facilitating efficient forest management (Storey 1975). However, in 

the early years of the Henry S. Graves (fig. 19) administration (1910–1920), research 

began to regain some of its status and focus as a provider of scientific information 

within the Forest Service. This transformation started in 1910 with the establishment and instant success of the FPL, followed by the organization of the CIC in 

Washington, D.C., in 1912. Even though forestry research made continual progress 

from then on, by 1915, Forest Service research remained uncoordinated and scattered in small units across the Nation. It was also still subordinate to administrative 

needs. Fortunately, Agriculture Secretary David F. Houston recognized this state of 

affairs and directed Chief Graves to take steps to correct it (Steen 1998). 

On June 1, 1915, Graves created a new and separate Research Branch within 

the Forest Service that would better correlate various Forest Service studies and 

investigations while at the same time separate investigative work from administrative work in accordance with Houston’s Department of Agriculture policy. A 

further purpose of Graves’ measure was to “give the research work and personnel 

fullest recognition” and “to develop and strengthen research as a coordinate division of the Service” (Graves 1915: 23). Five basic Forest Service research activities were transferred into the new Branch of Research: silvicultural investigations, 

56 The Santa Rita Range Reserve was located in southern Arizona and established in 1903 

by the Bureau of Plant Industry. As the oldest experimental range in the United States, it 

represented typical semidesert grass and shrub rangelands in that part of Arizona, as well 

as southern New Mexico and west Texas (Price 1976).

57 The Jornada Range Reserve was established on the Jornada Del Muerto Plain in Dona 

Ana County, New Mexico, by Executive order in 1912. The range covered close to 200,000 

acres. The main objectives of research there centered on how to improve and maintain the 

range, and how to manage it for sustained use and production of range livestock (Price 

1976).
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Figure 19—Henry S. Graves, second 

Chief of the Forest Service, 1910–1920. 

Under his administration the Forest 

Service Research Branch, known 

earlier as the Office of Silvics, was 

established (1915). U.S. Forest Service

including the Office of Forest Investigations in Washington, D.C., district and eight 

experiment stations nationwide; forest products investigations, including the Office 

of Industrial Investigations in Washington, D.C. and the FPL in Madison, Wisconsin; all economic studies of lumber and other wood-using industries and studies of 

methods, cost, and efficiency; fire protection studies; and statistical investigations 

(Graves 1915). Graves named Earle H. Clapp (fig. 20) as the first assistant forester 

in charge of the branch. His task was to implement and promulgate these Forest 

Service research efforts.

Earle Hart Clapp attended Cornell University (1902–1903) and joined the Forest Service as a forest assistant in 1905. Initially, Clapp worked in the South-western District, first in charge of forest management (1907–1908), then as associate 

district forester for District 3, (1908–1911), and finally as forest inspector of silviculture (1911–1915) (Clepper 1971).58 In 1915, at the age of 38, Clapp was promoted 

to head the Branch of Research—a post he would hold for the next 20 years59

58 Interestingly, Clapp spoke at length on the subject of silviculture at the first District 5 

supervisors meeting held in 1910; specifically regarding regeneration work and proper 

cutting rotation by yield studies (USDA FS 1910).

59 Clapp next served as associate chief (1935–1939) and then as acting chief (1939–1943) 

of the Forest Service. During his lifetime, he authored many governmental and scientific 

publications, including A National Program of Forest Research (Clapp 1926), which 

provided the basis for the McSweeney-McNary Act of 1928 (discussed in later chapters) 

(Clepper 1971).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

(Clepper 1971). In 1933, Clapp reflected on the moment, stating: “Research was so 

submerged, in fact, and so out of the thought of the rank and file of Forest Service 

personnel that its development was practically at a standstill. In organization, administration, finances, and the selection of personnel, and in practically every 

other particular it was subordinated to the development and administration of the 

National Forest” (Storey 1975). Earle Clapp eventually became the principal architect of the Forest Service’s nationwide research program, and his views dominated 

forestry research policy for the next two decades (1915–1935). But in 1915, the new 

appointee had little or no experience in research programs, and he received no real 

instructions from Chief Graves. To learn about Forest Service research objectives, 

methods, and organization, the 38-year-old Clapp took several steps. First, he went 

out West to acquaint himself with the work of the various experimental stations. 

Next, he brought field researchers into the WO to steep himself in “research 

program lore.” Finally, he started attending the annual meetings of the American 

Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to learn more about the current state of forestry science in America (Steen 1998).

While busy educating himself, Clapp organized the Research Branch into three 

sections: Forest Investigations, Industrial Investigations, and the FPL, headed by 

Figure 20—Earle H. Clapp. Under his 

direction, research was formalized in 1915 

with the creation of the Branch of Research. 

Clapp later served as the sixth Chief of the 

Forest Service (1939–1943). U.S. Forest Service

Research was so 

submerged, in fact, 

and so out of the 

thought of the rank 

and file of Forest 

Service personnel 

that its development 

was practically at a 

standstill.
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Raphael Zon, Howard S. Betts,60 and Howard F. Weiss,61 respectively. All research 

programs, except grazing studies, forest insects, and disease,62 whether located in 

the WO, at the forest and range experiment stations, at the FPL in Madison, or elsewhere, were brought together in this new branch. This reorganization “strengthened 

research as one of the basic functions of the Forest Service and gave it a standing 

that it had not previously possessed” (Storey 1975: 17–18). The Forest Service 

branch of Research thereafter provided a strong central office, and general guidance, coordination, and planning for federal forestry research on a national scale.

In December 1916, in a paper presented to the Society of American Foresters, 

Earle Clapp gave his views on the state and conditions of Forest Service research. 

Clapp plainly stated that “but slight attempt, if any, has been made to correlate the 

efforts of the forest schools, the States, and the Federal Government” prior to 1916, 

and he called for a national forestry research program to “secure correlation of all 

the forest research in the United States.” Clapp acknowledged that investigative 

work since 1905 had become secondary to forest administration, which seemed 

“to offer the only real career for foresters,” but now, many foresters realized “how 

little basis they had for their work.” He concluded that they could not carry out 

their work and answer important questions of policy with the limited number of 

investigators available for research. “Federal practice,” according to Clapp, “must 

set standards.” He further stated: “The [research] program must show a balance 

between pure science and applied, between fundamental research and that which to 

a reasonable degree will furnish results, perhaps not wholly complete and exact, for 

immediate practical application.” In his opinion, the results of investigations and

60 Graduating from the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1900, Howard S. Betts later 

directed the New Haven Laboratory at the Yale Forestry School (1902) and then moved to 

Washington, D.C., and began comprehensive timber testing work for the Forest Service’s 

laboratory there. Betts was instrumental in selecting the University of Wisconsin as the site 

of the FPL and drawing up the plans for it (Rodgers 1968).

61 Howard F. Weiss was FPL’s second director and ran the Madison laboratory from 1912 to 

1917 (Godfrey 1990).

62 When Forester Graves took office, he retained Albert Potter in the post of Chief of 

Grazing with the “glamorous and colorful” Will C. Barnes advising him, while keeping 

agricultural scientist James T. Jardine only in an advisory post. This led to the queer 

dichotomy of “cowboy management of the range and the early efforts, led by Jardine, to 

introduce science into range management.” S.B. Show believed that Jardine would have 

done a better job in the post. According to Show, Potter’s era of “magnificently impressive 

and bewildering pseudo-science of range survey, with its undigested array of palatability 

and forage acre factors and all” was “unencumbered by real recognition of ecological 

sensitivity of many ranges—impolitely, biological illiteracy” (Show, n.d.). In 1915, in 

Chief Forester Graves’ absence, Albert Potter successfully lobbied Agriculture Secretary 

Houston to keep range investigations in Washington, D.C., and the district offices under his 

Grazing Branch (Steen 1998). The BE and Bureau of Plant Industry, both USDA agencies, 

continued their cooperative roles with the Forest Service.

Reorganization 

“strengthened 

research as one of the 

basic functions of the 

Forest Service and 

gave it a standing that 

it had not previously 

possessed.”

“Federal practice must 

set standards. The 

[research] program 

must show a balance 

between pure science 

and applied, between 

fundamental research 

and that which to a 

reasonable degree 

will furnish results, 

perhaps not wholly 

complete and exact, 

for immediate practical 

application.”
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

other research engaged in by the federal government, as well as by private concerns such as state and privately controlled laboratories, consulting engineers, and 

forestry schools, should be openly discussed and dispersed to all (Clapp 1917).

Thereafter, Zon, Betts, and Weiss wasted no time in developing plans for a 

national, coordinated federal forest research program. During pre-World War I 

years, the Forest Investigations Section under Zon continued to conduct silvicultural investigative work, seeking better ways of managing national forests, studying 

the hundreds of tree species in America and worldwide, and exploring methods of 

replanting and reseeding forests. Industrial Investigations continued timber testing work, but eventually this section was merged within the FPL program. Under 

Howard Weiss’ direction, the FPL made significant progress in fundamental and 

applied research in the fields of wood preservation, timber testing, kiln drying, and 

pulp and paper. Despite these achievements, the laboratory’s early research years 

were plagued with persistent problems that all applied research institutions faced 

then and even today—adequate research funding, retention of valuable personnel, 

publishing and disseminating of research results, and securing commercial application of research results (Godfrey 1990).

With the national emergency created by America’s entrance into the “Great 

War,” new challenges in wood science came to the attention of the Forest Service. 

Wood, and products derived from wood, played a major role in the American war 

effort, and radically affected the Forest Service research program, especially in the 

area of forest products investigations. These studies largely took place at the Madison laboratory under the leadership of Carlisle P. (“Cap”) Winslow.63 By the end of 

the war, the FPL had conducted research in many areas, but three in particular related to the war effort: kiln drying, packaging, and the design and manufacture of 

airplanes using light-weight but very strong wood, such as Sitka spruce. Additionally, FPL research on the mechanical properties and production of plywood from 

various species gave dramatic proof of the strength of this wood fabrication type. 

The FPL’s war work eventually led to the commercial use of plywood after the war 

(Godfrey 1990). 

Naturally, because of the war emergency, forest products research received four 

times the budget of other types of research. And, as might be expected, forestry research independent of and unrelated to the war effort fell off. In times of crisis like 

World War I, or when required by policy decisions, justification of funding and 

research topics was often dictated by demands outside of the Forest Service’s main

63 Carlisle P. Winslow became the third director of the FPL in April 1917. Previously, he 

headed the Office of Preservation in the Branch of Forest Products. Winslow ran the FPL 

for the next 29 years—the longest time in office of any FPL director (Godfrey 1990).
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focus. In the winter of 1917, key researchers in the Forest Service were called into 

Washington, D.C., to discuss this dilemma. All aspects of research, from nurseries, 

seeding, and ecology, to fire, pathology, economics, and other research activities 

came under scrutiny, but the issue of independence of research from administrative 

goals took center stage and a lively debate ensued.64 One problem discussed was 

that although experiment stations reported directly to Clapp on technical matters, 

administratively, they were subordinate to district foresters. Many researchers 

strongly felt that district foresters “coping with pressing demands would be likely 

to disrupt ongoing research in order to gain specific information.” They believed 

that all reports should go directly to Washington and not to district foresters. In 

response, Chief Forester Graves issued a 14-page research policy letter addressing 

this dysfunction between forest scientists and administrators. Unwilling to tackle 

the problem directly, his letter instead asked for greater cooperation between 

the two groups, and insisted that they concentrate all research efforts toward the 

agency’s broader mission. Graves also bemoaned the inadequate pool of properly 

trained scientists available for employment by the Branch of Research (Steen 1998).

Stunted Growth of Forest Research in California and 

the Pacific Islands, 1915–1919

With the creation of the Branch of Research in mid-1915, the WO took direction and 

control of District 5’s field program and set research priorities for the Feather River 

and the Converse Experiment Stations in California. This organizational transition 

and readjustment of policy took time. Essentially, for at least a year, very little new 

work took place in California, and then America’s entry into World War I curtailed 

any serious District 5 research work. Because of the war, many research projects 

were immediately discontinued, and others were greatly reduced. Items that required field investigation by the stations were halted altogether because California’s 

two experiment stations were closed down during most of the war years.

64 As early as the mid-1920s, the Forest Service faced the continual problem of bridging 

the gap between science and politics in the management of our national forests. Whereas 

the scientist works from facts to policy, often management would rather work from policy 

to facts (Anderson 1927). Furthermore, those in research and those with administrative 

responsibilities often do not have similar goals. Whereas administrators usually want 

direct quick answers to current forest problems because of outside pressures, researchers 

often seem tentative in their conclusions, wishing to continue data gathering and analysis 

of problems (Steen 1998). In recent years, advocacy activities of scientists have become a 

major topic of concern in natural resource circles.

Whereas the scientist 

works from facts 

to policy, often 

management would 

rather work from policy 

to facts.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Silviculture Studies

With the inauguration of the Branch of Research, changes came immediately to the 

Feather River Experiment Station. In 1916, J.A. Mitchell replaced Acting Director 

Noyes, who had run the station for the previous 2 years. Mitchell conducted the station along the same lines of research as in the past. Stuart Bevier (or “S.B.”) Show65

(fig. 21) joined the roster of the station in 1915.

Show, who would later serve as District/Regional Forester for California from 

1926 to 1946, worked alone for almost 2 years at the station, keeping up to date the 

remeasurement of the station’s permanent sample plots (Show, n.d). His experience

65 Stuart Bevier Show (rhymes with “now”), or “Bevier” as he preferred to be called, was 

born in Nebraska in 1886, but his family moved to Palo Alto, California, when he was still 

a child. His father was the first history professor at the struggling institution known as 

Leland Stanford Junior University. Show grew into a bright young man who had an orderly 

and inquisitive mind. In 1905, Show entered Stanford University with no career goals in 

mind. There, he attended a lecture given by Gifford Pinchot. After the lecture, Show asked 

him about the Forest Service. Pinchot recommended that Show get a Master’s in Forestry 

at Yale University if he were interested in joining, which Show did in 1910. Show thereafter 

joined the Forest Service and was assigned to the Shasta National Forest (Cermak 2005).

Figure 21—Stuart B. Show, District/Region 5’s fourth Forester 

(1926–1946). Show conducted significant studies in fire research 

in California and co-authored with Edward Kotok Forest Fires in 

California—which examined the origin and behavior of fires and 

protection theories.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Region
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reflected the difficulties the Forest Service encountered in securing satisfactory 

labor prior to and during World War I (Graves 1917). To add to matters, in 1917, the 

Feather River Experiment Station was closed temporarily. With its closure, Mitchell 

moved on and Show was transferred to the San Francisco office, where he assumed 

charge of the silvical investigations section of the district office. However, soon 

thereafter that section was discontinued as well, and Show was reassigned to the 

Pilgrim Creek nursery on the Shasta National Forest, where he conducted nursery 

and planting research (Hill 1931; Show, n.d.). 

However, the Feather River Experiment Station was not completely abandoned. 

Instead, the facility was temporarily taken over by the Department of Agriculture’s 

Office of Pathology (OP). Under the direction of E.P. Meinecke, the station was 

used to further District 5 investigations over the next 5 years, with the stipulation 

that key measurements in ongoing sample plot measurements continue. In 1917, 

Duncan Dunning66 (fig. 22), who later headed silvicultural research after the 

founding of the California Forest and Range Experiment Station, measured key 

permanent plots. In 1919, an OP crew led by H.G. Lachmund reexamined the station’s harvest cutting plots, with Dunning writing the progress report the following 

year. Meanwhile, in 1918, the Converse Experiment Station, which was conducting 

reforestation work in southern California under Edward Munns, was abandoned 

altogether, falling victim to wartime economy and efficiency measures. With the 

closure of the Converse Experiment Station, forestry research pertaining to southern California ended altogether for a time (Fowells 1983; Hill 1931; Show, n.d.). 

“The fruits of the forest research tree,” according to a veteran District 5 researcher, 

“were not to ripen, for the most part, until after 1920” (Hill 1931).

Research circumstances in Hawaii after 1915 were not much different. In 1915, 

Charles Judd succeeded Ralph Hosmer as superintendent of Hawaiian territorial 

forestry. Prior to leaving, Hosmer submitted a progress report to District Forester 

DuBois summing up his research results pertaining to two projects: experimental 

tree planting (temperate zone trees, particularly conifers) carried out on the upper 

levels of the high mountains located on the islands of Maui and Hawaii, and planting eucalyptus in the Nuuanu Valley on the island of Oahu near Honolulu to see 

which species was best adapted in Hawaii. According to Hosmer, the high mountain 

66 Duncan Dunning earned his B.S. in 1915 and his M.S. in 1916 at the University of 

California at Berkeley. In 1916, he joined the Forest Service as an assistant forest ranger 

on the Shasta National Forest and later that year was reassigned as a forest assistant at the 

Feather River Experiment Station, a position he held until World War I, when he joined the 

army (USDA FS 1948).

“The fruits of the forest 

research tree were not 

to ripen, for the most 

part, until after 1920.”
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 22—The 1934 University of California Forest School Faculty–California Forest and Range 

Experimental Station meeting. In 1937, Duncan Dunning (top right) authored the site and crown 

classification systems used by foresters throughout the West and developed a plan for sustainedyield forestry for the Forest Service.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

project was a total failure because of the inability to secure proper care in the raising of seedlings in local nurseries, and because climatic conditions were found to be 

unfavorable. However, the eucalyptus plantations were without question a success. 

Trees planted in 1910 were still doing well in 1914. Forest Service funds helped pay 

for the equipment for these reforestation experiments, and Hosmer believed that by 

inaugurating this investigation, the Forest Service had rendered a lasting benefit to 

the Territory of Hawaii (Territory of Hawaii, Division of Forestry 1914).

Unlike Hosmer, whose reports urged management of areas for continuous production forests, Judd ignored any local commercial timber potential. It seems that 

Judd was closely aligned with Harold Lyon of the Hawaiian Planters Association, 

an organization that opposed any commercial timber activities that might supplant 

sugar or pineapple plantation production. Furthermore, cattlemen, who owned most 

of the land not suited for either sugarcane or pineapple production, wanted forest 

land cleared for pastureland. Therefore, after 1915, and for years to come, there was 
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little official interest by the Forest Service, the Hawaiian government, or large private landowners in the silviculture or timber production aspects of forestry. During 

the decades of Judd’s administration, which covered the years 1915 to 1939, forestry 

policy and programs in Hawaii continued to focus almost exclusively on protecting 

watershed resources (Nelson 1989d). Growing problems in Hawaii’s natural forests 

stands caused by the spread of noxious nonnative weeds and shrubs were largely 

ignored.

Forest Products Research

Forest products research in California had been on the decline since 1913, when it 

was relegated to conducting regional wood preservation projects for the FPL. Four 

years later, C. Stowell Smith resigned as its head, reducing it to a one-man operation. During the war years, District 5’s forest products research was suspended 

altogether, when all such research was concentrated at the FPL (Hill 1931).

Fire Research

Unlike silviculture and wood products research, fire research in California made 

progress prior to and during World War I. Aware of the forest management 

problems brought about by the threat of fires—made even more evident by the 

disastrous 1910 fire season—District 5 personnel began to analyze fire reports 

in California for their hidden research meaning. This work began in 1915, when 

District Forester Coert Dubois assigned S.B. Show to start a fire research program 

at the Feather River Experiment Station. Undeterred by the immense task before 

him, Show set up fire research projects at the Feather River Experiment Station that 

investigated the rate of spread of fires, light burning, and fire damage (Fowells 

1983). However, Show struggled to make sense of individual fire reports from 

California’s national forests. Many rangers felt that filling out these reports was 

a useless exercise in bureaucratic paperwork and could not see their value. As a 

result, many reports were incomplete or badly organized (Show, n.d.). At the same 

time Show was pouring over his paperwork, W.H. Gallaher of the Tahoe National 

Forest prepared a report, “Value of Continuous Fire Protection in California.” In his 

study, Gallaher concluded that from 1905 to 1915, California’s national forests had 

made a rapid recovery from their former rundown condition (from Cermak 2005).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Meanwhile, by the beginning of 1918, Show began to share his fire research 

work with Eldorado National Forest supervisor Edward I. Kotok67 (fig. 23), who in 

1926 became the first director of the California Forest Experiment Station (now the 

PSW Research Station). The two of them had known each other since 1912, when 

they met while working together on the Shasta National Forest. They soon became 

fast friends until Show left in 1915 to take charge of the Feather River Experiment 

Station near Quincy68 (Cermak 2005). Despite the distance between them, they continued collaborating on California’s fire problems, and in the winter of 1918–1919, 

Show and Kotok made fire research history when they presented the first of many 

studies on fire control. After analyzing a particular fire on the Eldorado National 

Forest, the so-called Ham Station Fire, along with previous fire reports from the 

Shasta National Forest, they presented their results at a District 5 supervisors 

conference at Davis, California. Their report electrified the audience. Show and 

Kotok’s analysis showed with astonishing clarity that too few personnel and the fact 

that it took firefighters too long to reach the location of the fire were responsible 

for turning these relatively small fires into disasters. Their conference presentation 

literally sold fire science and research to District 5’s field men “as something not 

remote in the clouds but having a direct relation to their everyday jobs” (Hill 1931).

Their paper also laid the foundation for Show and Kotok’s fire research over the 

next 10 years. Furthermore, their paper may have influenced the California State 

Board of Forestry to enter into an agreement in 1919 with the federal government 

under the Weeks Act of 1911. Passed on March 1, 1911, the Weeks Act, among other 

provisions, authorized Forest Service cooperative efforts with states to provide forest fire protection. This act was designed for the prevention and suppression of 

forest fires and provided matching funds to states for hiring rangers for those purposes (Pratt 1931). For years, the state of California had failed to take advantage 

of cooperative federal fire control funds under the act (Cermak 2005), but in 1919, 

67 Edward I. Kotok was born in 1888 “somewhere between the Crimea and Ukraine.” He 

and his family came to America when he was 7, leaving Russia because of his father’s 

anti-Czarist politics. Edward attended City College of New York and graduated in 1909 

with a chemical engineering degree. Kotok, like so many others, was inspired to join the 

Forest Service after hearing a lecture by Gifford Pinchot. In 1911, he completed a Master 

of Forestry degree at the University of Michigan, thinking that he would become a chemist 

at the newly established FPL in nearby Wisconsin. However, in 1911, fate led him to the 

Shasta National Forest, where he accepted a permanent position in 1911. There, he was put 

in charge of planting work in northern California. Eventually, he steadily advanced and by 

1916, worked his way up to becoming the Eldorado National Forest Supervisor (American 

Forests and Forest Life 1926; Cermak 2005 Journal of Forestry 1941). Interestingly, as 

Supervisor for the Eldorado National Forest, Kotok was perhaps the first to initiate roadsigning of historic spots, such as the Lincoln Highway (Show 1965).

68 By that date, their friendship bond had strengthened further because Show’s younger 

sister Ruth met and married Kotok.

Their conference 

presentation literally 

sold fire science and 

research to District

5’s field men “as 

something not remote 

in the clouds but having 

a direct relation to their 

everyday jobs”.
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Figure 23—Edward I. Kotok, 

first director of California Forest 

Experiment Station (1926–1940). 

His major contribution to Forest 

Service research was his ability to 

organize and administer research 

during its formative years of 

development in California. U.S. Forest Service

the Forest Service provided $3,500 for four “rangers” salaries. By 1920, the ranger 

organization expanded with 10 rangers overseeing 10 fire districts (Thorton 1994). 

By this date, Edward Kotok, who had been moved into the San Francisco District 

5 office to take over fire control and cooperative fire duties there, was thereafter 

appointed as the first Weeks Act “Inspector” for California (Cermak 2005, Hastings 

1976). Once again, the two men were brought together. “Over the next ten years, 

Show and Kotok would collaborate on six of the most important publications in the 

history of fire control” (Cermak 2005).

Range Management Research

In 1915, responsibility for range research outside the national forests was transferred 

from the former BPI to the Forest Service, and the Santa Rita and Jornada Range 

Reserves were transferred to the Forest Service. With these transfers, Department 

of Agriculture responsibility for range and native pasture research on public and 

private lands passed to the Forest Service (Price 1976). In the same year, a district 

range research office was established in California under District 5’s Branch of 

Grazing. The primary work of this office was to conduct range surveys, using the 

“range reconnaissance” method of range inventory devised by James T. Jardine. 

Thereafter, the first range reconnaissance surveys were begun in District 5, starting 
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

with the Trinity National Forest (Graves 1915). “None of this had great consequence,” according to S.B. Show, “but it bespoke the entry of science into another 

field of national forest management” (Show, n.d.). In addition to range reconnaissance, in the pre-World War I years, observations and demonstration tests to work 

out practical methods of eliminating livestock loss from poisonous plants occurred 

in District 5. At the top of District 5’s list was suppression of larkspur, which is 

highly palatable but extremely poisonous to cattle, and which caused heavy cattle 

losses on western range states. In cooperation with cattlemen, the Forest Service 

selected a demonstration area on the Stanislaus National Forest. There, they eradicated the weed on approximately 67 acres by digging it out. Likewise, they conducted similar tests on a smaller scale on the Sierra and Angeles National Forests. 

In every case, losses from poisoning were reduced to such an extent that the cost of 

testing was more than justified (Graves 1916, 1917). However, all such research was 

curtailed during World War I while the Forest Service filled a mandate to “increase 

the number of stock already authorized by the Secretary for the season of 1917 [and 

thereafter] wherever this was possible without serious danger of over-grazing and 

over-stocking the range” (Graves 1917).

Push for Fundamental Scientific Research and 

Experiment Stations in the West

On November 11, 1918, the European war ended when Germany capitulated. Now 

the Forest Service research program faced new demands in its post-war years. At 

the end of the war, Earle Clapp, head of the Branch of Research, felt optimistic 

about the future of Forest Service research. If forestry research in the United States 

lacked justification before the war, in his opinion, it was now more important than 

ever. The role forestry research played in winning the war in Clapp’s opinion had 

earned it new respect (Clapp 1918, 1919a, 1919b), and thereafter a trend toward 

basic research characterized this period in forestry research history. Research 

work in which the results of field observation and experimentation were verified 

by methods under laboratory control, as practiced by the FPL during the war years, 

influenced this development. Increasing integration of diverse lines of research was 

another research trend exhibited at this time as well (Hill 1931).

In July 1919, the American Forestry Association (AFA) crystallized these 

challenges. In an editorial entitled “Why We Need More Forest Research,” the 

organization outlined the reasons for a new research effort aimed toward fundamental forestry research. The AFA pointed out how the Forest Service, through 

its experiment stations, had been successful over the previous decade in “solving 

the technical problems that arose in marking timber, in working out methods of 
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brush disposal to secure natural reproduction, methods of artificial reforestation, 

and similar problems.” A renewed research effort was called for by groups such as 

the AFA following World War I because the United States was facing an economic 

problem—producing enough wood to meet the future needs of the Nation’s growing population and industries. The AFA thought the federal government ought to 

take vigorous action to avoid “a very serious shortage of timber with attendant high 

prices, hardship for consumers, and hindrance to the economic development of the 

country....” The Forest Service, according to the AFA, must “set itself at once to the 

task of securing more fundamental facts,” and obtain such data by “long-continued, 

painstaking, scientific research.” In other words, purely investigative work as 

opposed to applied science (American Forestry Association 1919). Over the next 

few years, the AFA reiterated this position and pushed for materially strengthening 

the Forest Service experiment station system and the initiation of long-term scientific studies of forestry problems. “Full productiveness of our forests,” the editorial 

stated, “can not be secured without full information regarding the means of controlling growth.” The association bemoaned the “virtual abandonment of the forest experiment stations in the West,” stating that they were “as necessary to forestry as 

the agricultural stations are to progress in agriculture....” The organization suggested that there should be at least one station in each of the main forest regions of 

the country (American Forestry Association 1920).

Meanwhile, nationally there was a parallel call for forest research to expand 

beyond the Forest Service. A clear advocate of American schools of forestry and 

other institutions taking a larger part in such research was James W. Toumey,69

dean of Yale University’s School of Forestry. Toumey opposed centralization of 

research in the Forest Service, which he characterized as primarily an administrative and executive branch of the government, and declared: “...past experience has 

shown that those [experiment stations] already in existence are located without reference to forest conditions in the entire country, but with reference to the national 

forests, which are a small part, and in many respects the least important part, of the 

forests of the entire country.” Instead, the Yale dean recommended the formation 

of a central national body that would give direction to forest research being carried 

69 In the 1890s, James William Toumey taught botany at Michigan State and at the University of Arizona prior to his appointment as superintendent of tree planting in the Division 

of Forestry in 1899. However, the next year, Toumey was called to Yale University where 

he became an outstanding authority on dendrology and silviculture. From 1910 to 1922, 

Toumey served as dean of Yale’s School of Forestry. When he retired from the deanship, he 

continued to teach and do research at the university (Clepper 1971).

The Forest Service 

must “set itself at once 

to the task of securing 

more fundamental 

facts,” and obtain 

such data by “longcontinued, painstaking, 

scientific research.”

“Full productiveness 

of our forests can not 

be secured without 

full information 

regarding the means of 

controlling growth.”
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

out by the Forest Service and state agencies, as well as educational and private institutions. Moreover, he believed that forestry needed what agriculture needed and 

obtained a half century ago—a research station in every state in the Union under 

national support and linked up with an educational institution, preferably with the 

College of Agriculture or with established forestry departments in other institutions 

(Toumey 1919). 

While this issue was nationally debated, the “gentlemen’s agreement” between 

the University of California and the District 5, which turned out not to be satisfactory to either party, fell apart. As the fundamental research idea began to germinate 

nationwide, Berkeley professors grasped its significance and decided to center the 

school’s future efforts toward such work. Donald Bruce, a professor at Berkeley, 

went in this direction in the field of mensuration, or the measurement of lengths, 

areas, and volumes. Traditional methods of calculating volume and growth measurement at this time were crude and open to suspicion. Bruce, starting in 1920, 

applied the rigid control of statistical mathematics to mensuration, leading to more 

accuracy in volume tables for the growth of such California species as white fir, red 

fir, and second-growth redwood. Also at this time, other Berkeley professors, such 

as Arthur Sampson, who studied the nutrition of forage grasses and other significant topics in grazing research, also produced significant results in fundamental 

research (Hill 1931). Against this backdrop, the Forest Service research program 

matured in the early 1920s. 

Maturation of the Forest Service’s Research Program, 

1920–1925

By the time peace returned to America, many people in the Nation were quite concerned about America’s declining forest resources, much like their grandparents 

must have felt 50 years earlier, when Franklin B. Hough presented his paper “The 

Duty of Governments in the Preservation of Forests,” which spawned the birth of 

America’s forestry movement. In the 1920s, the United States used timber at a 

rate four times as fast as it was being grown, and the Nation had already consumed 

or destroyed 60 percent of its original timber wealth. Concurrently, and as a consequence, public interest and involvement in forestry grew in the 1920s as well. 

This involvement spread to a degree greater than ever before in the country’s history, which was reflected in the Nation’s growing desire to promote wiser and 

wider use of forest resources. For instance, by 1925, several new organizations had 

already formed around a conservation theme. They included the Save the Redwoods 

Forestry needed what 

agriculture needed and 

obtained a half century 

ago—a research station 

in every state in the 

Union under national 

support and linked up 

with an educational 

institution, preferably 

with the College of 

Agriculture or with 

established forestry 

departments in other 

institutions. 
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League70 (1918) and the Izaak Walton League71 (1922), both of which joined the 

Forest Service in the spread of interest in forestry issues (Greeley 1925). In addition, Arthur Capper, newly elected Senator from Kansas, expressed from the Senate 

floor in 1920 the national apprehension over the consumption and destruction of 

the Nation’s forest heritage when he introduced and engineered the passage of the 

Capper Resolution.72 This Senate resolution directed Agriculture Secretary Henry 

C. Wallace to report on the extent of forest depletion, lumber prices, exports, and 

the degree of concentration of forest ownership (Godfrey 2005). And, as in Hough’s 

day, public interest in forest research rose to the point that the federal government 

stepped in to meet the crisis. The Senate called for increasing timber-growing 

investigations and the creation of an extensive forest experiment station system. The 

1923 Forest Service annual report thereafter declared, “Only by intensive management on all the forest lands in the United States can timber production be increased 

sufficiently to meet our requirements. The wolf will not be driven from the door 

until four times our present growth of wood is secured. Forest investigations.... 

have a very concrete part to perform in the program of national forestry...”73

(Greeley 1921).

70 The Save the Redwoods League began in 1917 after prominent California conservationists like John C. Merriam, Madison Grant, and Henry Fairfield saw the widespread 

destruction of the forests along the northern coast of California after the completion of 

Highway 101. In the spring of 1918, they formed the league to save primeval redwood 

forests from destruction. Thereafter, the league worked in close cooperation with federal, 

state, and other organizations to establish redwood parks in the state of California. By 

1925, two-thirds of the timber operators in the redwood region of California were either 

actually reforesting their lands or investigating its feasibility (Greeley 1925).

71 The Izaak Walton League was organized in 1922 by a group of Chicago sportsmen. 

While discussing a common interest—the deteriorating conditions of America’s top fishing 

streams by uncontrolled industrial discharges, raw sewage, and soil erosion, which threatened to destroy many of the Nation’s most productive waterways—they decided to create 

an organization to confront this problem. As a constant reminder of their goals, they named 

the group after Izaak Walton, the 17th century English angler who wrote the classic The 

Compleat Angler. Their ultimate mission eventually turned to conserving, maintaining, 

protecting, and restoring the soil, forest, water, and other natural resources of the United 

States and to educate the public with respect to such resources.

72 The 1920s was a time when the use of Congressional power to investigate reached new 

heights—a trend that continued into the 1930s. During these decades, progressives in 

Congress effectively wielded this device to expose the inequities in society and corruption 

in government, much as they had done through the 1912 Pujo Committee investigation of 

Wall Street prior to World War I and after the war through the Teapot Dome investigation 

into cabinet-level corruption in 1924 (Godfrey 1985).

73 National aid in the advancement of forestry came when the Clarke-McNary Act passed 

in 1924. Its chief purpose was to encourage local forestry, and it opened a new era in 

cooperative work with the states in four areas: encouraging farm forestry and tree planting, 

protecting state and private forests from fire, resolving forest taxation issues, and increasing forestry extension work (Greeley 1925).

Only by intensive 

management on all 

the forest lands in 

the United States can 

timber production 

be increased 

sufficiently to meet 

our requirements. The 

wolf will not be driven 

from the door until 

four times our present 

growth of wood is 

secured.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Earle Clapp’s Branch of Research prepared the Forest Service’s official response to Capper’s 1920 resolution. It indicated that there was serious timber 

depletion in some parts of the country, particularly the “eastern and most populous 

part of the country which had begun to suffer the pinch of timber scarcity and high 

lumber prices in consequence of forest depletion” (Greeley 1923). Greeley’s lengthy 

report should have inspired the Nation to invest more into forestry research. Unfortunately, the Forest Service was caught on the wrong side of a controversy involving 

regulating forest practices on private lands,74 which did not help Clapp’s research 

budget needs (Steen 1976, 1998). Appropriations needed to revitalize Forest Service 

research were not forthcoming. In fact, because of budget difficulties following 

World War I, FPL staff members were reduced by about half, and the annual budget 

of the Branch of Research declined in the 1920s, too (Steen 1998). For example, 

expenditures for research in 1921, which included forest products, silviculture, 

range and forage plant investigations, experiments in tree planting, scientific 

management of stock and forage, and recording, digesting, and disseminating the 

results of scientific technical work, amounted to less than $370,000, or just under 

six percent of the Forest Service’s annual appropriation (Greeley 1921). This figure 

was a full percentage point below what it had been a decade earlier. By 1925, 

this percentage had dropped to 4.24 percent of the overall Forest Service budget 

(Greeley 1923). Besides these budgetary woes, Clapp confronted another prevalent 

problem in the postwar period—the availability of technically trained men with 

adequate research experience. For instance, in 1921, the annual turnover of various 

groups of scientific and technical personnel ranged somewhere between 14 and 27 

percent (Greeley 1921).

Despite inadequate funding and a growing need for forest research scientists, 

Earle Clapp rebuilt and rebalanced the Branch of Research program goals from 

their wartime footing as best as he could. Eventually, Clapp pieced together a 

research program that met the Nation’s research demands and one that achieved 

full independence and recognition of the Branch’s authority over Forest Service 

research matters. Clapp’s plan began at the end of 1921, when, in a pamphlet 

entitled Forest Experiment Stations (Clapp 1921), he proposed the creation of at 

least one forest experiment station in each of the principal timber regions of the 

country—10 regional experiment stations in all (Steen 1998). This idea met one of 

Yale Dean Toumey’s criticisms and brought out congressional allies who fought for 

the necessary appropriations to fund individual experimental stations. Sometimes, 

74 In the 1920s, many people, including those in the Forest Service, worried about the risks 

of depending on private forests and the forest industry for the Nation’s future supplies of 

timber and wished to institute government controls over private forestry.

Unfortunately, the 

Forest Service was 

caught on the wrong 

side of a controversy 

involving regulating 

forest practices on 

private lands.
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Clapp and his supporters won. For instance, in 1921, congressional legislation 

passed authorizing the creation of two new eastern experiment stations, one in 

New Orleans, Louisiana, and the other in Ashville, Kentucky. At the same time, 

the Missoula, Montana, station reopened on a restricted basis (Greeley 1921, Steen 

1998). Sometimes, they lost. For example, that same year, California’s Senator 

Hiram Johnson and Representative Henry Z. Osborne introduced a bill backed 

by the Forest Service to establish a California experiment station to enlarge the 

small-scale work underway in District 5. The California bill failed to pass that year, 

even though the AFA endorsed it75 (American Forestry Association 1921a, 1921b). 

However, two years later, two additional stations were added to Clapp’s Research 

Branch. One was located at Amherst, Massachusetts, and the other in St. Paul, 

Minnesota. In 1924, Clapp increased his arsenal of experiment stations again when 

the Forest Service opened the Portland, Oregon, experiment station. In the interim, 

original experiment stations, such as the ones at Fort Valley and Priest River, were 

systematically converted to experimental forests, probably because they did not 

meet the regional qualification Clapp sought (Steen 1998). By 1924, the functions 

of forest experiment stations, as well as the ways and means of disseminating 

results of their work, had been hammered out at the National Conference on Utilization of Forest Products that Clapp held at the FPL in March of that year. According 

to Clapp, the meeting’s purpose was “to unite the entire research force into a more 

homogenous organization, and to bring about a closer coordination of the work of 

the men at the different stations which are more or less isolated from one another” 

(USDA FS 1924b: 4). Chief Forester William B. Greeley76 attended the meeting 

along with key Washington research and branch staff and representatives from 

all the forest experiment stations and the district offices (Greeley 1925, USDA FS 

1924b). 

75 In January of 1922, Senator Johnson reintroduced the bill asking for an appropriation of 

$40,000, but it failed as well. A year later, the California state legislature passed a resolution urging Congress to authorize the expenditure and make the necessary appropriation, 

but again their plea fell on deaf ears. Interestingly, two months earlier, the California State 

Board of Forestry had intended to sponsor a bill asking for a state appropriation of $10,000 

for the establishment and maintenance of a forest experiment station in the state provided 

that the federal government appropriate a sum of $25,000 for the same purpose (Clar 1959).

76 William Buckhout Greeley received a law degree from the University of California 

(1901) and a Master of Forestry degree from Yale (1904). He joined the Forest Service 

working in California and was promoted to supervisor of the Sequoia National Forest 

(1906). He later served as district forester for the Northern Rocky Mountain Region (1908) 

and in Washington, D.C., as Chief of Silviculture or Forest Management (1911). Like 

many in the Forest Service, he served in the 10th Engineers, United States Army Corps of 

Engineers during World War I. In 1920, he was appointed the Nation’s third Chief of the 

Forest Service and held that position until 1928, when he resigned (Clepper 1971).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

At a special session regarding experiment stations, Samuel T. Dana, director 

of the Northeastern Forest Experiment Station at Amherst, and a stalwart advocate 

of forest experiment stations since 1909, spelled out the philosophy, the functions, 

and the duties of forest experiment stations. According to Dana, the mission of 

federal forest experiment stations was to exercise an active leadership in forest 

research along three lines in the regions where they were located: conducting research; making the results available to the public in usable form, and seeing that 

the research is put into practice; and stimulating and coordinating research on the 

part of other agencies that were, or should be, doing work in the same field. In other 

words, station research work should include both bringing together and making 

available existing research, and securing original data. In the selection of specific 

projects, each station was to give preference to problems of immediate urgency and 

outstanding importance in its region. Fundamental research was not be neglected, 

but would be conducted only when necessary to obtain satisfactory answers to the 

problems under investigation. Station Director Dana also maintained that research 

fields should be limited to forest protection, forest production, and forest management and that entomology and forest pathology staff detailed to the various stations 

by the BE and Plant Industry should continue their work. In Dana’s estimation, each 

station needed to stay in close touch with all investigations in forest products and 

forest economics in their region, but that should not preclude the station from doing 

work in those fields. In addition to their own research activities, experiment stations 

were to keep in touch with other phases of forestry in their regions—such as work 

conducted by state agencies, educational institutions, and private institutes and 

industry. Finally, Forest Service research findings were to be circulated promptly 

to administrative officers and throughout the Forest Service. The general and 

concerned public was to be informed by means of scientific publications, popular 

articles, talks, demonstrations, and personal contacts (Dana 1909, 1924).

California District 5 Administrative and Research Program, 

1920–1925

In 1920, District 5 Forester Paul Redington named S.B. Show head of District 5’s 

research division. Without any experiment stations to oversee, all forestry research 

efforts took place in District 5’s research division. From 1920 to 1925, research 

work increased exponentially under Show, although there were only a limited 

number of personnel to conduct research. By 1922, District 5’s research division 

consisted only of S.B. Show (division head and fire research), Duncan Dunning 

(silviculture), C.L. Hill (wood products) and Miss D.H. Vinther, an administrative 

assistant (Wilson 1976). In 1925, botanist Howard Siggins joined the research 

The mission of federal 

forest experiment 

stations was to exercise 

an active leadership in 

forest research. 
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

division to help Dunning with silvicultural studies. At various times, field men 

were detailed to the division, as well as extra clerical assistance, but for the most 

part, in these early days, Show, Dunning, and Hill made up the entire operation. 

Fortunately, some research subjects, such as insect and disease research and grazing 

management were still handled by other USDA agencies or branches. Despite his 

limited staffing arrangement, Show worked diligently alongside Earle Clapp and the 

Washington office. For instance, in November 1924, after Chief Forester Greeley 

(fig. 24) addressed the Washington section of the Society of American Foresters on 

the “Importance of Forest Research,” a committee was formed to report its findings 

on forestry. This committee included contributions from outstanding California 

men, such as S.B. Show. In 1924, Show, Kotok, and Dunning represented District 5 

at the National Conference on Utilization of Forest Products. Show even presented a 

short paper at the meeting on the correlation of forest products and silvical research 

(USDA FS 1924). 

Research Program, 1920–1925

Silviculture Studies

From 1920 to 1925, Duncan Dunning handled all silvicultural studies within 

District 5, and enlisted help from others when needed.77 However, in 1921, reforestation efforts within District 5 were halted. A decrease in congressional appropriations for planting and sowing from a prewar nationwide total of over $170,000 

to $125,000, and the high cost of labor after the war, forced the Forest Service to 

selectively plant in those regions where the greatest success was obtained in the 

past and where the need for artificial reforestation was the greatest. Planting in 

California was suspended for a number of years because the region did not meet 

these criteria (Greeley 1921, 1923). 

This attitude began to change following Clapp’s report on the Capper Resolution. With release of the report, District 5’s cutting and marking policy underwent 

considerable study and reevaluation. For more than 10 years, District 5 had been 

conducting a detailed study of cutover lands on permanent plots on the Shasta, 

Lassen, Plumas, Tahoe, Stanislaus, Sierra, and Sequoia National Forests to determine the effects of cutting on the growth of remaining trees and on reproduction. In

77 For instance, in 1920, Dunning, Show, Edward Munns, and J.A. Kittredge reexamined 

the 24-acre permanent plot located within the Feather River Experiment Station on the 

Plumas National Forest. With the closure of the Converse Experiment Station, Munns 

did some war work and then returned to District 5 after the war to conduct a logging and 

cutting methods study for the state of California. Eventually, Munns went to Washington, 

D.C., and served as Chief of the Office of Experiment Stations (1925–1928) (Show, n.d.; 

Watts 1951).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

1922, Duncan Dunning published the initial results. He found that there was little 

correlation between cutting practices and probable growth and reproduction, which 

depended more on a tree’s seed capacity, the relative value of the species, wind 

firmness, and other factors. Two years later, Dunning’s final study was published, 

confirming his earlier findings (from Ayres 1958). As a result, District 5 marking 

rules were redesigned to release well-established young growth from light and 

root competition brought about by early marking practices. According to District 5 

assistant district forester T.D. Woodbury: 

Now for the first time, we are able to handle cutting operations on the 

basis of facts obtained on our own region through careful research....[W]e 

administrative men who are responsible for growing the maximum amount 

of wood of the best species on our cutover lands can now ascertain... 

the most productive trees to leave in order to accomplish this objective 

[Godfrey 2005: 183].

Dunning’s study once again stimulated interest in reforestation on District 5. 

In early 1924, a 10-year program of planting experiments was undertaken under 

District 5’s research branch, with the object of improving the protection and utilization of timber. Woodbury suggested that the Feather River nursery be involved in 

the project (Godfrey 2005). 

Figure 24—William B. Greeley, third Chief of the 

Forest Service, 1920–1928. Greeley fostered an 

extensive system of basic and applied research. U.S. Forest Service
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Other achievements in silviculture research under Dunning followed once the 

California Experiment Station was established in mid-1925 (see below). One notable 

accomplishment was Dunning’s invention of an instrument that read the history of 

trees and forests from annual rings of increment cores taken from living trees (fig. 

25). Dunning’s instrument accommodated the ordinary Swedish borer and allowed 

for the measurement of increment cores economically with comparative rapidity, 

consistent accuracy, and a minimum of fatigue and eyestrain (USDA FS 1924a, 

Dunning 1925).

Forest Products Research

In 1920, District Forester Redington reinstated wood products research within District 5’s research division under the direction of Carey L. Hill.78 In the main, Hill 

trended away from investigating wood preservation problems characteristic of 

research in the pre-World War I years, even though those problems were still important to the conservation of wood material. For instance, Hill had spent considerable 

research time on marine pilings preservation. Now, Hill turned to the study of other 

problems, such as waste and losses in the timber conversion processes. At the 1924 

National Conference on Utilization of Forest Products, there was widespread interest in the amount of wood wasted in the forest. At the conference, it was estimated 

that logging operations left on the ground 20 to 30 percent of the timber, chiefly in 

the form of so-called “inferior” species, defective logs, high stumps, and large tops. 

Additionally, sawmill waste was seen as a great opportunity for research (Greeley 

1925). Addressing these issues, Hill published several articles in forest economic 

and products journals discussing the reduction and utilization of logging and sawmill waste, including the manufacture of pulp, paper, rayon, and ethyl alcohol. Hill 

also undertook cooperative woods and mill studies and made a study concerning 

air seasoning of lumber in California, and the great savings that could be attained 

by better processes (Aitro 1977, Hill 1931). Nonetheless, wood products research 

essentially remained a one-man operation during the early 1920s. Investigations 

of any California wood species for specific purposes, such as for citrus-fruit boxes, 

were conducted by the better-equipped laboratory facilities at the FPL (Greeley 

1921, 1923).

78 In 1941, Cary Leroy Hill died after 36 years of working in California for the Forest 

Service. In 1903, he attended the University of Michigan forestry school and a year prior 

to graduation in 1905 with an M.S. in Forestry he joined the Forest Service. With the 

exception of 3 years (1909–1912), when he taught forest utilization, wood technology, 

mensuration, and dendrology at his alma mater, he worked in various capacities for the 

Forest Service. Prior to joining the staff of District 5, he had worked as a forest examiner 

on the Sierra National Forest and served for a time as chief of the Forest Products Division 

in Denver (Anonymous 1941).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 25—Person reading the life history of trees and forests from the 

annual rings of increment cores taken from living trees. The instrument 

was invented by Duncan Dunning of the California District, U.S. Forest 

Service, 1925.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacfic Southwest Region

Fire Research

While Dunning and Hill attended to their research efforts in silviculture and wood 

products, Show increasingly directed his energies toward fire research. Show 

leaned in this direction so much that the lines between administrative research 

duties for District 5 and his fire research blurred. Quibbling and hairsplitting 

definitions of what constituted fire research as opposed to administrative work 

began to appear between him and other District 5 staff—so much so that in 1923, a 

joint meeting was held between researchers and administration in San Francisco to 

resolve this bureaucratic conflict. The 14 people who attended discussed their needs 

and important issues, which included topics such as light burning, fire damage 

appraisal, analysis of fire reports, tracking lightning storms, fire danger rating, and 

initial attack speed-up on fires. In the end, a pioneering “investigative committee” 

was formed to focus special attention on fire research requirements in California 

(USDA FS 1922, Wilson and Davis 1988).
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In the early 1920s, fire research was certainly one of District 5’s primary concerns, and teamwork by S.B. Show and Edward I. Kotok contributed significantly 

to analytical research on fire protection in California. But first, fire policy in 

District 5 needed to change. While District Forester DuBois served during World 

War I, Roy Headley, his chief of operations, was put in charge of the district. In 

DuBois’ absence, Headley instituted a nonscientific “let burn” policy for California, 

which he based on personal opinions and experiences. Using an economic cost ratio 

of damage versus control, Headley deemed that certain fires ought to be allowed 

to burn if expenditures were disproportionate to the value of the resources under 

protection. The policy was dropped when Show demonstrated Headley’s errant 

judgment in a paper he presented at the 1920 supervisor’s conference in Davis, 

California. Show analyzed forest fire records for the previous 7 years and found 

Headley’s theory unworkable, demonstrating that the personal views and experiences of Forest Service personnel with firefighting were not enough to successfully 

fight fire in a state as diverse as California, and that analytical statistics could improve fire prevention. Based on Show’s results, District Forester Redington reoriented District 5’s fire policy. District 5 went from a “let burn” policy to a new 

policy of putting out all fires as soon as possible. After Show’s conference paper, 

District 5 witnessed several important events related to fire control research. First, 

in 1921, Chief Forester Greeley recognized a growing desire among Californians, 

and people in other western states, to prevent forest fires and to address an ever 

worsening fire situation throughout the West. To tackle the problem, Greeley called 

a national fire conference, the first of its kind. The Mather Conference—named so 

because it was held at the Army Air Service base at Mather Field, Sacramento—

established forest fire control as a national priority (fig. 26). It also endorsed fire 

Figure 26—Fire conference at Mather Field, Sacramento, California. Attendees included Forest Service Chief William B. Greeley 

(second row, seventh from left). 

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Region

District 5 went from a 

“let burn” policy to a 

new policy of putting 

out all fires as soon as 

possible.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

research “as an essential tool in developing an adequate fire control organization.” 

From this conference, District 5 emerged as a leader in fire control for the Forest 

Service in many areas (Godfrey 2005). 

As a result, the district’s fire research program under Show—with the assistance of Kotok—expanded to fill this responsibility. Often they directed their 

research to resolving immediate administrative concerns rather than answering 

fundamental questions. For instance, during the summer of 1921, lightning-caused 

fires became a major concern within District 5. On the Klamath National Forest that year, a series of storms started 48 fires within 6 days, and on the Trinity 

National Forest, a single thunderstorm started 70 fires in 1 day, besides causing 

a number of others on neighboring forests (Greeley 1921). The next year, District 

5 gathered an enormous amount of statistical data on lightning storms, seeking a 

way to predict serious storms. Even with Show and Kotok’s diligence, District 5’s 

records were incomplete,79 largely because not all forests impressed upon their 

lookouts the necessity for keeping good data. To fill gaps in their patchy statistics, 

Show gathered material from Districts 1 and 6. Show even spent considerable time 

working with noted fire researcher Harry T. Gisborne,80 director of Priest River 

Experiment Station, on the subject. In 1923, Show and Kotok published their 

results, The Occurrence of Lightning Storms in Relation to Forest Fires in 

California, which gave the characteristics and seasonal distribution of fires caused 

by lightning (Show and Kotok 1923b). 

Along with this and similar studies, Show and Kotok tackled the origin and 

behavior of fires, and continued directing their attention to other fire-related 

matters, such as methods of fire suppression and prevention of fire damage. In the 

next few years, they produced a number of significant papers on these topics. First 

came the 1923 publication of Forest Fires in California, 1911–1920: An Analytical 

Study, as USDA Circular No. 243 (Show and Kotok 1923a). This publication was a 

methodical study of some 10,500 fires in the 12 California timbered national forests. Forest Fires in California examined protection theories (e.g., Headley’s economic theory), and variations of the theories, as well their effects on fire control. It 

also pointed out certain weaknesses in fire control traceable to organizational flaws 

and laid the foundation for a set of fire control premises that were explored further 

79 For the interested researcher, there is a huge amount of raw data available from this study 

available in Record Group 95, Federal Record Center, San Francisco, California.

80 Some consider Harry T. Gisborne the “father of forest fire research” because of his 

contributions to the development of the fire-danger rating system (Hardy 1983).
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in later publications by Show and Kotok. The two men realized “that improved fire 

protection was essential if intensive forest (timber) management was to succeed...” 

(Cermak 2005). Next, the two authors published The Role of Fire in the California 

Pine Forests as USDA Bulletin 1294 (Show and Kotok 1924). This USDA Bulletin 

examined direct and secondary fire damage and estimated the seriousness of each 

form of injury, the immediate loss and indirect cost, and surveyed the effect of 

losses on the future timber supply and on California’s forest management problem. 

Both publications pushed District 5 toward better fire control and prevention.

Forest Entomology Research

Although insect control projects had begun on District 5 in 1910, the Bureau of 

Entomology, or BE, in cooperation with the Forest Service, had not prevented 

a very serious infestation of tree-killing insects that hit northern California and 

southern Oregon in 1921. This outbreak affected nearly 1.25 million acres of 

national forest, Indian reservations, and private holdings, causing $3 million in 

damage. Bark beetles were destroying one of the finest bodies of pine timber 

remaining in the United States. Because infested lands were intermingled in 

various public and private holdings, it required a concerted effort on the part of all 

parties over several years to clear the lands of beetle-killed trees at the same time 

(Greeley 1921, 1923). District 5 worked hard to clear the pest from 225,000 acres of 

beetle-infested national forest lands, and in 1923 the California legislature passed 

the Forest Insect Eradication Law, authorizing establishment of zones of infestation 

(Hastings 1976).

In the interim, popular California author and naturalist Stewart E. White81

linked insect control work and the topic of “light burning” together and led a vigorous and large-scale propaganda effort in favor of light burning as the answer to the 

growing destruction of pines near White’s cabin home on the Sierra National Forest. 

White assumed that insects that attacked nearby forests bred in dead and decaying 

wood, and like so many others, believed that light burning would remove them. 

District Forester Redington tried to respond to White by citing principles of

81 American author and conservationist Stewart Edward White produced many works (novels, histories, short stories) based upon his own life’s experiences in the American West 

and elsewhere. Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and educated at Columbia University 

(M.A. 1903), he then moved to California. In 1903, he married, honeymooned in the High 

Sierras, and then settled with his bride in Burlingame, California, south of San Francisco. 

The Forest (1904), The Mountains (1904), Arizona Nights (1907) were some of his novels 

that dealt with the outdoors and summer pursuits. White also produced many fiction and 

nonfiction works on the history of California, such as Gold (1913), The Gray Dawn (1915), 

and The Rose Dawn (1920). A grove of sequoias on California’s redwood coast was named 

in his honor following his death in 1946.

Because infested lands 

were intermingled in 

various public and 

private holdings, it 

required a concerted 

effort on the part of all 

parties over several 

years to clear the lands 

of beetle-killed trees at 

the same time. 
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forestry science, but to no avail. This situation became one of those times that 

research was tapped to address an administrative public relations issue. First, 

S.B. Show debated White in a series of public forums, but the results were inconclusive. Then to appease White and his followers, Redington authorized Project 

San Joaquin on the Sierra National Forest, where White’s cabin was located. This 

project embraced the front of the sugar pine belt in the forest from North Fork south 

to the Sequoia National Park area, which for the next few years became the chief 

entomological activity for District 5. Before it folded in 1924, the project led to a 

number of important studies regarding how to maintain control of insect attacks, 

what classes of trees were subject to attacks, and which trees were the most resistant. Thereafter, the San Joaquin Project82 was moved to the more serious infestation on the Modoc National Forest in the northern part of the state (Godfrey 2005).

Range Management Research

In the early 1920s, range management science had its problems as well. The first 

problem centered on the lack of grazing specialists with scientific backgrounds. 

Prior to World War I, Forest Service grazing research depended on the range 

expertise of “energetic and resourceful old cowboys” like Albert Potter and 

C.E. Rachford83 for its scientific opinion. To many of these old range men, 

“college boys” and their hybrid research seemed a needless expense involving timeconsuming procedures and doubtful experiments (Rowley 1985). This “old grazing 

guard” would have given way in the 1920s to men with scientific background and 

82 Although the San Joaquin Project ended the light burning-insect control issue, it did not 

convince light burning supporters that the practice had no other forest management advantages. Finally, in hopes of ending the debate once and for all, District 5, in close cooperation with the State Board of Forestry, conducted a light burning experiment at Moffatt 

Creek on the Klamath National Forest. As far as the actual burn, the effort was considered 

a failure. The California Forestry Committee, a body comprising representatives of the 

pine and redwood associations, Southern Pacific Railway, State Forester, Berkeley Forestry 

School, and the Forest Service, unanimously agreed that light or controlled burning was not 

a practicable method of forest protection in California, an action that dampened the light 

burning discussion in California for several decades to come (USDA FS 1922, 1923). Additionally, entomologist J.M. Miller also testified before the California Forestry Committee. 

He gave a summary of his research on bark beetle relations to wildfire, the biology of bark 

beetles, and current methods used to control, and “essentially demolished the claims made 

by White” (Wickman 2005).

83 Interestingly, Christopher E. “Chris” Rachford was a northern Californian who joined 

the Forest Service in 1905 after being in the sheep business in the Modoc country. He was a 

ranger for the eastern slope of the Warner Forest Reserve for one season under A.H. Hogue, 

who oversaw the Modoc and Warner Reserves (1905 to 1907), “wearing out three good 

horses and almost himself in the process.” Rachford succeeded Hogue as forest supervisor. 

In 1914, Rachford was transferred as Supervisor of the Santa Barbara National Forest. 

Later, he became Assistant District Forester for California Region 5, but ultimately retired 

in 1941 as Assistant Chief Forester of the Forest Service (Brown 1945c).

The California 

Forestry Committee 

unanimously agreed 

that light or controlled 

burning was not a 

practicable method 

of forest protection in 

California, an action 

that dampened the light 

burning discussion in 

California for several 

decades to come. 
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better range investigations if they could have been found. However, the Forest 

Service was unable to attract the well-trained grazing experts needed to conduct 

investigations and bring the ranges to their full development and most beneficial 

use. As a result, in California, grazing investigations were severely reduced in 

the early 1920s. The only real work of this nature being done within the Forest 

Service occurred at the Great Basin Experimental Station in Utah, and the Jornada 

and Santa Rita Range Reserves in New Mexico and Arizona. So instead, every 

new technical grazing man in District 5 was given a course of practical training 

under the guidance of “experienced” cowboys like Potter and Rachford. They were 

men who, according to S.B. Show, “wrote down mystical figures and ratings,”...

“unhampered by such impractical ideas as ecology—indeed [they] instructed that 

heavy grazing was good, since it decreased fire hazard.” Without scientifically 

trained men in the field, range research at this time in California amounted to rangers and supervisors simply completing their annual grazing report forms, which 

were derisively known as “Rachford” reports (Greeley 1921, 1923; Show, n.d). To 

compound matters, the Forest Service, in general, heavily curtailed range investigations in the district at this time because of the lack of funds, even though drought 

conditions in the 3 years following World War I would have warranted the need for 

this kind of work (Greeley 1921). In fact, the drought situation grew so severe in 

1924 in parts of the Southwest that research on the Jornada range reserve had to be 

suspended until the range could recover (Greeley 1925).

Founding of the California Experiment Station

The birth of California Forest Experiment Station (CFES) came in mid-1925, when 

California Senator Hiram Johnson, along with the efforts of California Representative Walter F. Lineberger, finally succeeded in authorizing CFES with an appropriation of $50,000 (American Forests and Forest Life 1925), which later was reduced to 

just $32,412 (Clar 1959). With the announcement, it appeared that S.B. Show would 

be selected to head the new experiment station because Show had headed District 

5’s research branch since 1920. But in early 1926, District Forester Redington 

transferred to the WO, and Show, who had impressed Chief Forester Greeley with 

his ideas for the future of District 5, was appointed to replace Redington (Cermak 

2005). With Show out of the running, Edward I. Kotok, Show’s fire research collaborator, brother-in-law, and friend, became the prime candidate for the position. 

Since coming to the San Francisco headquarters, Kotok had risen in Forest Service 
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

ranks, becoming more and more known for his administrative skills84 (American 

Forests and Forest Life 1925). In October 1926, the decision came down from the 

Washington office, announced in American Forests and Forest Life that “Edward 

I. Kotok, for 15 years an officer of the California District of the U.S. Forest Service 

has been appointed director of the new Forest Experiment Station to be established 

in this state” (American Forests and Forest Life 1926). The next question in everyone’s mind was where the experiment station headquarters would be located. Two 

months later, Secretary of Agriculture William M. Jardine85 answered the query. 

In December 1926, Jardine announced that the new CFES headquarters would 

be the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.86 Secretary Jardine gave 

several grounded reasons for his decision. First, since the state Agricultural College and new experiment station would both be employing many common lines 

of investigation in the production of timber crops with the experiment station, 

Jardine reasoned that it made good sense to put the experiment station nearby. 

Second, Jardine noted that the new experiment station’s Berkeley campus location 

would allow it the opportunity to establish a close cooperative relationship with the 

forestry school’s faculty and students under Walter Mulford’s chairmanship. Finally, 

in Jardine’s assessment, all forest research results in California, either by the state 

Agriculture College, the Forestry School, or the experiment station could easily be 

made known publicly through the Extension Service of the District 5 headquarters 

across the bay in San Francisco (American Forests and Forest Life 1926). 

Work Ahead

After two decades of defining and redefining, initiating, forming, and maturing 

California forestry research, a conclusive order emerged. In 1905, the Forest Service took the lead in forestry science in California. At the beginning of this period, 

many people still believed in acquiring needed knowledge through the gradual 

buildup of facts through long commercial trial and use, and the handing down 

of results by tradition—the so-called trial-and-error method. Two decades later, 

84 For example, following the passage of the Clarke-McNary Act, Kotok became involved 

in cooperative fire control with the state of California.

85 William M. Jardine was James T. Jardine’s older brother. William Jardine served as Secretary of Agriculture from 1925 to 1929 during the Coolidge and Hoover administrations.

86 Other educational institutions competed for the station, but behind the scenes, Walter 

Mulford had undoubtedly exerted quiet but effective pressure to see that it was located on 

the Berkeley campus. He saw that this arrangement would benefit the staffs of both the 

school and the station (Cassamajor 1965).
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thanks to the leadership of District 5 men like DuBois, Show, and Kotok, many 

people also understood that forestry science, and the employment of highly trained 

investigators devoted full time to finding facts that underlay the growing use 

of forests, would achieve results much more quickly. The years 1905 to 1925 by 

necessity were building block years for the Forest Service research program in 

California. During the first decades of the 20th century, many people in California 

postulated important questions to Forest Service researchers regarding regional 

forestry problems, both in northern and southern California. In turn, they considered forest research as part of the solution to the problems of forest management, 

such as silviculture, silvics, and forest mensuration; forest protection, dealing with 

forest fires, insects and disease; and range management subjects such as forage and 

carrying capacity. They also believed that research and investigations into forest 

influences, forest economics, and forest products were necessary as well. The early 

Forest Service research program in California and the Hawaiian Islands arose in 

the light of this “search for order” as District 5 scientists and researchers tried to 

answer the day’s critical questions and to meet the region’s needs. 

During this period, the Forest Service in California added substantially to the 

pre-1905 period of “fact-gathering” by conducting studies and investigations that 

defined research programs for decades to come. District 5 studies included research 

in three prominent areas: the best methods of growing trees and the selection of 

the most desirable trees to grow under given conditions, including natural and 

artificial regeneration studies that concentrated on nursery development, reforestation projects, and type studies; research that focused on brushfields in northern 

California and chaparral replacement in southern California; and forest fire behavior, control, and prevention. Naturally, there were many successes and failures in 

all of these areas, but nonetheless, the Forest Service in California steadily gained 

an understanding of these research topics. Beyond these three research areas, the 

Forest Service in California, through broad experimentation and cooperation with 

other USDA agencies, the state of California, and universities, conducted additional 

work in forest products development, insect and disease control, and limited range 

development. 

The early decades of the 20th century provided a substantial foundation to the 

California forestry research program. But, there was much work ahead for Edward 

Kotok and the California Forest Experiment Station.

The early Forest 

Service research 

program in California 

and the Hawaiian 

Islands arose in the 

light of this “search 

for order” as District 

5 scientists and 

researchers tried 

to answer the day’s 

critical questions and 

to meet the region’s 

needs.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Chapter 3: 1926–1932, Forestry Research Comes 

of Age in California

By the time the California Forest Experiment Station (CFES) was established in the 

latter half of 1926, forestry research in the United States had gone through many 

decades of change. In a lecture before a forestry school class at the University of 

California, Berkeley, S.B. Show, head of California’s District 5 Branch of Research, 

spelled out to the students the historical developments in forestry research in 

California, and the problems he foresaw for the future.

Forestry Research in America

According to Show, the earliest forestry research followed traditional lines, such 

as forest growth investigations, tree studies, and so on. These were valuable 

academically, but had no practical value. The creation of forest reserves and then 

national forests with many kinds of concerns made evident the almost complete 

lack of knowledge of necessary basic facts for administering them. Timber cutting, fire protection, grazing, and other forest management problems in these early 

years under the General Land Office (GLO) and then the Forest Service after 

1905 had to be organized and administered using judgment and hunches—not 

scientific research. Recognition of the need for reliable information led to making 

silvicultural investigations one of the chief duties of forest assistants. The men 

were inadequately trained for this special work, and investigations were still along 

traditional lines. Projects were poorly selected. This system, according to Show, 

gave some results of value, but was still uncertain and cumbersome. The need for 

specialists soon became evident. To answer this need, the Forest Service organized 

experiment stations, starting in 1908. This program was originally built around 

planting research and fundamental ecological studies to determine the causes of 

forest types. Research was generally regarded as something apart from administration, which, in Show’s opinion, caused many of their forest management decisions 

to be based on conjecture. Then just after World War I, there was a shift from 

planting research and purely ecological studies toward solutions to more practical 

concerns. In the early 1920s, Forest Service administration began to fully recognize 

that research should be directed toward problems of immediate importance, such 

as how to handle cutting on timberlands so that new and superior crops would be 

obtained promptly; how to develop plans for managing forest properties involving 

a knowledge of sites, yields, rotations, etc.; how to develop tables and methods 

of measuring timber, both for general use and in research work itself; and how to 

Just after World War I, 

there was a shift from 

planting research 

and purely ecological 

studies toward 

solutions to more 

practical concerns.
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protect old and young forests against fire, disease, and insects. In his concluding 

remarks, Show encouraged students in their pursuit of forestry, stating that both the 

Forest Service and industry were in need of more reliable information that currently 

was impossible to secure by existing research personnel (Show 1924b).

California’s Forestry State of Affairs: 1926

In 1926, the situation in California was ripe for research, especially regarding 

problems in forest, forage, fire, and water management. The lumber industry at this 

time was at its peak of postwar prosperity. Prices were relatively high, many new 

mills were starting up, and the state’s lumber production was at its highest level 

to date. Prospects seemed bright for the early realization of what was then being 

called “industrial” forestry. In California’s pine region, the introduction of the 

caterpillar tractor meant that cheaper logs could be provided to industry with less 

damage to the forest than the donkey engine logging practices of the past1

 (fig. 27). 

Nevertheless, the need for increased silvicultural research was urgent because of 

increased logging in the state’s pine forests. There were still some 11 million acres 

of uncut pine timber left in California, but the future rate of growth, and thus the 

profit of tree growing, depended on proper maintenance of these sites, something 

to which private lumber companies had given little or no thought. Forestry research 

was needed to give public and private sources the ability to increase stocking, and 

to control the composition of the forest that succeeded this cutting. On the other 

hand, in California’s redwood region, the timber industry was busy launching the 

largest program of industrial forest planting ever undertaken in the United States. 

In fact, by 1927, owners of redwood forests in California were planting more land 

in California than was being planted on the national forests of California, Oregon, 

Washington combined. However, this commercial reforestation to assure a future 

redwood (See “Scientific and Common Names” section) lumber supply had proceeded on a slender foundation of knowledge. The need for silvicultural and forest 

management investigations in the redwood region was acute. For 2 years, Forest 

Service silvicultural research in that region had been especially wanting, mainly 

because of the absence of national forests there, and secondarily because the urgent 

need in the pine region, where national forests existed, took up Forest Service time, 

staff, and research dollars (Greeley 1927, USDA FS 1932b).

1

 In 1923, Duncan Dunning made an intensive field study of these steam-powered 

machines, which pulled or yarded, felled, and limbed trees from the stump to the deck. 

His study described the excessive damage to residual trees and the future productivity of 

the site. Thereafter, Dunning, along with S.B. Show, passionately opposed the use of these 

high-speed logging machines (Conners 2006).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 27—Early tractor with cleated tracks hauling logs. The use of tractors dramatically 

improved the efficiency of logging operations.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Research needs in other forestry areas—range management, fire protection 

and prevention, and watershed protection and development—had long been acute 

in California prior to 1926 as well. California’s District 5 Office of Grazing had 

applied the Forest Service’s research findings at the Jornada and Great Basin Stations to the state’s national forests, but accomplishments in grazing research on the 

forests had been mainly a byproduct, both in work and in thinking, of these findings. California needed technical personnel familiar with grazing research to grasp 

the regional grazing picture and to form a state management program. In the field 

of forest fire research, there was great pressure from Californians for improved protection. The challenge was to provide adequate organization and equipment to meet 

the state’s needs. The statistical fire research contributed by Show and Edward 

Kotok in the early 1920s marked some progress, but there was no organized fire 

research underway in the state. Nor had research into forest watersheds fared any 

better, despite a widespread general public interest in water management. In southern California, widespread water development activities, such as the San Gabriel 

project for the city of Los Angeles and the Boulder Dam project, were designed to 

provide urban and agricultural water needs in that part of the state. There, concerned counties and municipalities desired erosion-streamflow studies by the Forest 
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Service to help conserve and protect water and watersheds.2 In the northern half of 

the state, because water was more readily available, pressure for water management 

studies was less compelling, beyond a scattered number of advocates who were 

unorganized in their demands (USDA FS 1932b).

All of the above—forest, range, fire, and water problems—as well as others, 

became, at least in part, subjects for research for the newly established CFES. This 

chapter will recount the history of CFES research on these issues during its first 

5 years of service, but before exploring this account, some background history on 

national events that affected Forest Service research policy and organization in 

general is necessary. 

A National Forest Research Program: 1926

By 1926, Department of Agriculture agency representatives, such as the Forest 

Service, Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI), and Bureau of Entomology (BE), as well 

as state forestry departments, universities, and agricultural experiment stations, 

had given input to a special committee on forest research of the Society of American Foresters (SAF).3

 Their task was to answer one basic question: “Is forest research necessary?” Two years earlier, in November 1924, Chief Forester William B. 

Greeley had challenged the SAF with this question in a keynote address before the 

organization. During his speech, Greeley also asked other critical questions: “What 

is the outstanding importance and urgency of the forest problem in the United 

States?” and “What is the basic place of research in the solution of that problem?” 

Responding to Greeley’s challenges, the SAF appointed a three-man committee,4

2

 In 1927, the Forest Service became extremely sensitive to the issue of forests and flood 

control because the Mississippi River flood disaster of that year called into question the 

adequacy of the Nation’s public program of forestry. The Forest Service realized that such 

floods could not be controlled solely through reforestation, but on the other hand, forests 

did aid in the regulation of streams because they held the soil in place and held back rain 

and snow water more effectively than any other form of vegetative cover (Greeley 1927).

3

 The SAF is the national scientific and educational organization representing the forestry 

profession in the United States. Founded in 1900 by Gifford Pinchot, it is the largest professional society for foresters in the world. The mission of the SAF is to advance the science, 

education, technology, and practice of forestry; to enhance the competency of its members; 

to establish professional excellence; and to use the knowledge, skills, and conservation 

ethic of the profession to ensure the continued health and use of forest ecosystems and the 

present and future availability of forest resources to benefit society. 

4

 The other two members were R.C. Hall, valuation engineer for the Bureau of Internal 

Revenue’s timber section, and A.B. Hastings, assistant state forester of Virginia. Material 

assistance in preparation of the report to the committee came from dozens of contributors, including prominent persons in the field of forestry and oldtimers. They ranged from 

the Bernhard Fernow administration, such as botanist George B. Sudworth, and Raphael 

Zon from Gifford Pinchot days, to Aldo Leopold, who contributed a small section on 

“Wild Life.” Notable California forestry researchers included C.L. Hill, E.N. Munns, and 

S.B. Show. Additionally, Berkeley professor Donald Bruce wrote the section on “Forest 

Measurements” (Clapp 1926).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

chaired by Earle Clapp. In a lengthy report entitled A National Program of Forest 

Research (Clapp 1926) published by the American Tree Association,5 the committee not only answered that forestry research was indeed necessary, but outlined in 

detail the nature, size, and complexity of forestry research, the progress made to 

date in its solution, and the agencies, both public and private that were, or should 

be, working on forestry problems. In short, the committee set out to describe a 

coordinated national program of forestry research (Clapp 1926).

A National Program of Forest Research first described the forest problem of 

the United States and how forestry research was a vital part of the solution, whether 

it be forest management (silvics, silviculture, and forest mensuration), forest protection (fires, disease, and insects), or some other research area, such as forest range 

management (forage, animal husbandry, and carrying capacity), utilization of wood 

and other forest products, or forest economics. Besides specifically laying out the 

major forestry research problems in the United States and progress in these particular research areas, more importantly, the SAF committee’s report explained the 

current role in forestry research that existing federal, state, educational, and private 

institutions played in a national program, and what they could do in the future. In 

essence, A National Program of Forest Research presented a much-needed research 

outline, and cited the long list of sciences that might be included in such research. 

The 1926 report ended with suggestions for an organic act for forest research in 

the Department of Agriculture, and how the research program should be financed 

through a 10-year national budget—an essential aspect for carrying out the mission of such a national research program (Clapp 1926). The publication was well 

received by industry groups. For instance, the American Forestry Association 

(AFA) editorialized that the report “marks a tremendously significant step toward 

placing forest research upon a plane enjoyed by research in other fields and which, 

because of its tremendous importance and fundamental basic character, should be 

demanded in the field of forestry” (American Forests and Forest Life 1927b).

McSweeney-McNary Forest Research Act: 1928

A National Program of Forest Research pointed the way for a focused Forest 

Service research program. By 1926, the Forest Service had gained the manpower 

5

 Charles Lathrop Pack founded the American Tree Association in 1922. Charles Pack 

had business interests in lumbering, railroading, building and construction, banking, real 

estate development, and consulting. In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Pack 

to his Conservation Commission. Thereafter, Pack became president of many organizations, including the National Conservation Congress (1913–14), National War Garden 

Commission (1917–1919), the American Forestry Association (1916–20), and the World 

Court League. In 1930, Pack endowed the Charles Lathrop Pack Forestry Foundation, and 

established demonstration forests at many forestry schools throughout the country.
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and the facilities to cope with the demands for forestry information, but it needed 

a unifying piece of legislation with specific congressional support and funding to 

progress even further. The “national program” presented by the SAF report in 1926 

provided all the necessary needs and justifications for congressional legislation. 

That action came on May 22, 1928, when the McSweeney-McNary Forest Research 

Act (45 Stat. 699) sailed through Congress.6 Passed during the tenure of Chief 

Robert Y. Stuart (fig. 28),7 the act met all the criteria for an organic research act as 

proposed by the SAF report.

It authorized the Secretary of Agriculture:

...to conduct such investigations, experiments, and tests as he may deem 

necessary...in order to determine, demonstrate, and promulgate the best 

methods of reforestation and of growing, managing, and utilizing timber, 

forage, and other forest products, of maintaining favorable conditions of 

water flow and the prevention of erosion, of protecting timber and other 

forest growth from fire, insects, disease, or other harmful agencies, of 

obtaining the fullest and most effective use of forest lands, and to determine and promulgate the economic considerations which should underlie 

the establishment of sound policies for the management of forest land and 

the utilization of forest products [Storey 1975: 107].

To conduct these investigations, experiments, and tests, the act authorized the 

Secretary of Agriculture to maintain 11 regional forest experiment stations throughout the Nation, including the CFES. Most importantly, the McSweeney-McNary 

Forest Research Act (McSweeney-McNary Act) laid down a financial program for 

forest research expansion by providing federal authorization up to a maximum of 

$3.375 million annually within the next 10 years for forestry research, a further 

authorization of $3,000,000 available at the rate of $250,000 a year, and beyond 

1938, such annual appropriations as might be necessary to comply with the law. 

6

 Apparently, the McSweeny-McNary Forest Research Act would have passed a year earlier 

if not for resistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Entomology, Plant Industry, 

and Weather Bureaus, which did not want to come under the act (Steen 1998).

7

 On May 1, 1928, Herbert Hoover appointed Robert Young Stuart as chief forester upon 

the resignation of William B. Greeley, who left to become executive secretary of the 

West Coast Lumberman’s Association. Stuart was a Yale Forest School graduate (1906) 

who joined the Forest Service as a forest assistant assigned to timber sales in Montana 

immediately after graduation. From this position, he worked his way up to inspector in the 

district headquarters at Missoula (1908–1909), to assistant district forester (1910–1911), and 

then transferred to Washington, D.C., as assistant to the chief of the Branch of Silviculture 

(1912–1916). After serving in France during World War I (1917–1919), Stuart left the Forest 

Service for a time to work with Gifford Pinchot in various posts in Pennsylvania. He 

reentered the Service in 1927 as chief of public relations prior to his appointment as chief 

forester (Clepper 1971).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

McSweeney-McNary Act was the first comprehensive provision for forest research 

ever made in this country. Unlike the piecemeal efforts of the past, it created in 

the United States a long-term and sustained method of financing and conducting 

forestry research work, and consequently allowed for a more orderly, inclusive, and 

continual attack upon the great number of unsolved problems that held back the 

development of sound forestry policy and practice. The McSweeney-McNary Act 

provided a means of bringing together investigations in forest and range management, forest products, forest economics, and erosion and correlating them on a 

regional basis. This regional correlation was the best line of attack by research on 

the forest problem as a whole, and was heavily lobbied for by California groups, 

such as the California Development Association (CDA) or the state chamber of 

commerce. At the request of numerous organizations throughout California, and 

with the tacit and behind-the-scenes approval of the California Experiment Station, 

the CDA sent a lobbyist to Washington to assist in the passage of the act. While in 

Washington, the lobbyist was also directed to try to reinstate the original amount 

of $50,000 for the California Station as provided for in the bill creating the station 

(Murphy 1928; Steen 2004; Storey 1975; Stuart 1928, 1930).

Earle Clapp, in looking back at the act 10 years later, believed that the 

McSweeney-McNary Act accomplished five major goals. First, it authorized federal 

forest research of broad scope. Second, it specified that the regional level would 

be the main field structure, or organization, at which research work ought to be 

conducted. Thereafter, the Forest Service divided the country into geographic 

research regions where forest conditions and forest problems were similar or 

Figure 28—Robert Y. Stuart, fourth Chief of 

the Forest Service, 1928–1933. During Stuart's 

administration, the McSweeney-McNary Act 

of 1928 passed, which established a network of 

regional experiment stations nationwide as the 

backbone of Forest Service research. U.S. Forest Service
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

related. Third, it authorized an initial 10-year financial investment program set high 

enough to raise research sights very materially over previous levels. In this regard, 

it also provided a long-time financial program without maximum limits. When the 

Great Depression hit after 1929, according to Clapp, this section of the act saved 

federal forestry research from major cutbacks. Fourth, the 1928 Act focused public 

and congressional attention on forest research far beyond anything that had previously existed. And finally, by passing the McSweeney-McNary act, Clapp believed 

that Congress endorsed and accepted forestry research as its own creation (Storey 

1975). In the end, the McSweeney-McNary Act provided such a broad blueprint for 

forestry research goals that the Forest Service would not seek additional research 

legislation until 1978, when the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources 

Research Act passed (Steen 1998).

For California, the McSweeney-McNary Act more or less legitimized CFES, 

which had been authorized 2 years earlier. The act also opened the way for a larger 

and more adequate development of forestry research in California by giving CFES 

an average of a little over $80,000 per year. That was quite a jump from the $30,000 

allotted to the station in 1926. The act also provided funding for various allied 

lines of research, such as diseases and insects, grazing, biological studies, and fire 

weather research, allowing the station to employ consulting pathologists, entomologists, biologists, and other specialists from allied USDA agencies. It also added 

$25,000 to the station’s budget through the amalgamation with CFES of California 

District 5’s forest products office (see below). Now CFES looked forward to a total 

federal budget approaching $200,000 per year, to which it could build up, within the 

next few years.

Once the McSweeney-McNary Act passed, Clapp proceeded with the development of a research organization he had been planning for almost 8 years. During 

these years, the WO Research Branch was reorganized into four functional divisions: Division of Silvics, with E.N. Munns in charge; Division of Range Research, 

led by W.R. Chapline; Division of Forest Products, with H.S. Betts as head; and the 

Division of Forest Economics, under R.E. Marsh (Storey 1975).8

8

 For the next year and half, forestry research under the McSweeney-McNary Act seemed 

to fulfill its promise, but not without Clapp shouldering it up. Sitting firmly at the head of 

the Nation’s forestry research table, according to S.B. Show’s perspective, Clapp’s modus 

operandi was clear. First, Clapp had written the nationwide report A National Program of 

Forest Research (Clapp 1926)—which Show viewed as “monumental and encyclopedic, 

with situation, needs, plan, program and estimated budget and legislation needed.” Second, 

Clapp had secured the basic legislative authorization for his program, including budget. 

Now, according to an admiring Show, Clapp intensively prodded for additional appropriations for new lines of work and projects—each year expediently taking what he could get. 

In his efforts to gain political support, Clapp often made researchers into political legmen. 

Whatever Clapp did not achieve in any given year, he prepared and pushed on his political 

action plan for next year (Show, n.d.).

The 1928 Act 

focused public 

and congressional 

attention on forest 

research far beyond 

anything that had 

previously existed.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Then came the stock market crash on October 29, 1929. The Great Depression 

slowed the full development of Clapp’s research program, but it did not stop the 

energetic Clapp. Although additional regular funds for research programs were 

hard to come by, research appropriations under the McSweeney-McNary Act 

started to increase in 1930, climbing to $1.16 million from $970,000 a year earlier. 

Research funds continued to increase in 1931, and in 1932 they peaked at $1.7 

million. That same year, an additional $800,000 was appropriated for the construction of a new laboratory for the Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) in Madison, 

Wisconsin (Storey 1975). During this stressful economic time, 11 regional experiment stations9

 authorized by the McSweeney-McNary Act were established—basically the framework of the Forest Service research organization today.10 In S.B. 

Show’s opinion,11 Clapp had accomplished a miracle in establishing and building 

this system of regional experiment stations so soon. Additionally, Clapp had 

judiciously selected station boundaries and headquarters locations; in the long run, 

Show believed that this protected station directors from district and regional foresters, whom Clapp generally mistrusted (Show, n.d.).

As a final point, the McSweeney-McNary Act provided for USDA research 

programs in forest-related fields other than those assigned to the Forest Service. 

Despite the scarcity of funding from 1928 to 1931, the Bureau of Plant Industry, 

Soils, and Agricultural Engineering started a number of studies of native and 

naturalized diseases of forests and forest products under the act—if only on a 

shoestring budget.12 The act also authorized funding to the Biological Survey in the 

9

 In 1931, the list of experiment stations and directors included the following: Alleghany 

Station, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (R.D. Forbes); Appalachian Station, Asheville, North 

Carolina (E.H. Frothingham); California Station, Berkeley, California (E.I. Kotok); Central 

States Station, Columbus, Ohio (E.F. McCarthy); Intermountain Station, Ogden, Utah 

(C.L. Forsling); Lake States Station, St. Paul, Minnesota (Raphael Zon); Northeastern 

Station, Amherst, Massachusetts (C. Edward Behre); Northern Rocky Mountain Station, 

Missoula, Montana (R.H. Weidman); Pacific Northwest Station, Portland, Oregon 

(Thornton T. Munger); Southern Station, New Orleans, Louisiana (E.L. Demmon); and 

Southwestern Station, Tucson, Arizona (G.A. Pearson) (Storey 1975).

10 By this date the original forest and range experiment stations, such as Great Basin 

Branch Station, the Priest River Experimental Forest or the Jornada Experiment Range had 

been absorbed by the regional stations, and redesignated as branch stations or experimental 

forests (Storey 1975).

11 Show saw Clapp as a “very able, imaginative and daring” person who ruthlessly drove 

through toward his goals, “shooting for the moon, demanding, cajoling and getting hard 

labor on his projects by selected administrators and researchers alike” (Show, n.d.).

12 Epidemic diseases like white pine blister rust of course, were given special attention. 

Forest insect research continued as a BE assignment and fared somewhat better financially 

than did forest disease research in the Western States. A major reason for this was the 

extensive depredations of bark beetles in the West, which killed conifers in most parts of 

the region.

Clapp had 

accomplished a miracle 

in establishing and 

building this system 

of regional experiment 

stations so soon.
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Department of Agriculture to determine “the life histories and habits of forest 

animals, birds, and wildlife, whether injurious to forest growth or of value as 

supplemental resource.” The Biological Survey was given the task of developing the 

“best and most effective methods for their management and control.” Finally, the 

Weather Bureau was authorized under the McSweeney-McNary Act to “investigate 

the relationships of weather conditions to forest fires as may be necessary to make 

weather forecasts” (Storey 1975).

California Research Station Administration, 1926–1931

On July 1, 1926, appropriations for the California Forest Experiment Station 

became available and CFES became the seventh Forest Service experiment station 

in the Nation. According to the 1926 Forest Service annual report, organization of 

CFES permitted work to begin on the “exceptionally diverse problems of California 

and western Nevada—one of the principal sources of the present lumber cut, and a 

region where forest lands can be made highly productive” (Greeley 1926).

However, Earle Clapp, District 5 Forester S.B. Show, and CFES Director 

Edward I. Kotok did not decide upon the experiment station’s organization and 

program until August 1st of that year. Furthermore, they were not able to decide 

on a suitable location on the Berkeley campus until October 1926. Hilgard Hall 

(fig. 29) was finally selected for the station’s first headquarters, and the station’s 

staff of four technical personnel—Director Kotok, Duncan Dunning,13 A.E. 

Wieslander,14 and junior forester Howard W. Siggins, along with two clerks 

(Dagmar Vinther and L.O. Baxter)—squeezed themselves into four rooms given 

up to the station by the Division of Forestry of the University of California and its 

faculty chaired by Walter Mulford. Kotok immediately knew that this “modest” 

working space would need to be increased as soon as possible to take care of an 

expanding research program (Cassamajor 1965, USDA FS 1927). Nonetheless, 

working alongside academic colleagues most likely proved satisfying for Kotok

13 Dunning had been a senior silviculturalist for District 5 headquarters in San Francisco 

from 1920 to 1926.

14 Previous to this assignment, Wieslander had been a technical assistant on the Lassen 

National Forest (American Forests and Forest Life 1926). Wieslander’s assignment was to 

undertake the immense task of making a vegetative type map of the entire state (Hill 1931).

Organization of 

CFES permitted 

work to begin on the 

“exceptionally diverse 

problems of California 

and western Nevada—

one of the principal 

sources of the present 

lumber cut, and a 

region where forest 

lands can be made 

highly productive.”
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

and his fellow scientists.15 To prevent any unnecessary overlapping of research, a 

special conference was held with Berkeley’s Division of Forestry and Walter Mulford (USDA FS 1927). With all of the above arrangements completed, in February 

1927, the formal opening of the CFES took place with a very simple ceremony (fig. 

30). Then Kotok went to work (American Forests and Forest Life 1927a).

In its first year of operation, Station Director Kotok was tasked with organizing 

the new office and his staff and assembling a working library of manuals, handbooks, general treatises, and important periodicals for headquarters use. He and his 

staff also had to catch up on the large program of long-standing projects they inherited from District 5’s Branch of Research under Show. Because of CFES’ restricted 

initial personnel and resources in this critical year, they conducted activity only in 

a limited portion of the general field of forestry research, concentrating almost 

solely on forest management issues such as reforestation studies, with an altogether

15 Besides collaboration inducements, the station received incentives, not only from the 

school staff, but also from the faculties and facilities of the entire university. For instance, 

Walter Mulford invited Kotok and members of his staff to attend meetings of the Division 

of Forestry and arranged for Kotok to serve on certain special university committees. 

Mulford on his part served on District 5’s investigative committee, and, as a member of 

the State Board of Forestry, he supported special appropriations to the station. Finally, the 

proximity of the station made possible part-time and summer work for forestry students—

especially attractive assignments for graduate students (Cassamajor 1965).

Figure 29—Hilgard Hall (1918), University of California, Berkeley, named 

after Eugene W. Hilgard, Professor of Agriculture and Botany (1875–1904), 

who was considered the father of modern soil science. 

Atkinson Photographic Archive, 

University of California, Alan Nyiri
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Figure 30—President W.W. Campbell of the University of California, 

E.D. Merrill of the School of Agriculture, Arthur W. Sampson, representing the Forestry School, and Edward Kotok, the new director, formally 

posed to celebrate the opening of the station on the university campus.

American Forest and Forest Life

inadequate attempt to address other pressing problems, such as forest protection, 

forest range management, wood utilization, and forest economics as outlined by 

Clapp’s national program of research. 

Then there was the question of establishing field substations. When the CFES 

was established, it assumed supervision of the Feather River Experiment Station 

from District 5. The Feather River facility was then renamed the Feather River 

Branch Station, but it had no assigned staff. In 1926, District 5’s Investigative Committee (D5-IC)16 recommended the establishment of eight additional field stations 

throughout the state besides the Feather River Branch Station. Although Kotok 

was never able to meet this ambitious proposal, on January 1, 1927, CFES set up a

16 California’s D5-IC comprised representatives of all agencies engaged in forest research 

or investigative work in the California region. D5-IC met annually under the chairmanship of the District Forester at as early a date after the beginning of the calendar year as 

possible. During its 2- to 3-day meetings, D5-IC considered reports of work accomplished 

and plans for future work presented by the respective agencies. The committee endeavored 

to promote the effectiveness of forest research through mutual counsel and suggestions, 

especially by directing the coordination and cooperation between workers in the same 

and allied fields. Membership in D5-IC was determined by which agency heads attended 

the annual meeting. Besides the CFES, District 5 and USDA agencies (e.g., the offices of 

Forest Pathology, Blister Rust Control, Forest Insect Investigations, Biological Survey, or 

Weather Bureau) who were required to attend, other federal agencies, such as the National 

Park Service, the California State Forester, and faculty from the University of California 

often attended, participated, and reported on their research in D5-IC meetings (Stuart 

1930).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

second branch station at Devil Canyon near San Bernardino, California17 (fig. 31).

There, the Forest Service established a nursery for the production of trees and 

shrubs for erosion control under the direction of Roscoe B. Weaver. He was able 

to do so thanks to donations of $3,000 from the state of California, and another 

$5,000 from other southern California municipalities, which supported a staff member at the nursery at Devil Canyon. The Devil Canyon nursery became the focal 

point of interest for studying the scientific reforestation of the burned mountain 

slopes and watersheds of southern California18 (USDA FS 1927). Eventually, Devil 

Canyon included a superintendent’s house, laborers’ cottage, laboratories, garage/

shop, potting shed, upper and lower nursery buildings, arboretum, a willow cienaga 

(desert wetland), and plum, cherry, and apple orchards (fig. 32). 

Kotok’s field substation plan changed somewhat in 1929, when the Forest Service realized that planting research had not kept pace with other national forest 

activities, and lobbied Congress for special appropriations for the purchase of land 

to establish and enlarge nurseries.19 On June 9, 1930, Congress passed the KnutsonVandenberg Act20 to address this issue. The Knutson-Vandenberg Act set up a 

fiscal program for national forest planting authorizing appropriations for such work 

in subsequent fiscal years. This act allowed CFES and District 5 to establish a 

nursery near Susanville, California, which served northern California, and another 

nursery in the Sierras on the Stanislaus National Forest (Kotok 1930; Stuart 1929, 

1930). By the fall of 1930, the nursery at Susanville was producing trees suitable for 

planting on California’s national forests (Stuart 1931). However, the Depression and 

government economizing after 1932 reduced Knutson-Vandenberg Act funding

17 This action was taken after the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Angeles 

Forest Protective Association petitioned Secretary of Agriculture William M. Jardine for a 

$1 million program of fire prevention and forest protection for the Angeles National Forest. 

Jardine referred the petition to the CFES. In 1926, Kotok and Edward N. Munns toured the 

area. They promised local officials that the Forest Service would consider establishing a 

branch station in the vicinity in the future (Robinson 1980).

18 Actually, the roots of reforestation in this area began as early as 1919 when Los Angeles 

County Forester B. Flintham proposed that the county establish and operate a scientific 

reforestation nursery, complete with research facilities, in the area. Flintham died in 1925 

before his plan could reach fruition, but Los Angeles County Forester Spence D. Turner 

carried on the work of his predecessor and in 1926 established an experimental tree nursery 

at Tanbark Flats, which paved the way for a Forest Service station there in 1932 (Robinson 

1980).

19 The first 10 years of Forest Service administration (1905–1915) was a period of experimentation to develop low-cost plantation methods. During the next 10 years, World War 

I and the restrictions on governmental expenditures that followed prevented any material 

expansion of the nursery program. However, from 1920 to 1925, a gradual expansion took 

place whenever small increases in appropriations became available (Stuart 1930).

20 The Knutson-Vandenberg Act appropriations brought planting into balance with other 

activities on the eastern national forests, but no material enlargement in the West, including 

California, was possible at this time (Stuart 1930).
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Figure 31—View of the Devil Canyon branch station.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Figure 32—Devil Canyon nursery, 1938.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

nationally from a previous high of $250,000 to $154,000. This reduction adversely 

affected and the pace of Region 5’s21 reforestation plans as well as the CFES research program (Stuart 1932).

In its second year of operation, CFES saw major changes in its general policy 

and programs, even though it operated largely on the same federal budget dollars. 

Regarding policy matters, D5-IC made it abundantly clear that the station was not 

to engage in any nonessential basic research, firmly stating in its 1927 annual report 

that the activities of the station must logically contribute toward the understanding 

and solution of one basic idea: “How to keep forest land productive for its highest 

use....There should be no place in the program for fundamental or even empirical 

research for its own sake, or for meeting some temporary exigency foreign to this 

basic demand” (USDA FS 1928). With that said, D5-IC’s annual operational report 

went on to describe the CFES program as one almost solely devoted to forest management studies. However, D5-IC suggested that the weaker parts of the program 

(fire, economic studies, and forest influences) be given first consideration when 

increased federal funds became available.22

In 1928, the station experienced expanding administrative responsibilities and 

growth. That year Kotok concentrated the majority of CFES staff time and funding 

on silvicultural investigations in the pine region of the state as recommended by 

D5-IC. In the spring of 1928, new technical staff, in the persons of C.J. Kraebel23

and Walter C. Lowdermilk,24 joined the station to accommodate the assigned 

21 On May 1, 1929, all Forest Service “districts” were renamed “regions” to avoid confusion with ranger districts. The Secretary of Agriculture approved a change in the official 

designation of the nine districts, the district foresters, and other district officers of the 

Forest Service, by which region and regional supersede the term “district.” Region 5, or the 

California Region, was responsible for all of California and southwestern Nevada, and S.B. 

Show was the regional forester in charge (Stuart 1930).

22 Fortunately beginning July 1927, the California Board of Forestry general budget 

earmarked a sum of $20,000 for allotment to the station (Clar 1959).

23 Kraebel was a Berkeley-trained silviculturist who had just returned to the Forest Service 

to take up station work in southern California after a number of years in Hawaii and in the 

National Park Service (Hill 1931).

24 Born in 1888, Walter Clay Lowdermilk studied forestry in Germany under a Rhodes 

scholarship, and served as a ranger in the Southwest for the Forest Service just prior to 

the outbreak of World War I. Returning to America after the war, he became the Forest 

Service’s district research officer in Montana until 1922, when he married and departed 

for China to study the Yellow River’s flooding problems and the resulting famines for 

the International Famine Relief Commission. The Communist uprising in 1927 ended his 

stay in China, and Lowdermilk thereafter combined his study for a Ph.D. from the School 

of Forestry at Berkeley with research at the CFES on the influence of forest cover on soil 

erosion and streamflow. When the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) was established in 

1933, Lowdermilk became associate chief to Hugh Hammond Bennett. At the SCS, he had 

a long and very interesting career as well, as associate chief (1933–1937), chief of research 

(1937–1939), and assistant chief (1939–1947) (Helms 1984).

There should be no 

place in the program 

for fundamental or even 

empirical research 

for its own sake, or 

for meeting some 

temporary exigency 

foreign to this basic 

demand.
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tasks, along with two additional clerks. Additional responsibilities had come to the 

CFES on December 1, 1927, when District 5’s Office of Products, led by C.L. Hill 

with M.R. Brundage as his assistant, was transferred to the CFES to obtain the 

advantages of regional unification of research activities in silviculture and forest 

products. Finally, state, southern California counties, and municipality cooperative 

funds made it possible for CFES to further extend its program beyond the federal 

allotment permitted. Public and southern California cooperative agencies rallied 

around forest planting and the conversion of the brushfields into high-coniferous 

forests, much as it had during the “eucalyptus fever” 20 years earlier. However, the 

Forest Service considered this problem of minor importance when compared to the 

more vital question of how to control runoff and erosion. The CFES tried to orient 

public interest in the right direction, but in the interim, the Devil Canyon branch 

station appeased the public urge for planting, giving CFES an opportunity for 

further studies in planting and nursery practice in this region (Stuart 1929, USDA 

FS 1928). 

While dealing with the above issues, Kotok and his staff concerned themselves 

with two other matters. The first involved selecting “experimental-demonstration” 

forests for all of the important regions of the state, an action Earle Clapp had requested in a letter dated January 31, 1928. The CFES had hoped to establish a forest 

of sufficient area to support a substantial operation under sustained yield, funded 

by an endowment from a private institution, but was unsuccessful. To work out 

its experimental-demonstration forest program, D5-IC suggested that the station 

and District 5 form a committee to devise a statewide plan (USDA FS 1928). A 

year later, the Forest Service enacted its L-20 Regulation that allowed experimental forests and ranges to be set aside for long-term research unfettered by other 

management objectives. By 1930, the Forest Service established a comprehensive 

system of experimental forests and ranges within the national forests. These forest 

and ranges were carefully selected representative areas, large enough to meet present and foreseeable future needs, and permanently available for silvicultural, range, 

products, and other related forest research. In essence, these experimental forests 

would be field laboratories, and the work of forest and range experiment stations 

would be concentrated on them as fully as possible. Most of these experimental 

forests/ranges were to be from 1,000 to 4,000 acres. At this time, eight such forests 

were already established in the country, but in 1930, the Forest Service aggressively 

pushed the expansion of the system as a fundamental basis for the effectiveness of 

Clapp’s regional program (Stuart 1930).

By March 1931, a committee composed of A.E. Wieslander (CFES) and C.E. 

Dunston (Region 5) proposed setting aside California’s first experimental forest 

The CFES had hoped 

to establish a forest 

of sufficient area to 

support a substantial 

operation under 

sustained yield, funded 

by an endowment from 

a private institution, 

but was unsuccessful.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

area. The first site selected by them comprised 3,970 acres on the Plumas National 

Forest, which was to be designated as the Feather River Experimental Forest 

(FREF). This site was suggested for several reasons: it included timber stand conditions representative of the better sites of the Feather River region; the site was 

favorably located close to main roads, sawmill centers, and CFES’ Feather River 

branch station at Quincy, the headquarters of the Plumas National Forest; and areas 

within the site had not been obligated to supply any established sawmill.25 The 

second site selected by Wieslander and Dunston encompassed 4,100 acres on the 

Lassen National Forest, which was to be designated as the Swain Mountain Experimental Forest (SMEF) (fig. 33). This site was deemed suitable because it formed a 

distinct topographic unit that had not been committed to any Lassen management 

policy; it was readily accessible to roads, sawmills, and the towns of Susanville and 

Westwood; and finally, logging conditions on the site were exceptionally favorable 

for tractor and truck logging. Wieslander and Dunston felt that it was also desirable 

to establish two additional experimental forests, one in the east-side western yellow 

pine type, possibly near the northeast border of the Lassen National Forest, and 

another on the Stanislaus National Forest near the station’s center of work there. 

The D5-IC was satisfied with Wieslander and Dunston’s selections for the Plumas 

and Lassen National Forests. But they did not comment on their other suggestions. 

Instead, they suggested that Wieslander and Dunston search for an experimental 

forest area in the granite country (southern half of Sierras) and another covering 

more brush areas to furnish opportunities for planting and influence studies 

(Stuart 1931). 

Then there was the question of selecting research natural areas or RNAs.26

These were tracts of forest land set aside and withdrawn from all disruptive use and 

occupancy that also fell under the broad terms of Forest Service L-20 Regulation 

(Steen 1998). The purpose of RNAs was to permanently preserve, in an unmodified condition, areas representative of the natural growth of each forest or range 

type within each forest region, so that characteristic plant and animal life and soil 

conditions would continue to be available for the purposes of science, research, and 

education. The RNAs were not only invaluable to forestry research, but also equally 

beneficial to the research of biologists, plant ecologists, and other scientists (USDA 

25 The FREF as proposed was not approved. However, a decade later, the Challenge Experimental Forest at the western edge of the Feather River District of the Plumas National 

Forest was approved, an event that will be discussed in later chapters.

26 In 1927, the Forest Service set aside the Santa Catalina Research Natural Area as the first 

“official” designated RNA in the country (Steen 1998).

The RNAs were not only 

invaluable to forestry 

research, but also 

equally beneficial to the 

research of biologists, 

plant ecologists, and 

other scientists.
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Figure 33—Swain Mountain Experimental Forest, 1979.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

FS 1928) (fig. 34). To select RNAs, CFES and California Region 5 formed a committee that coordinated their selections with those suggested by Ansel Hall, Chief 

Forester of the National Park Service (NPS). In this regard, D5-IC cautioned Director Kotok not to overlook the extent to which timber cutting might be necessary in 

CFES research, because any NPS reserves selected would not be available for such 

use (USDA FS 1930). The Forest Service set up a joint agency advisory council, 

with whom Wieslander and Dunston could work for a solution to this problem27

(Stuart 1928). In early 1931, Wieslander and Dunston proposed five RNAs scattered 

throughout California on the Lassen, Modoc, Inyo, and Mono National Forests, 

as well as one in Yosemite National Park. However, D5-IC was not satisfied with 

their RNA selections because they had chosen some areas based on the feasibility of administering them rather than selecting whole biotic units. Additionally, 

other selected sites seemed vulnerable to fire and foreign plant invasions, and no 

sites selected appeared suitable for grazing studies. The D5-IC thereafter recommended that the station keep its present RNA selection committee but suggested 

that Regional Forester Show appoint a larger committee to crystallize fundamental 

principles and policies for RNA selection as the necessary basis for making further 

selections. Show’s committee subsequently met and recommended 16 specific 

27 Such councils were often created by the Forest Service to guide it in dealing with 

regional problems that crossed agency lines of authority, and to aid it in the development of 

sound regional policies.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 34—Craig's Creek Research Natural Area on the Six Rivers National 

Forest in Del Norte County, California, was representative of a typical knobcone pine (Pinus attenuata) forest.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

criteria to be used in selecting future RNAs. Any future final decisions were to 

be left up to Kotok and Show following a consultation visit to California by Earle 

Clapp in July 1931 (Stuart 1931).

In the meantime and up to January 1930, CFES had not received any increased 

federal funding to meet tasks such as experimental forest and RNA selection. The 

station was still working on substantially the same federal appropriation as that with 

which it started. This situation permitted only the continuation of silvicultural work 

taken over by the station from Region 5 headquarters, with very limited expansions 

into one or two other areas. Still needed but not yet covered by increased appropriations were additional personnel for the management studies in the pine and the 

redwood regions,28 expansion of the forest influences studies, large increases in 

the scope of fire studies and initiation of research work on grazing, as well as some 

expansion in products research (USDA FS 1930; Stuart 1929, 1930).

28 At this time, the commercial forests of California, by common usage, were divided into 

two broad regions—the coast redwoods and the interior pine forests. The redwood region 

of about 2 million acres lay along the northwest coast in a zone some 30 miles wide. The 

interior pine region lay along the westerly slopes of the Sierra Nevada at middle altitudes, 

on the northeasterly plateau, and on the northern inner coast ranges. In the late 1920s, there 

were approximately 21 million acres of merchantable timber with 12 million contained in 

California’s federal forests and parks (Dunning 1929).
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By January of 1930, the station’s offices were bursting at their seams. By that 

date, besides Director Kotok and a half-dozen clerks, CFES had a 10-member technical staff. They included Duncan Dunning and A.A. Hassel in silvics and forest 

management; C.L. Hill, M.R. Brundage, and I.J. Mason in wood products; W.C. 

Lowdermilk and H.L. Sundling, studying forest influences; C.J. Kraebel working 

on ecology and forestation; L.H. Reinke on mensuration; and A.E. Wieslander 

working on cover type mapping (USDA FS 1930, 1931). Fortunately for the CFES, 

the University of California’s school of forestry on the Berkeley campus needed 

additional space too. So when the forestry school moved into new quarters in 

Giannini Hall in August of that year, Director Kotok moved the station into 

Giannini Hall as well (fig. 35). The school’s Division of Forestry had better laboratory facilities there than in Hilgard Hall, including a laboratory for plant ecology 

equipped for biochemical work; a silvicultural laboratory equipped for histological 

and simple chemical research; a fire laboratory to study the behavior of fuels; and 

laboratories for logging, mensuration, and economic studies, along with a wood 

utilization laboratory furnished and equipped with woodworking machinery 

(USDA FS 1931). No doubt CFES shared these university laboratories and other 

facilities.29 The proximity of Berkeley to the San Francisco headquarters also continued to provide an excellent opportunity for close cooperation between Region 5 

and the university as well.30

Fortunately, in 1930, the CFES budgets began to expand as well owing to the 

McSweeney-McNary Forest Research Act. Increases were secured from a number 

of sources, which allowed the station to begin several additional lines of research 

and add scientific and technical staff. For instance, congressional appropriations 

from the McSweeney-McNary Act of approximately $29,000 provided for research 

in two new fields—fire management and studies in the redwood region. In addition 

to this extra funding, a slight increase in other appropriations enabled Director 

Kotok to increase research staff for the pine region. These monies allowed him to 

add two researchers—V.A. Clements, who transferred to CFES from an assignment in Washington, D.C., and Earl Morrow, who became the station superintendent of the Feather River Branch Station. Additionally, Kotok found funding to 

29 The station would not move again until 1948, when the CFES moved into a new forestry 

building on campus, Mulford Hall, named after distinguished forestry school dean Walter 

Mulford. The years that the station spent on campus fomented and nurtured rapport and 

cooperative relationships with university administrators and forestry faculty and researchers alike (Aitro 1977).

30 The move to Giannini Hall not only brought under one roof the forestry school and the 

station, but eventually also the educational headquarters of the NPS, the forest pathologists 

and entomologists of the USDA, the Blister Rust Control Unit, and the extension forester 

(Cassamajor 1965).

The proximity of 

Berkeley to the 

San Francisco 

headquarters also continued to provide an 

excellent opportunity 

for close cooperation 

between Region 5 and 

the university as well.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 35—Giannini Hall (1930), University of California, 

Berkeley, second home of the California Forest Experiment 

Station.

Atkinson Photographic Archive, 

University of California, Alan Nyiri

temporarily hire C. Raymond Clar from the California State Board of Forestry31

to assist Wieslander in preparing California’s vegetation type map. With the above 

personnel additions, CFES staff had grown to 16, not counting Director Kotok. In 

addition to this permanent workforce, CFES seasonally employed some 46 students 

from Berkeley’s school of forestry on project fieldwork (Stuart 1931).

In 1931, the CFES enjoyed another spurt of growth, again largely through 

McSweeney-McNary Act funding. Staff assignments in silvicultural investigations 

(pine and redwood), mensuration, forest products, fire research, and the Devil Canyon and Feather River Branch Stations remained the same, but additional appropriations of $47,000 from the Research Act were sufficient to initiate grazing studies 

31 C. Raymond Clar was attached to the station for type map work from August 1927 until 

the spring of 1931 (Clar 1959). Clar started out working for the California State Board 

of Forestry in 1927 and thereafter played an essential role in California state forestry 

fire policy. Clar is most noted for his definitive two-volume history of the California 

Department of Forestry, California Government and Forestry from Spanish Days until 

the Creation of the Department of Natural Resources in 1927 (Clar 1959), and California 

Government and Forestry—II (Clar 1969).
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and for the expansion of forest influences investigations at the California Station 

(USDA FS 1931). The grazing industry in California at this time presented the 

“strange spectacle of an industry eating itself up” because of overgrazing practices. 

Accordingly, Kotok assigned three technical men to the field of range management 

studies: senior forest ecologist Murrell W. Talbot, assisted by range examiners F.G. 

Renner and August L. Hormay. Legitimate grazing investigations were thus finally 

started on a modest scale, meeting in some small measure the acute need for range 

research in California. Besides addressing specific range management studies, the 

new range research staff were expected to also help answer questions regarding the 

relationship of grazing with the fire problem in California, and to increase understanding of how grazing affected watershed management. The station’s name was 

amended to reflect this new responsibility; CFES became known as the California 

Forest and Range Experiment Station, or CFRES (USDA FS 1932b). 

In addition to starting range research at this date, the California Station 

expanded its watershed management research. Prior to 1931, watershed conservationist Walter Lowdermilk (fig. 36) had directed forest influence and erosion 

studies for the station. In 1929, Lowdermilk described the water supply problem 

as one of understanding the links between the forest-land vegetative mantle in 

southern and central California and the water supply for municipal, irrigation, and 

Figure 36—Walter C. Lowdermilk, 

world-renowned American expert

on soil conservation who provided 

a basis for enlightened management 

of California's watershed areas. National Archives, Negative number 114-G-90723
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

power uses. Among the many complex problems not fully understood, according to 

Lowdermilk, was the influence of vegetation on the delivery of water in the valleys, 

the transpiration of water by vegetation of different types, and the relationship of 

erosion to water supply. Until this time, the station had been stymied in its forest 

influence and erosion research conducted at the Devil Canyon Branch Station by 

the complexity of understanding entire watersheds as well as the lack of funding 

and personnel. Additional funding from the McSweeney-McNary Act, however, 

allowed Lowdermilk to add forest ecologists J.D. Sinclair and P.B. Rowe to his 

staff, so that the station could take on a new mission of full watershed research. 

With more cooperation from engineers responsible for the state water plan than 

ever before, and new appropriations and personnel, CFRES hoped to attack the 

field of water research anew (Lowdermilk 1929, USDA FS 1932b).

Closely associated with forest influence and erosion research was the cover 

type map of California being prepared by Wieslander. As produced, the cover type 

map showed in detail the timber and brush types for each county in the state. It 

would prove valuable not only as a background in future land use and economic 

investigations by CFRES, but also revealed with astonishing clarity the widespread 

and profound deterioration of vegetation that resulted from fire and its inevitable 

attendant soil erosion. The cover type map further aided in correlating the amount 

and quality of water yielded by any particular watershed with the condition of 

the vegetative cover of that area. By 1930, the map was approximately 50 percent 

complete (Kotok 1930, Kraebel 1932), but in 1931, the work of the type map was 

dovetailed into the Forest Resources Survey, or FRS, 32 which added considerable 

work to the project. Authorized by the McSweeney-McNary Forest Research Act, 

FRS began its work in California that year, adding not just work but responsibilities 

to CFRES in the area of forest economics. Nonetheless, CFRES, through cooperation with the state because of local demand, still made some progress on the forest 

cover type map project (Stuart 1932).

32 The FRS was one of the most important and far-reaching undertakings ever launched 

by the Forest Service. Authorized by the McSweeney-McNary Forest Research Act on a 

12-year basis, it was a comprehensive “appraisal of the Nation’s present and future requirements for forest products, the present and potential forest growth, existing volumes 

and qualities of timber, the areas and conditions of forest lands, and other facts needed 

as a basis for balancing the timber budget.” The survey was prosecuted, particularly the 

resource inventory and growth phases, by special staffs added to the regional experiment 

stations. However, by 1932, the FRS’s pace was curtailed because of the Depression and 

government economy program. As an interim measure, the Forest Service conducted a 

restudy of the existing data on the forest situation, obtainable without extensive first-hand 

field studies. This restudy indicated that since the so-called “Capper Report” of 1920, the 

area of forest land in the United States had increased by some 33 million acres (Stuart 

1930, 1932).
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California Forest Service Research Program History, 

1926–1932

During its early years, the California Forest Experiment Station’s research program

33 consisted of six lines of research: forest management, utilization of wood 

and other forest products, forest protection, forest influences, range research, and 

forest economics.

Forest Management

Forest research management seeks the facts that must be known to fully utilize the 

many and diverse forest types and soils of the country. The field was broad at this 

time, but prior to 1933, the Forest Service Branch of Research basically divided 

forest management research into three areas: silvics, silviculture, and forest mensuration. Scientists and researchers at the California Station contributed to each of 

these forest management areas.

Silvics— 

Silvics, the fundamental science that underlies the study of forest growth, generally includes dendrology;34 physiology; morphology; ecology, or the relationship of 

the forest to its environment (e.g., soil, climate, fires, insects, diseases, animal life, 

subordinate vegetation, and topography); ontogeny, or the life histories of important species; and genetic studies. For instance, dendrology studies were needed to 

explain the limited natural distribution of the Monterey pine and the Monterey cypress to extremely small areas on the coast of California, or the very limited areas 

occupied by the redwoods. As another example, fire exercises an extremely important function in forest succession in California, and ecology studies were needed 

to elucidate the role of fire for foresters. Or, for instance, genetics, by assessing the 

pronounced differences in rate of growth, amounts of seed produced, immunity or 

resistance to insect attacks, strength, durability, and other properties of the wood 

between individual trees under seemingly identical environmental conditions, also 

played an important part in developing better strains of trees for the state. All of 

these areas within silvics were inherently important to the California-based Forest 

33 It is not the purpose of this publication to enumerate and describe all investigations or 

research undertaken by the station. These are on file and available to the researcher or 

historian. Only fields of investigations and studies that show the direction and history of 

the station will be included from this point forward. Moreover, only forest officers and 

scientists who had a significant part in initiating or directing the work will be mentioned.

34 With the creation of the Forest Service in 1905, George Bishop Sudworth became the 

chief dendrologist for the agency, a position he held until his death in 1927. With his 

demise, the position of dendrologist remained vacant until 1942, when the Division of 

Dendrology and Range Forage Investigations was set up in the Branch of Research with 

William A. Dayton as chief and Elbert L. Little, Jr., as dendrologist (Dayton 1955).
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Service forestry research program in the years prior to 1933, with the exception 

of genetics, which the Eddy Tree Breeding Station, a private research institution 

located at Placerville, California, investigated separately from the Forest Service 

(see the end of this chapter) (Clapp 1926).

Silviculture— 

Research in silviculture includes primarily the applied investigations that lie between fundamental findings in silvics and the commercial practice of forestry. In 

the 1920s, silviculture research was defined to include artificial forestation through 

seeding, nursery practice, and field planting; natural forestation via reproduction 

from seed and from sprouts; cultural operations, slash disposal, and other factors 

that influenced silviculture such as logging, utilization of timber and other products, 

and protection (Clapp 1926).

In California, the rapid growth of the state placed a heavy demand on its 

forests, requiring that California District 5 develop intensive forest management to 

meet this expansion. There were some 10 million acres of virtually idle brush lands, 

most of which the Forest Service thought should be growing a valuable forest crop. 

For instance, in northern California, there were large brush fields occupying some 

of the best yellow pine and sugar pine sites. These brush fields were the result of 

repeated burns, and once established, they were very difficult to reforest. In southern California, protection of watershed through forestation was crucial. The California Station met each of the state’s regional reforestation needs through research 

conducted at nurseries established for that purpose (Greeley 1927, Show 1925).

While the station was just getting established, District 5 completed several 

research projects in northern California’s pine region left over from when the 

district had a Branch of Research under S.B. Show. T.D. Woodbury produced a 

comprehensive resume of nursery work in northern California prior to the station’s 

establishment that covered the initiation and subsequent history of all the work conducted to date (see Woodbury 1927). It pointed out some of the difficulties inherent 

in California’s reforestation program from an administrative viewpoint. In the same 

manner, in 1924 and later, S.B. Show summarized his research work in nursery and 

planting practices at the Feather River Branch Station (see for instance Show 1924c) 

and elsewhere in northern California in Forest Nursery and Planting Practice in the 

California Pine Region (Show 1930). And in 1924, as noted in the previous chapter, 

Duncan Dunning completed an important study regarding the effects of cutting 

on the growth of remaining trees and on reproduction that once again stimulated 

interest in reforestation on District 5. In that year, District 5’s Research Branch 

undertook a 10-year program of natural reproduction and planting experiments 

Silviculture research 

was defined to include 

artificial forestation 

through seeding, 

nursery practice, 

and field planting; 

natural forestation 

via reproduction from 

seed and from sprouts; 

cultural operations, 

slash disposal, and 

other factors that 

influenced silviculture 

such as logging, 

utilization of timber and 

other products, and 

protection.
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at the Feather River nursery on the Plumas National Forest, a project that the 

California Station inherited. Because Show had already conducted adequate research on a number of topics at this nursery regarding seeding, soil treatment, and 

watering vs. cultivation practices, additional research in these areas was deemed 

unnecessary. Further work was advisable, however, on experiments related to 

soil improvement, root development, and a few other areas (USDA FS 1927). But 

because of insufficient personnel35 and resources, along with the station’s inherited 

responsibilities for keeping up its remeasurement of sample plots throughout several 

northern California national forests, nursery experiments at Feather River largely 

fell by the wayside with the exception of some work regarding fertilizing transplanting beds (USDA FS 1930, 1931, 1932b).

Southern California research presented a similar picture. In 1926, the 

California Station attempted to follow three lines of artificial and natural forestation: planting in watersheds, planting and seeding on a small scale for control of 

natural reproduction study, and raising a small amount of stock for experimental 

planting by the station and for administrative planting on national forests. To these 

ends, the station, in cooperation with the State Board of Forestry and local county 

organizations, planted a 40-acre nursery at the Devil Canyon Branch Station near 

San Bernardino. Under the direction of Charles J. Kraebel (fig. 37), the nursery was 

established mostly for the production of trees and shrubs for erosion control. Before 

beginning his research program, Kraebel reviewed the work that Edward Munns 

had conducted at the Converse Flats nursery on the Angeles National Forest prior 

to World War I. Munns’ work had borne out that the same difficulties encountered 

in planting in northern California occurred in the south, but to a more intensified 

degree. Nonetheless, Kraebel attempted to complete and extend Munns’ work that 

Munns did before the Converse Flats nursery closed. The station felt obligated to 

continue this reforestation effort because the general public still wished to convert 

chaparral areas to woodlands and high coniferous forests (Robinson 1980; USDA 

FS 1927, 1928). However, after a prolonged drought during the summer of 1929, 

the station finally publicly acknowledged that under present conditions it would 

be impossible to transform the entire chaparral type, or any great part of it, into a 

conifer forest by planting. The station accepted the fact that in the last 20 years, the 

total acreage planted by the Forest Service was insignificant from the standpoint of 

watershed protection, or any other practical return. Despite this conclusion, work at 

the Devil Canyon nursery continued (fig. 38). The station thereafter focused much

35 In the fall of 1929, junior forester H.W. Siggins had met an untimely death in a car 

accident, which left the station shorthanded in its plantation studies (Fowells 1978).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

of its research work on three new directions: finding deep-rooted exotic tree or 

shrub species in America or elsewhere in the world that would survive in southern California, investigating the planting of firebreaks with succulent species of 

relatively low flammability, and propagation of desirable chaparral and hardwood 

species that would prove useful in the reclamation of critically denuded areas. All 

in all, the Devil Canyon nursery strove to secure a better quality of planting and 

Figure 37—Charles J. Kraebel, an expert 

on natural forestation, watersheds, and 

erosion control. National Park Service

Figure 38—Devil Canyon planting beds and lathe house.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
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higher survival rate, rather than increased acreage, and worked with noted horticulturalist, plant explorer, and pomologist, Charles Swingle36 (USDA FS 1930, 1931, 

1932b, 1932b).

Although reforestation research success in both northern and southern 

California had been marginal at best, by 1932 Region 5’s Investigative Committee 

(R5-IC)37 thought that the time was ripe to increase work in this field and encouraged Kotok and the station to do so. But insufficient funds and personnel limited 

any proposed expansion of the program (USDA FS 1932c).

Pine region silvicultural investigations— 

In its initial years, CFRES conducted several forest cultural operations to determine desirable silvicultural practices in California’s pine region and followed up on 

earlier District 5 studies. For a number of years, District 5 researchers had a study 

underway in California to determine the effect of cutting methods on the rate at 

which natural reproduction becomes established. In connection with this study, over 

20,000 trees were remeasured on sample plots at 5-year intervals. An analysis of 

these measurements developed a new classification of the trees in the western pine 

forests. This study indicated that certain classes of trees, readily recognizable in 

the forest, were especially subject to insect attack, whereas others were liable to 

windthrow or breakage. The growth rate of still other species was too poor to be 

worth retaining in the forest. This discovery made possible the establishment of far 

more discriminating selection criteria for cutting, and found general application on 

California’s northern national forests. The simplicity of this method made checking 

of marking practices on timber-sale areas easier and more systematic, and the application of this methodology essentially revolutionized practices in marking timber 

for cutting on national forests elsewhere in the Nation (Stuart 1928).

One of CFRES’s first silviculture investigations conducted involved a comprehensive logging and milling investigation in cooperation with the Fruit Growers’ 

Supply Company that started with the trees in the woods and took them through the 

mill to the finished product. This investigation of “east side” logging and milling, 

led by M.R. Brundage, brought out the economic results of varied silvicultural practices, as well as of the costs and returns from using logs and trees of different sizes 

36 From 1922 to 1935, Charles Fletcher Swingle worked in various positions for the Nursery 

Stock Investigation, BPI, and thereafter for the Soil Conservation Service from 1935 to 

1945, where Swingle established and administered the agency’s nationwide nursery system. 

Swingle was most noted for his discovery of certain rubber plants in Madagascar that were 

believed to be extinct at the time. His papers are located at the Hunt Institute for Botanical 

Documentation, Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

37 D5-IC changed its name to Region 5 Investigative Committee, or R5-IC, starting with 

its annual report for 1930 to reflect a Forest Service organizational name change made in 

mid-1929.
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and qualities. The CFRES study was designed to include the economic influence 

of insects and diseases, as well as wildlife, on the growth and reproduction of the 

subsequent stand (Stuart 1930). A preliminary analysis of the results of this woods 

and mills study indicated that at this time it did not pay to saw lumber from western 

yellow pine logs 14 inches and under in diameter, as well as logs of other species of 

size, such as sugar pine, because the costs were greater than the value of the lumber 

(Stuart 1931). This coordinated logging and milling study resulted in the determination of costs and values for each species, size, and grade of logs and trees in western 

Sierra Nevada lumbering (Brundage et al. 1933).

Redwood region silvicultural investigations— 

Silvicultural research at CFRES was not limited just to California’s pine region. 

Studies were also conducted in California’s redwood forests. In 1930, California’s 

redwood region probably had the largest individual trees and heaviest stands by 

board feet per acre of any commercial forest region of the world. This fact, together 

with the extremely rapid rate of growth of the major species, and the ability of the 

redwood to sprout from the stump, made the region an important commercial forestry center. Prior to 1910, the Forest Service had published one or two preliminary 

studies on redwoods, but the absence of national forests in the redwood country, 

and the urgent need for all available Forest Service research resources in the national forests themselves, delayed Forest Service silvicultural efforts in the redwood 

region. Furthermore, prior to 1930, the station had difficulty in acquiring funding 

for personnel to launch a redwood regional research program. So until 1930, all research in this region was conducted by either the forest school of the University 

of California or by consulting foresters (USDA FS 1932b).

In 1930, the University of California withdrew from its redwood research 

program, but the Forest Service filled the vacuum in December of that year, when 

the station’s overall financial situation changed through additional McSweeneyMcNary Forest Research Act funding. McSweeney-McNary Act funding allowed 

the Bureau of Entomology (BE) to transfer Hubert L. Person and George R. 

Strubble to CFRES,38 where they were assigned to investigate forest management 

silvicultural issues associated with California’s redwood region. Silviculture studies 

in the redwood region were naturally somewhat similar to those in the pine region, 

particularly in the extensive use of permanent sample plots or strips. Because many 

38 Person’s and Struble’s transfer provided for an important phase of coordination of work 

between CFRES and the BE station at Palo Alto, California, until that BE station was relocated to the Berkeley campus in September 1930 thanks to the efforts of Walter Mulford 

(Wickman 2005).

The extremely rapid 

rate of growth of the 

major species, and the 

ability of the redwood 

to sprout from the 

stump, made the 

region an important 

commercial forestry 

center.
134

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governmental agencies were already working in the redwood region, and because 

Forest Service research policy was to aid rather than interfere, the station began 

its redwood management research on problems that were least likely to be handled 

by other agencies. Furthermore, the station confined its efforts to the commercial 

range in California’s four northernmost counties (Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, 

and Sonoma). To determine a niche for the station redwood research program, 

Person reviewed the current literature, interviewed university scientists, lumber 

associations, consulting and industrial foresters, and civic groups, such as the Save 

the Redwoods League, and made several field trips throughout the redwood region 

(USDA FS 1931).

Besides picking up the threads of past University of California work and carrying out those lines of research that seemed of most importance, Hubert Person commenced several new redwood management studies. Because any silvicultural study 

would have some bearing on the problem of restocking after logging, CFRES began 

its redwood research program by first surveying the actual redwood country conditions. Following this survey, Person focused on the effectiveness of planting and the 

possibilities of securing reasonable stocking by slight changes in logging methods. 

Logging practices in this region were in general very destructive, resulting in 

excessive site deterioration. On most cutover areas, growth was only a fraction of 

what it should be. Obviously, this situation called for studies similar to those being 

carried out by the station in the pine region. In addition to cooperative studies with 

lumber companies on natural reproduction and planting of cutover redwood areas, 

the station also planned to study logging damage (USDA FS 1932b). In addition 

to this work, CFRES made observations on young redwood stands in California, 

showing that the spacing of the trees produced a much greater effect on the density 

of the wood than did soil composition39 (Stuart 1928). In the absence of any national 

forests with redwoods, the station began discussions regarding acquiring such 

experimental forest areas in proper locations, by gift or purchase. Person recommended the acquisition of at least one experimental forest of about 1,000 acres, but 

it would be years before such an area could be obtained (USDA FS 1932b).

39 In 1932, S.B. Show summarized the state of affairs of the redwood region in Timber 

Growing and Logging Practice in the Coast Redwood Region of California. In this piece, 

he described the status of timber growing in the redwood region, the important characteristics of the region and the forest, the effects of past and current treatment of forest land, 

and the measures necessary to produce full timber crops. Both past and present practice in 

the region involved clearcutting an area and starting the new crop from bare ground. Show 

advocated for selective logging, but opportunities for using this method of reforestation had 

not been thoroughly tested yet. Regardless of whether planting or natural reforestation or 

both were used, Show saw fire protection on cutover lands as essential. Through education and law enforcement, he called for a halt in the prevalent practice of light burning of 

redwood cutover lands in favor of grazing or agriculture, because he felt the lands were 

more valuable for industrial forestry (Show 1932).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Other station silvicultural investigations conducted by CFRES in this early 

period included proper management of southern California chaparral forests to 

prevent erosion and rapid runoff; the distance that wind carried seeds of various 

conifers; the damage done by forest fires to stands of various ages; methods of 

thinning young stands to increase their productivity; damage to woodlots through 

overgrazing; and methods of cutting in various forest types to insure rapid restocking of forest tree species (Stuart 1928).

Mensuration— 

Forest mensuration investigations included status and standardization of volume 

and yield tables, and studies regarding the laws of form and growth (Clapp 1926). 

Initially, mensuration studies at CFRES were fairly standard growth and yield forecasts derived from data on even-aged stands collected from permanent and temporary sample plots on various California species in cooperation with the forest school 

at the University of California (USDA FS 1927, 1928). However, in 1930, CFRES 

statistician L.H. Reinke, working in close collaboration with Berkeley professor 

Donald Bruce,40 made a significant contribution in the field of mensuration. By 

combining the concepts of the modern science of statistics with familiar graphic 

processes—the former contributes accuracy and the later flexibility—Reineke and 

Bruce applied curvilinear-correlation methods to study a wide range of forestry 

problems that many believed insolvable on account of their complexity or the volume of data involved. In the pre-computer age, their publication The Correlation 

Alinement Charts in Forest Research (Reineke and Bruce 1931) resulted in an outstanding contribution to the field of forest mensuration (Stuart 1931).

Utilization of Wood and Other Forest Products

As noted in the last chapter, following the establishment of the Forest Service in 

1905, forest products research in California began immediately, and in 1908 was 

incorporated in the district organization upon the establishment of District 5. Early 

District 5 products research covered a wide range of subjects, but for the most part, 

the bulk of them centered on wood preservation. By 1913, District 5’s products 

office had five technical personnel, which was its largest workforce to date. Forest products work was suspended during World War I, but reinstated in 1920 with 

fewer technical personnel. When the CFES was established in 1926, forest products 

40 Donald Bruce, who once worked for the Forest Service in California, was a pioneer in 

forest mensuration and the author of many publications on the subject, including a widely 

used textbook (Bruce and Schumacher 1935). After a period at the University of California 

at Berkeley, he became a partner in the well-known consulting firm of Mason, Bruce, and 

Girard (Curtis and Marshall 2004).
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research in California was still under the auspices of District 5 and was directed by 

C.L. Hill. But at this time, D5-IC criticized Hill’s work plan because he endeavored 

to cover too many activities. There were ongoing projects involving not just wood 

preservation, but lumber seasoning and several economic investigations, as well as 

cooperative work requested by the PL in Madison on constantly varying subjects 

(USDA FS 1927, 1928, 1932b).

Starting in 1926, Hill also began working with the recently organized California Economic Research Council (CERC).41 In December of 1927, D5-IC reigned 

in Hill’s office and transferred Hill, his staff of two, and his research projects from 

District 5’s San Francisco headquarters to the CFES at Berkeley. This transfer 

brought some realignment of forest products objectives, and “cleaning up” of the 

old projects as Hill followed D5-IC suggestions to focus and downsize his program. 

For greatest efficiency, Hill therefore concentrated his research program upon a 

strictly limited number of projects related to regional forest products problems 

(USDA FS 1928, 1932b). Several older projects were completed and their files either 

closed or given a secondary research status, such as those involving air seasoning,42

the prevention of blue stain in lumber,43 and marine pilings44 (Stuart 1928, USDA 

FS 1928).

Meanwhile, a new attitude had taken hold of forest products work in the Forest 

Service following World War I. Prior to the war, the FPL, and to some extent the 

field units, were concerned mainly with the problems of the wood industries, 

41 In 1926, the California Economic Research Council was formed, and included some 150 

agencies in the state engaged in the production or use of economic research information. 

The objectives of the CREC were to provide an avenue for mutual knowledge of projects 

and results among such agencies, and to stimulate and advance economic research and 

allied technical research by suggestion and by advisory activity with the goal of correlation 

and standardization. Dean W.E. Hotchkiss of the Graduate School of Business of Stanford 

University initially chaired CERC, and Hill served as chair of the Committee on Natural 

Resources, where he laid the groundwork for cooperation between the state, other agencies, and CFES regarding a comprehensive land use survey and classification under the 

McSweeney-McNary Act (USDA FS 1928).

42 This project resulted in a joint publication on the subject. See Fullaway et al. 1928. 

43 The blue stain project grew out of an unintentional partnership with the FPL, the Office 

of Forest Pathology, and the sugar pine industry. No significant publications resulted from 

this research topic while CFES was involved in it (USDA FS 1930).

44 As noted in the previous chapter, in the early 1920s, District 5’s Office of Products 

had spent considerable time studying the relative durability of different woods exposed 

to marine woodborers. During this investigation, District 5 made an intensive and 

comprehensive study of marine borers using the service records on some 200,000 piles in 

San Francisco Bay. In a joint publication with the FPL entitled Marine Borers and Their 

Relation to Marine Construction on the Pacific Coast (Hill and Kofold 1927), Hill made a 

significant contribution to the subject of preservatives and processes for protecting the harbor pilings in California, and in other coastal areas of the country. Thereafter, the project 

was turned over to the forest school at Berkeley (Stuart 1928, USDA FS 1928).
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without adequate reference to the effect a project had upon forestry in general, or 

upon other Forest Service forestry problems. However, starting in the early 1920s, 

a new research attitude slowly evolved. First, the Forest Service emphasized that 

Forest Service products research had an obligation toward the administration of 

the national forests as a whole. With the passage of the McSweeney-McNary Forest 

Research Act in 1928, a second shift of emphasis—one that considered a national 

point of view—as opposed to a regional perspective developed as well in wood 

products research.45 The main objective of all foresters, but especially of forest 

researchers, was to find increased application of forestry practice in the woods 

of the Nation as a whole, including privately owned forest lands. In other words, 

the Forest Service’s major task was to bring about optimum management of all 

forest-land resources in the Nation, regardless of ownership. Therefore, for CFRES 

to accept and undertake research that affected the wood industry, resolution of the 

problem now had to contribute to the practice of forestry as a whole and not just 

benefit a particular industry. Private or industrial problems that could not meet the 

test imposed by the above corollary would have to be undertaken by the interested 

parties (USDA FS 1928, 1932b).

The first significant CFRES project based upon this new attitude toward Forest 

Service-industry research partnerships was an investigation of logging and sawmill 

waste conducted jointly with California’s lumber industry, a study that turned out 

to be very extensive and significant. In 1927, in a publication aimed at the railroad 

industry (fig. 39), Hill forewarned against forest decimation without renewal and 

discussed reducing waste in production and use—an argument that had lent support to the passage of the McSweeney-McNary Forest Research Act (from USDA 

FS 1930). Two years later, in cooperation with the Pickering Lumber Company of 

Standard, California, and with R5-IC’s approval, Hill began a logging and sawmill 

waste investigation on the Stanislaus National Forest. The woods and mill study 

was designed to show the costs incurred and values realized from trees by following them as they were carried from the standing forest to the finished lumber upon 

the sawmill shipping deck. Hill’s study also measured the wastes and losses both in 

the woods and mill, and showed the effect of different timber marking and cutting 

methods upon both forest perpetuation and the cost of conversion to the timber 

operator. Hill’s wood products staff supervised and coordinated this very “hands 

on” project, but various Region 5 offices—namely forest management—the FPL, 

45 This new research attitude was most likely explained to the principal western district 

offices and experiment stations at the annual conference gathered at the FPL in June 

1928. Director Kotok and C.L. Hill attended this annual wood products research meeting 

(American Forests and Forest Life 1928a).

Starting in the early 

1920s, a new research 

attitude slowly evolved. 

The Forest Service’s 

major task was to 

bring about optimum 

management of all 

forest-land resources in 

the Nation, regardless 

of ownership.
138

general technical report psw-gtr-233

other USDA agencies, and the University of California’s Division of Forestry took 

part in various phases of the study. Based on the Pickering Lumber Company study 

results, CFRES conducted similar studies elsewhere in the state. However, instead 

of carrying actual trees throughout the study record, as was done in the Pickering 

Lumber Company study, R5-IC suggested the desirability of using “synthetic” or 

“built-up” trees for the purpose of analytical study. By the following year, the Stanislaus (Pickering) Study perfected this process, and project data was worked into 

final shape for publication. However, despite its innovative research techniques, 

the study was never published because of a lack of funding (USDA FS 1930, 1931, 

1932b).

Other important projects at this time were not as successful. They included 

completing a 20-year-old project involving the study of lumber depreciation, and 

conducting research on several new and desirable projects such as heptane production. As it turned out, the lumber depreciation study met difficulties and did not 

result in any promising research. Over time, actual practice in sawmill production 

of lumber and the lumber grading structure upon which the whole practice stood 

had changed since the bulk of the older research had been conducted. Therefore, 

CFES dropped the project by 1930 (USDA FS 1930). The heptane production study 

Figure 39—Typical railroad lumbering operation.

U.S. Forest Service
139

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

was a minor study, but fit into the objective of improved forest land management. 

One of the primary uses of heptane at this time was to alleviate knock in internal 

combustion engines. The heptane project (fig. 40) found that this wood-derived 

byproduct produced by distilling the resin of Jeffrey and Digger pines had an advantage over that obtained from petroleum in the ease and cheapness of its recovery. In 1929, Hill published the results of this work, but nothing more came of the 

project (Aitro 1977; USDA FS 1930, 1931, 1932b). 

A final demand on Hill and his staff in the period prior to 1933 that cannot be 

overlooked was extension work by the forest products office. One of the station’s 

main missions was to make research information available to the public upon request. Consequently, CFRES attempted to disseminate information on any research 

line to the public as soon as possible. As a result, California forest industries placed 

a disproportionate demand on Hill’s office for product information, a reflection of 

the value of the results of research to industry at this time (USDA FS 1932b).

Forest Protection

Forest protection research at CFRES was aimed at safeguarding forests from damage caused by forest fires, fungi, mistletoes, and insects. In California, protection 

from fire consumed much of the station’s time and funds. Protection from diseases 

and insects was left to the cordial cooperation with the BPI and the BE and will be 

discussed in a later section on other USDA agency research.

Figure 40—Heptane field experiments conducted by C.L. Hill.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

In California, as noted earlier, the need for a major campaign to improve 

methods of protecting against forest fires was brought into focus by the disastrous 

fire year of 1910. After that year, District 5 Forester Coert Dubois gave fire research 

priority during his administration, emphasizing the need for improvement in fire 

organization and fire suppression techniques. Before World War I, little attention 

was paid to physical conditions surrounding fire and the possibility of their control or adapting fire attack to their requirements. But after the war, S.B. Show, in 

collaboration with Edward Kotok, again began fire studies. In the early 1920s, they 

investigated light burning, fire damage, and fire ecology and conducted a statistical 

analysis of fire suppression performance based upon the study of individual fire 

reports. For instance, in 1924, Show wrote in Scientific Monthly on managing forest properties in the California pine region as a problem in applied ecology (Show 

1924a). The next year, Show and Kotok published Fire and the Forest as USDA

Circular 358 (Show and Kotok 1925), which looked closely at historical damage 

done by recurring fires in California’s pine region, dating back to 1685. They 

believed that centuries of repeated fires therein had led to a deteriorating forest in 

which damage was steadily accelerating. They concluded that: “nothing less than 

fire exclusion will promote real progress toward a fully productive forest property.... An adequate scheme of forest management and protection must recognize 

that even more important than preservation of what forest values we now possess 

is the task of restoring a forest depleted by centuries of repeated fire” (Show and 

Kotok 1925: 18). Nonetheless, adequate appropriations supporting fire science 

research in California were not forthcoming until the establishment of CFRES 

and the subsequent passage of the McSweeney-McNary Act (USDA FS 1932b).

During the period 1926 to 1932, as will be seen, forest fire control continued to 

be the most difficult and pressing of all forestry problems plaguing California, and 

CFRES became one of the leading forest experiment stations in the country conducting fire research. In the period after 1926, fire science research involved three 

factors: studying the occurrence and increase of the rate of spread of forest fires in 

various cover types, the measures necessary to prevent and suppress fires, and the 

damage that fires did. During this time the CFRES fire research program meshed 

closely with District/Region 5’s administration as Director Kotok and District/

Regional Forester Show worked closely together, even though they had tremendous 

administrative duties elsewhere (Cermak 2005). 

In northern California, Show and Kotok explored the relation between fire and 

ground cover types, such as grass, chaparral, brush, and the various timber species. They also obtained data on the risk of fires starting, the quantity of fuel on 

the ground, the ease of controlling fires, and the rate at which fires spread. Their 

Nothing less than fire 

exclusion will promote 

real progress toward a 

fully productive forest 

property.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

research resulted in Cover Type and Fire Control in the National Forests of Northern California (Show and Kotok 1929), an analysis of the records of over 10,000 

fires. Cover Type and Fire Control furnished valuable conclusions upon which to 

base more efficient protection by establishing the length of the average fire season 

for each cover type, the preponderance of incendiarism in the chaparral and brush 

types, and the relative difficulty of protecting each type. Facts derived in Cover 

Type and Fire Control afforded the basis for District/Region 5 to place fireguards, 

to determine suppression crew size, to advocate for road and trail development, and 

to combat incendiarism in northern California (Show and Kotok 1929, Stuart 1929). 

In late 1929, along similar lines, Kotok and Show published data on California’s pine region. They investigated the average number of possible human-caused 

fires in a given season, the rate of burning in pine country, and the average annual 

percentage of area burned for different types of brushland and woodland therein, 

as well as compiling information on the major California pine region cover types 

and their influence upon risk of starting, available fuel, rate of fire spread, ease 

of control, and accessibility of fire. This research resulted in The Determination 

of Hour Control for Adequate Protection in the Major Cover Types of California 

Pine Region (Show and Kotok 1930), perhaps the most outstanding contribution 

of the year to the solution of California’s fire problem. Continuing their earlier 

studies on the interrelationship between cover type, fire hazard, and fire control, 

Determination of Hour Control analyzed the speed-of-attack factor design needed 

to hold burned acreage to an accepted minimum (Aitro 1977, Show and Kotok 

1930). Show and Kotok showed that fires must be caught within a certain amount of 

time that varied with the type of forest cover, the degree of risk, the amount of fuel, 

and accessibility, to control them while they were still small. The desired “hour of 

control,” or degree of protection that was feasible to undertake, according to their 

report, was determined by devising a correlated detection and suppression system, 

including the means of communication and travel that would ensure the presence of 

a force of firefighters of specified size and equipment anywhere within a specified 

time after a fire started (Stuart 1930). 

Following their departmental bulletin on hour control, increased funds were 

made available to CFRES through the McSweeney-McNary Act to carry further 

their studies and others. Until this time, District 5’s policy of putting out all fires 

as soon as possible, established in 1920, had been no match for the 1924 fire season, 

which resulted in 1,932 fires on California’s national forests that burned 762,000 

acres and caused $1,275,000 of damage (fig. 41). Subsequent fire seasons in 1926 

and 1928 were almost as disastrous (Cermak 2005, Godfrey 2005, USDA FS 

1932b). Therefore, in 1929, CFRES founded the Shasta Experimental Fire Forest 

This research resulted 

in the most outstanding 

contribution of the 

year to the solution 

of California’s fire 

problem.
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

(SEFF), which became a proving ground for Show and Kotok’s theses regarding 

fire control.46 The Forest Service had rarely gone “all the way” in trying out any 

fire research idea. What was proposed at SEFF was an innovative change from 

the policy of gradually strengthening protective forces along accepted lines, to the 

selection of one forest unit, the Shasta National Forest, where extra efforts could be 

made to thoroughly test both old and new ideas under controlled conditions. Kotok, 

along with District 5 Fire Chief Jay Price, and local Shasta National Forest officers, 

selected approximately 1.6 million acres on the Shasta National Forest, consisting of 

Sacramento Canyon, McCloud Ranger District, and part of the Pitt Ranger Districts, for the experimental forest. This area represented all fire risks (e.g., lightning, 

incendiarism, presence of highways and railroads, lumber operations, grazing activity, and other human activities), and contained extremely hazardous cover, which 

was the result of disturbance of the original forest conditions by logging operations 

and previous fires. The objectives for the SEFF were to determine the best system 

of fire control for the selected unit, to adapt and extend the principles evolved on 

the experimental forest to other California national forests, and to single out and 

intensely study any other incidental phases of fire control. Thereafter, CFRES 

46 The establishment of the SEFF gave Show and Kotok the demonstration area they were 

seeking, but they were unable to pursue research there because of meager resources at 

hand. However, when the New Deal unfolded, they saw a golden opportunity to use the 

whole of Region 5, not just SEFF, as their demonstration area (Cermak 2005).

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Figure 41—Typical fire in California pine region.
143

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

conducted studies regarding prevention, detection, suppression, communication, 

transportation, headquarters and guard station improvement, and supervisory 

and training organization on the Shasta Experimental Fire Forest (USDA FS 

1930, 1931).

With the founding of SEFF, plans were made for the organization of a fire 

research program at SEFF. Within six months, Kotok hired a three-man fire 

research staff to run the Shasta Fire Control Project, which was headed by George 

M. Gowen, and assisted by A.A. Brown, and J.R. Curry (Cermak 2005, Stuart 

1931). Foresters had strongly advocated this action, which offered the opportunity 

to test and observe in detail all phases of the fire problem. Thereafter, fire research 

became of primary importance to CFRES (USDA FS 1932b), and by 1931, the 

California Station aggressively attacked the forest-fire problem by beginning this 

series of studies designed to round out Show and Kotok’s work, which had already 

established protection principles of great value (Stuart 1931). 

Meanwhile, during the fall and winter of 1930, CFRES staff devoted their time 

to field and office work that addressed several major fire control factors, beginning 

with detection. This phase involved investigating visibility mapping, lookout point 

selection, lookout performance, color filters and photography as aids to detection, 

and motor patrols. For instance, in 1929, Gowen, Brown, and Curry conducted a 

detection study specifically involving the principles of visibility mapping from 

high points. The three-person team spent 1930 and 1931 developing the project into 

one of protection planning, and in 1932 reported their findings, which aimed at 

“maximum coverage by direct visibility of fire occurrence zones with the minimum 

of lookouts.” Out of this study came the first school for visibility mappers (Cermak 

2005: 201–202). Work was also begun by CFRES on fire suppression (squads, speed 

of line construction, use of water, firebreaks, firelines, motorways, and fire control 

equipment), fire behavior (spark ignition tests), and fire damage. Meanwhile, Kotok 

recognized the necessity of adding similar work in southern California to the station’s fire research program (USDA FS 1931, 1932b). 

At the same time, Kotok and Show advocated a statewide detection system 

and formed a Forest Service-wide fire committee at the station to scrutinize every 

aspect of the detection problem. Kotok headed the group, and he left no stone unturned in researching this project, from structure design to psychological testing 

of lookout operators. The group concluded that California needed an “integrated 

network from the Oregon border to the Mexican line to insure rapid and accurate 

fire discovery,” (Thorton 1994: 12) and though many lookouts were already built, 

Kotok’s group recommended building more, replacing existing buildings, and 

abandoning deficient sites. The group’s recommendations would dovetail nicely 

Fire research became 

of primary importance 

to CFRES.
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with the arrival of the emergency programs that came with the New Deal following 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s election. Agencies such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) would be of great assistance to the Forest Service in improving 

fire control throughout the state. This aid also sped up fire research at CFRES as 

well (Thorton 1994). 

Forest Influences

According to Clapp’s A National Program of Forest Research (Clapp 1926), “no 

other effects of the forest play a more important part in human economy and have 

attracted greater popular attention than has its influence upon the climate, soil, the 

regularity of streamflow, and erosion.” Despite Clapp’s statement, until 1926, the 

Forest Service in California had only conducted fragmentary work in forest influences. The only project worth mentioning in the northern half of the state was an 

experiment in sand dune fixation by forest plantations, carried out in Golden Gate 

Park in San Francisco. But in southern California, where much of the water was 

obtained from wells, the influence of the forest upon the water table was of great 

importance and interest to the Forest Service. In the agricultural districts of this 

part of California, chaparral played an important role in the prevention of erosion 

and stream regulation (Clapp 1926). A brief chronological history of the vicissitudes 

and reported work on forest influences in southern California might best explain 

how CFRES began its work on the subject.

The first steps toward definitive forest influence studies in southern California 

happened in 1911, when a fire burned over 75 percent of the watershed of Waterman 

Canyon on the San Bernardino National Forest. To learn from the event, District 5 

proposed a comparative streamflow study between Waterman Canyon and the 

unburned Devil Canyon on the Angeles National Forest. The Washington Office 

Central Investigative Committee (WO-CIC) disapproved the project, but despite 

this rejection, that year a series of articles appeared in the proceedings of the Society of American Foresters on forest influences (USDA FS 1932b: 36). The articles 

claimed that converting chaparral into high forests could possibly boost humidity, 

lower temperatures, and augment rainfall. Largely because of this information, 

WO-CIC reversed its decision the next year. In 1913, when the Converse Experiment Station was opened, forest influence studies were assigned to it with the 

objectives of determining the effect of brush cover on streamflow and the relative 

value of chaparral and forest cover as a conserver of water. Three years later, E.N. 

Munns made his final report on the Waterman-Devil Canyon study, but because 

of differences in geological formation of the two watersheds and unsatisfactory 

observation data, his report was inconclusive. In 1917, the Converse Station closed 

No other effects of 

the forest play a more 

important part in 

human economy and 

have attracted greater 

popular attention 

than has its influence 

upon the climate, 

soil, the regularity 

of streamflow, and 

erosion.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

because of America’s entry into World War I, but after the war, Munns picked up 

the subject again. In cooperation with the state of California, he published a general 

survey of all the important watersheds in California entitled Erosion and Flood 

Problems in California (Munns 1923). However, District 5’s research branch conducted no forest influences research at this time because D5-IC felt that until sufficient funds were available, District 5 should keep out of this broad subject area 

(USDA FS 1930, 1932b). 

So when CFRES designated forest influences as a major line of study for 

southern California and began work in the field, there was already a moderate interest in the problem. But before plunging into this new line of work, Kotok and D5-IC 

carefully reviewed all the collected data pertinent to the study of forest influences 

in southern California, which they realized involved many engineering, meteorological, and ecological questions. Satisfied that the research topic was an important 

one, they sought appropriations from Congress and financial support from southern 

California community interests, such as the state, counties, and municipalities 

(USDA FS 1927).

Because erosion from burned chaparral and forest areas caused the loss of 

many farms, resulted in silted-up reservoirs, and destroyed much other property in 

southern California, CFRES’ first forest influences study was devoted principally 

to the development of techniques and methods in measuring erosion and runoff 

from watersheds. Their first project examined a 60-acre watershed near the mouth 

of Devil Canyon that had burned in 1925 (USDA FS 1928). To observe the natural 

process of soil erosion on burned-over areas by vegetative cover type, permanent 

sample plots were established in various cover types, along different slopes and 

aspects, and in adjacent unburned areas. In conjunction with the large-scale study 

of what came to be called the Barranca Burn Study, CFRES established a meteorological station at the Devil Canyon nursery. The California Station also selected 

smaller areas elsewhere in order to make a comparative study of superficial runoff 

and erosion on burned and unburned chaparral-covered slopes (USDA FS 1928, 

1930, 1931). In 1930, Charles J. Kraebel reported on the Barranca Burn Study (Aitro 

1977). But ironically, a year later, heavy rains destroyed the station’s runoff and 

erosion experiment (USDA FS 1932b).

While Kraebel worked on this project, in 1928, CFRES changed its methodological approach to watershed management investigations. Instead of attempting 

to evaluate the influence of a variety of factors within a complex of phenomena as 

was being done by Kraebel in the Barranca Burn Study, CFRES’ new plan was to 

isolate variables under experimental control, then trace the operation of such variables into intermediate complexes of plots, and then finally study them in the larger 

Erosion from burned 

chaparral and forest 

areas caused the loss 

of many farms, resulted 

in silted-up reservoirs, 

and destroyed much 

other property in 

southern California.
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

complexes of watersheds. Thereafter, the station, in cooperation with the University 

of California’s Division of Forestry,47 began studying isolated factors of watersheds 

through field and laboratory methods. This change in methodology eventually led 

to striking results. Director Kotok presented the objectives of this new approach at 

a conference called by Earle Clapp on the subject. Kotok and R5-IC thought that 

the station should focus on watershed management toward the maximum yield of 

water for use by urban and irrigation interests in southern California. A study of 

this nature, Station Director Kotok explained, would involve a new methodology, 

along with a combination of experiments and new technology that used various 

instruments and tanks to study runoff, watersheds, and the relationships of soil and 

vegetation to water. They believed that the problem of forest influences in southern 

California went far beyond simply erosion control and streamflow regulation, which

were the main objectives in more humid regions of the country. The ultimate objective, according to them, was water conservation, “namely the conservation for beneficial human use of every possible drop of the rainfall which is received” (USDA 

FS 1930: 51). However, because the problem of water in southern California was so 

critical, and because investigations were so complex and involved so many federal, 

state, and local agencies,48 CFRES closely confined its investigations to the role 

that the mantle of forest vegetation played in water economy, erosion, and erosion 

control (USDA FS 1930). Later that year, thanks to supplemental congressional 

funding for USDA agencies involved in erosion and runoff experiments, along with 

substantial aid from the state and from five counties and two cities in southern 

California (USDA FS 1932b), CFRES was able to pursue this aspect of the influence of forests on watersheds.

With adequate funding available, Kotok was ready to set CFRES on a course of 

forest influence study. To lead the way, in 1929 he employed watershed conservationist Walter Lowdermilk, who had just returned from China after years of watershed and erosion work there, to oversee forest influences research for the station 

(Hill 1931). Within a short time, Lowdermilk’s investigations at Devil Canyon indicated that surface runoff from forest soils from which the litter had been removed 

was from 10 to 30 times the runoff from soils with a complete and undisturbed 

mantle of forest litter. The simple reason for this, in Lowdermilk’s assessment, was 

47 In 1933, the school of forestry officially offered courses in forest influences under Joseph 

Kittredge (Cassamajor 1965).

48 Besides the Forest Service, important agencies studying water problems in this region of 

California included the U.S. Weather Bureau; Geological Survey; Bureau of Public Roads; 

State of California Department of Public Works, Divisions of Engineering and Irrigation 

and of Water Rights; University of California, Division of Irrigation Investigations and 

Practices and Division of Forestry.

The problem of forest 

influences in southern 

California went far 

beyond simply erosion 

control and streamflow 

regulation, which

were the main 

objectives in more 

humid regions of the 

country.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

that when muddy water from a denuded area percolated into the ground, the fine 

material carried in suspension was deposited close to the surface. As these particles 

built up, they clogged up the pores of the soil, thereby making the soil impervious. 

This sealing effect resulted in flash flooding. On the other hand, according to 

Lowdermilk, a forest cover broke the force of the rain. This action kept the rainwater clear by straining out any pore-clogging material that might be picked up, 

so that when the water finally reached the soil it was absorbed easily and rapidly. 

Essentially, the water-absorbing capacity of forest litter had little influence on 

runoff, as many erroneously believed. However, by keeping the water clean, forest 

litter kept the soil profile open to percolation (Helms 1984, Stuart 1929).

Along with this important discovery, Lowdermilk used new technology and a 

new method of measurement that he initially called a “lysiphytometer”—later to 

be known as a lysimeter (fig. 42). This technology was akin to using giant “flower 

pots,” some of which were 10 by 20 feet in area and six feet deep. Transpiration, 

or the consumption of water by vegetation during growth, was studied by growing 

representative plants in these large especially designed tanks filled with soil. With 

lysimeters, Lowdermilk believed that CFRES could gather statistically accurate 

data associated with the many variables and factors involved in understanding evaporation versus plant transpiration. During 1929, CFRES installed four lysimeters 

at Devil Canyon and two at North Fork administration site in the foothills of the 

Sierra National Forest49 (fig. 43). Data from the latter installation, along with work 

at the station at Strawberry Canyon east of the Berkeley campus in 1931, were used 

in studies of California’s pine forest region, as well as for research on southern 

California chaparral conditions (Lowdermilk and Hamilton 1933; Sinclair 1936; 

USDA FS 1930, 1932b).

In addition to the research at Devil Canyon, in the summer of 1929 the Forest 

Service agreed to make a pilot study of the San Dimas watershed with the cooperation of William A. Johnston of the San Dimas Water Company, and the support 

of the Los Angeles County Forestry Department and the Chamber of Commerce. 

Kotok, Clapp, and Lowdermilk selected the site for the study after making a thorough survey of the watershed. By March of the next year, Lowdermilk had set 

49 Essentially, during each spring, Lowdermilk planted chaparral species of the surrounding cover into three lysimeters, and three were left bare. Twice a year, at the beginning and 

end of the growing season, the soil mass in each set of three lysimeters was brought to its 

full holding capacity. The records of the water entering the instrument and the water draining through the instrument were expected to indicate the water loss from the soil mass—in 

one set of three lysimeters as evaporation and, with certain manipulation, in the second 

set of three lysimeters as transpiration from an included plant. Basically, the lysimeters 

demonstrated the feasibility of this new method of volumetrically measuring the loss of 

moisture from drained soil masses (USDA FS 1930, 1931).

By keeping the water 

clean, forest litter kept 

the soil profile open to 

percolation. 
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Figure 42—Lysimeters at Strawberry Canyon, California.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Figure 43—Two North Fork 

lysimeters, 1937. U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

up four small experimental plots in San Dimas Canyon and he initiated studies to 

measure rainfall and to determine how much erosion took place on cleared versus 

uncleared chaparral slopes. For the next 2 years, Lowdermilk and others conducted 

field checks of numerous other mountain areas in southern California with the objective of finding the best possible location for a full-fledged forest research facility, or experimental forest. Having found no better site, in June 1932, Lowdermilk 

formally recommended the San Dimas and the nearby Big Dalton watersheds, to 

serve as paired watersheds for the project. Three months later, Director Kotok 

and E.N. Munns, by then the head of forest influences research at Forest Service 

headquarters in Washington, approved his selections. Thus, the San Dimas Experimental Forest (SDEF) was born (Robinson 1980, USDA FS 1931). 

Initially, 13,000 acres in San Dimas and the nearby Big Dalton Canyons were 

set aside for the experimental forest. Later, SDEF was expanded to just over 17,000 

acres. This site was selected for four major reasons: its vegetative pattern was typical of the southern California mountains; the region was isolated and considered 

ideal for controlled study of waterflow; the two main drainages contained numerous small tributaries suitable for a variety of experiments; and, because the canyons 

were harnessed by county flood control dams, they provided controls for measurement of waterflow. At Tanbark Flats, Lowdermilk established his headquarters with 

living and laboratory facilities for his research staff. In December 1932, CFRES 

staff, Region 5 research staff, and researchers from all over the West assembled at 

a conference held there (fig. 44). At this meeting, they discussed in great detail the 

experiments that would be carried out at SDEF, a comprehensive research program 

that Lowdermilk estimated would take 30 years or more to complete (Robinson 

1980) (fig. 45).

In the interim, between 1927 and 1932, Kotok and Lowdermilk published a 

barrage of publications on the subject of forest influences. In his articles, Kotok 

focused on the influence of forest cover on water supply. He summarized a number 

of surveys investigating forest devastation (overcutting, destructive fires, overgrazing, and other abuses of forest and uncultivated lands) and its contribution to soil 

and water problems and generally described the erosion problem in forestry.50 On 

the latter subject, Kotok emphasized the necessity of maintaining soil cover to 

check erosion, referred to experiments on the influence of soil cover upon runoff 

and erosion, and pointed out that on badly eroded land, the forester had the dual job

50 For instance, in 1932, Kotok published in American Forests an article entitled “Solving 

the Forest and Water Riddle” that described recent results of experiments conducted in 

California (Kotok 1932).
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Figure 44—Forestry scientists looking over lysimeters at 1939 water influences conference at the San Dimas Experimental Forest. 

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Figure 45—1939 water influences conference group at San Dimas Experimental Forest. 

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

of devising means to check erosion and of starting a new forest. On the other hand, 

Lowdermilk’s publications were more technical. They discussed factors influencing 

surface rainfall runoff, or the forest litter influence on runoff, percolation, and erosion. Other articles by Lowdermilk covered watershed management problems, such 

as obtaining maximum beneficial water production, or brush and forest-lands management for maximum irrigation water yield. In consideration of brush woodland 

forest influence on rain intensities, and disposition by retention, runoff, seepage, 

evaporation, and transpiration, Lowdermilk suggested storing water in underground 

reservoirs (Aitro 1977), a technology, which is only now being explored with success with the Central Arizona Project.51

Range Research

Research into forest influences was not the only new major line of research that 

came to CFRES in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Range research also became an 

increasingly important field of study at the station, but not before several major 

national events involving the Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service.

First, on March 1, 1926, the Office of Grazing Research in Washington, D.C., 

was transferred from the Branch of Grazing to the Branch of Research in the Agriculture Department. This transfer completed the combination of all the research 

activities of the Forest Service into one unit (Greeley 1926). A similar transfer on 

the district/regional level, however, did not immediately follow suit, largely because 

of a lack of funding.52 So, in California, District 5’s Office of Range Management 

continued to handle grazing investigations separately from CFRES. District 5 

investigations were limited to specific problems of an immediate nature on certain 

national forests, such as browse range and deer management on the Tahoe and 

51 Central Arizona Project (CAP) is designed to bring about 1.5 million acre-feet of 

Colorado River water per year to Pima, Pinal, and Maricopa Counties. The CAP carries 

water from Lake Havasu near Parker to the southern boundary of the San Xavier Indian 

Reservation southwest of Tucson. It is a 336-mile-long system of aqueducts, tunnels, pumping plants, and pipelines and is the largest single resource of renewable water in the state 

of Arizona. In 1990, legislation passed authorizing CAP to develop state demonstration 

recharge projects and established the State Water Storage Fund to finance development of 

these projects with revenues derived from a property tax collected in Pima and Maricopa 

Counties. The purpose of the state demonstration project statutes was to allow for construction of permanent, large-scale underground storage facilities for direct recharge of excess 

CAP water. These facilities provide a means of storing excess CAP water not currently 

used by CAP subcontractors for future recovery during periods of severe water shortages.

52 Nationwide, Forest Service range research was largely still confined to the Great Basin 

Experiment Station in Utah, the Santa Rita Range Reserve in southern Arizona, or the 

Jornada Range Reserve in southern New Mexico. There were fewer than 40 full-time Forest Service forest range research and technical workers in the entire country (Rowley 1985, 

Stuart 1929).
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Lassen National Forests, respectively, and grazing related to western yellow pine 

reproduction on the Modoc National Forest. The District 5 Office of Range Management also oversaw studies pertaining to all of California’s national forests, such 

as artificial and natural reseeding, chemical eradication of certain poisonous plants, 

and erosion control. Jesse W. Nelson from District 5, along with individual national 

forest staff, such as Modoc National Forest Supervisor F.P. Cronemiller,53 handled 

these projects. However, the time they devoted to them was limited. Nelson readily 

admitted that District 5 needed to approach range research on a larger scale, and 

with a much broader program, and looked forward to when CFES embraced more 

pressing problems affecting grazing administration. But, research dollars were 

needed. In 1927, some D5-IC members, growing impatient with the grazing industry’s disinterest in range research, suggested that silvicultural and water conservation interests might be better pressed for support (USDA FS 1928, 1930, 1931).

Passage of the McSweeney-McNary Forest Research Act the next year changed 

this situation both nationally and regionally. Because of McSweeney-McNary Act 

funding, range research nationwide doubled over the next 2 years. Clapp’s 1926 

National Program of Forest Research generally defined range research as including 

taxonomy, ontogeny, physiology, ecology, biological relationships, fire, food values, 

genetics, exotics, and influences investigations. Range research also included forage 

management, or the relationships among range and timber, erosion, fire, and wildlife, animal husbandry, and carrying capacity studies (Clapp 1926). By 1929, Forest 

Service range research centered on four broader areas: range forage, range management, artificial revegetation, and watershed protection. Furthermore, responsibility for range research was extended to include all range lands, both public and 

private, within each regional boundary (Rowley 1985). Finally, in August 1930, the 

Southwestern Forest and Range Experiment Station was organized as a regional 

unit of the Forest Service. Headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, under a cooperative 

agreement with the University of Arizona and directed by G.A Pearson, the new 

station brought together and expanded the Jornada and Santa Rita Range Reserves 

range investigations, which thereafter became experimental ranges (Price 1976, 

Stuart 1931). At the same time, as noted earlier, CFRES took over all range research 

responsibilities from District 5 and changed its name to the California Forest and 

Range Experiment Station (CFRES). 

53 In 1935, Cronemiller was appointed to the position of assistant regional forester in charge 

of the Division of Wildlife and Range Management in Region 5. Under Cronemiller, grazing management took a turn for the better (Godfrey 2005).

Forest Service range 

research centered on 

four broader areas: 

range forage, range 

management, artificial 

revegetation, and 

watershed protection. 
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The above evolution in range research came at an appropriate time, for 

systematic range research had been conspicuously wanting in California. In 

1930, California had close to 150,000 livestock grazing on its national forests. 

The inauguration of range research in the state by CFRES was doubtless of great 

importance, because the interrelationship of grazing with timber production and 

watershed protection especially demanded the study of ways to restore depleted 

ranges and assurance of sustained profitable production of livestock without injury 

to other resources (Stuart 1930, 1931). The San Joaquin Valley foothills were one 

livestock area of particular concern in California. Here, long dry summers made 

the maintenance of forage growth difficult. Besides improper grazing management 

that had seriously damaged range, timber, and watersheds there, successive years 

of exceptional drought placed the local grazing industry in an extremely precarious situation. Hence, CFRES concentrated its first studies on this land hoping to 

make it more useful to the livestock industry, while duly safeguarding an important 

public interest in water yield and the prevention of soil erosion (Stuart 1932).

Meanwhile, until 1930, Region 5 drew upon the systematic research findings in 

other Forest Service regions and applied them in California so far as circumstances 

permitted. Although this transfer of range research to the station rounded out the 

station’s regional research program, a true range research program had yet to be 

initiated in California (USDA FS 1932b). To bring this goal to fruition, in 1931, 

Director Kotok hired three range specialists: Murrell W. Talbot, F.G. Renner, and 

August L. Hormay. However, a major problem yet to be resolved at this time was 

finding a satisfactory work center for range research. Kotok and Talbot actively 

looked for such an experimental range along the most promising areas of public 

domain available in the Sierra western foothills—preferably somewhere near the 

Stanislaus, Sierra, or Sequoia National Forests. While searching for this research 

site, Talbot, as grazing research head, began two regional grazing projects, one in 

California’s San Joaquin Valley and the other in northern California’s pine country 

(USDA FS 1932b). 

Foothill-Range project— 

Talbot’s first range research study was called the Foothill-Range project. Its broad 

objective was to determine how the foothills surrounding the San Joaquin Valley 

should be grazed to contribute the most to the livestock industry, without serious 

interference with other important public uses of the land. Tentative plans for the 

Foothill-Range project included studies on the effect of grazing on the composition, 

feed value, and maintenance of the forage crop. Life histories of important range 

plants were also studied to determine their growth habits and conditions favorable 
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to their establishment and maintenance. Finally, there were comparative water yield 

and soil erosion investigations on ungrazed, lightly grazed, and overgrazed areas on 

both sheep and cattle ranges. In connection with this last endeavor, Talbot installed 

temporary and permanent unfenced and fenced plots in different range types and 

at elevations ranging from 600 to 3,000 feet along San Joaquin Valley rangeland. 

Next, Talbot devised an extensive 8-page form to collect data for the foothills project. This investigational questionnaire asked for direct plot information pertaining 

to soils, forest litter, fires, grazing management, rodents, erosion, vegetation density, composition and utilization, and development of ungrazed plants. Initial results 

from these plots indicated that insufficient forage production in the critical early 

winter period was a major problem (Stuart 1932, USDA FS 1932b). 

Pine-Range project— 

The second research project undertaken by Talbot and the CFRES was called the 

Pine-Range project. Its broad objective explored the kind and amount of grazing 

that could be practiced in commercial timber areas, especially in certain northern 

California national forests, without serious conflict with other important land uses. 

The CFRES wanted to better understand the effects of different kinds and intensities of grazing by sheep and cattle on such points as pine reproduction, the composition and feed value of the forage, soil erosion, and recreational development. 

Talbot tentatively planned to center this project in the “east-side” pine types (USDA 

FS 1932b).

Forest Economics Research

Until 1931, forest economics research at the station centered on completion of the 

state cover type map. The State Forester furnished valuable cooperative assistance 

in this effort by detailing state rangers to assist in mapping and by providing transportation for mappers during non-fire season (Clar 1959, USDA FS 1927). The 

station’s type map project was one of evolution, and had last been undertaken 

more than 20 years earlier during the joint federal-state forest survey (1903 to 1907) 

(Clar 1959). From its simple beginnings came one of the most important projects 

conducted by the station. At first, the goal of CFES was to complete in a comparatively short time a rough type map of the country outside of the national forests, 

to graphically show the major vegetative types found in California54 (Wieslander 

54 Interestingly, this project was initiated 2 years prior to the nationwide FRS authorized by 

the 1928 McSweeney-McNary Research Forest Act.
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1935). This project was supervised by A.E. Wieslander55 and was carried out first 

for the northern part of the state, involving over 1,700 townships—845 of them 

within national forests. Work was pushed forward in that area as far as finances 

permitted. The mapping of southern California did not begin until 1929 and was 

then handled as a winter job, starting on the Angeles National Forest (USDA FS 

1928, 1930, 1932b). Many agencies and individuals participated in this initial vegetation survey, including lumber companies and other timber owners, the Division 

of Forestry of the University of California, the state forester’s office, the administrative organization of the Forest Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Office 

of White Pine Blister Rust Control, superintendents of national parks, and certain 

counties. Soon, a wide variety of engineering, scientific, and other nonfederal organizations in the state perceived the value of these maps, causing demand to increase 

to an unexpected level with offers of financial assistance for this undertaking from 

various sources (Wieslander 1935).

In the interim, the nationwide FRS reached California. In anticipation of this 

event, in August 1930 Director Kotok and Regional Forester Show agreed to 

dovetail the work of the California cover type map with the FRS because it added 

funding to the cover type map project. However, the agreement added four new data

fields to the data collection process. These fields required the gathering of information on cutover lands, defined as all logged lands whether burned or not; burns, or 

lands not cutover on which the stand had been killed by fire; noncommercial rocky 

areas within timber types, and site classification of all forest or potential forest land 

(USDA FS 1931). The simple vegetation map project conceived in 1926 was intensified even further in 1931, when southern Californians demanded that the map 

supply data for the proper evaluation and protection of watershed cover. The 

obvious value of this request soon led to the addition of this data to the maps statewide (Wieslander 1935). Now the most vexing problem before the CFRES was 

publication of the maps during the government economic hardship caused by the 

Depression. However, in 1932, the California Economic Research Council came 

to the project’s aid by helping to secure a doubling of the state appropriation for 

cooperation for this project. This action speeded up publication. Thereafter, the 

Forest Service and the state of California jointly published the project as two sets 

of maps. The first map set was a statewide vegetation type map (220 sheets). The 

55 In turning over the project to Wieslander, Kotok said, “If you don’t finish the project in 

2 years, I’ll be very much surprised.” Because the inventory work was expanded to include 

other variables and be merged with the larger Forest Survey project discussed later, it was 

still far from completed when Wieslander retired in 1956 (Casamajor, n.d.: 4).

A wide variety of 

engineering, scientific, 

and other nonfederal 

organizations in the 

state perceived the 

value of these maps, 

causing demand 

to increase to an 

unexpected level with 

offers of financial 

assistance for this 

undertaking from 

various sources.
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second map set (137 sheets) was an economic cover map for California. The latter 

set depicted five broad land classifications: forested, watershed, grazing, cultivated, 

and barren (USDA FS 1932b, Wieslander 1935).

Other USDA Agency Research

While the CFRES was getting established and beginning investigations along the 

six lines of research embedded in CFRES’ program, other foresters were not idle. 

District/Region 5 and other USDA agencies also conducted forestry research in 

California. 

District/Region 5— 

Forestry research conducted by District/Region 5 took place in three offices: the 

Office of Forest Management, the Office of Range Management, and for a short 

time, the Office of Fire Control. Of these three offices, after 1931 only the Office 

of Forest Management continued to conduct a separate forestry research program 

in cooperation with CFRES. However, Region 5’s Office of Forest Management 

relegated its research activities to conducting narrowly focused studies such as 

investigating tractor-logging engineering problems, spark-arrester studies, and a 

limited number of silviculture problems, such as mill scale practices, logging damage, or slash disposal experiments. It also conducted forestry investigations on each 

national forest, some experimental planting studies with trees supplied by both the 

Feather River and Devil Canyon Branch Station nurseries, and sundry other projects, which do not come under the purview of this publication (USDA FS 1927, 

1928, 1930, 1931). Finally, District/Region 5’s Office of Forest Management prepared reports on proposed experimental forests and RNAs, in the California region. 

By 1932, CFRES and Region 5 made a positive recommendation for the proposed 

Feather River Experimental Forest, to be located on the Plumas National Forest, 

and the Swain Mountain Experimental Forest, in the Lassen National Forest.56 The 

establishment of an Eastern Lassen Experimental Forest was still up in the air. They 

recommended seven RNAs, including the Devils Garden and Lava Beds RNAs 

in the Modoc National Forest; the Summit Camp RNA in the Eldorado National 

Forest; the Reagan Meadow RNA on the Trinity National Forest; the Sweetwater 

RNA in the Mono National Forest; and the Indiana Summit RNA (fig. 46), to be 

56 The withdrawal report by C.E. Dunston and A.E. Wieslander, November 12, 1931, was 

approved by Chief Forester Stuart on March 22, 1932 (Gordon 1978).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 46—Upper boundary of Indiana Summit Research Natural 

Area on Inyo National Forest.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest 

Research Station

located in the Inyo National Forest.57 Once the regional forester and the director 

of the experiment station approved these reports, they were sent off to the Chief 

forester for final action (USDA FS 1932b). 

Forest Pathology and Entomology Research

In the period after 1926, the Bureaus of Entomology and Plant Industry continued 

to assign forest entomologists and pathologists to forest experiment stations (Stuart 

1929). In 1927, John M. Miller, of the Office of Forest Entomology, conducted 

research work on this topic for District 5, but his work was largely limited to the 

Sierra, Inyo, and Modoc National Forests. In cooperation with District 5, the station, and private industry, Miller also conducted small control projects in the southern part of the state (Greeley 1927, USDA FS 1927). However, a year later, one of 

the most serious insect infestations on the national forests nationwide occurred in 

California,58 when an outbreak of bark beetle on the Modoc National Forest and 

57 The first RNA approved in California was the Indiana Summit RNA on the Inyo 

National Forest, which was established in 1932. The Jeffrey pine forest at Indiana Summit 

is part of a large tract of essentially pure Jeffrey pine forest stretching from the eastern 

flank of the Sierra Nevada across the divide between the Mono Basin and Owens River 

drainage. Much of this forest has been harvested for timber, and the RNA preserves a rare 

pristine example. Today, California has 52 RNAs, which are managed to serve the objectives of the RNA system. Additionally, more than 40 areas have been approved but have not 

yet been established (Cheng 2004).

58 The insect outbreak was so severe that the AFA editorialized that “highly trained 

scientists were giving practically their entire time to control work and were without funds 

for developing through research more efficient methods of control.... This is reason enough 

for urging the passage of the McSweeney bill which would write into law a definite federal 

policy covering forest research in all its branches” (American Forests and Forest 1928b). 

The McSweeney-McNary bill initially authorized an increase for research on insect 

affected forests, but the Bureau of the Budget apparently reduced it in the final authorization (American Forests and Forest Life 1929).
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surrounding patented lands became extremely destructive. As much as half of the 

valuable mature pine timber was killed in some sections. To check the infestation, 

the Forest Service logged the affected trees before the beetles emerged the following spring. The trees were then salvaged before they had deteriorated too badly 

to make usable lumber.59 To further help CFRES address this problem; the BE’s 

Office of Forest Insect Investigations assigned an additional entomologist to work 

with the station (Stuart 1928). By 1929, this tree-killing insect infestation in California’s northern forests was halted through a combination of logging and natural 

causes (Stuart 1929), but by the close of 1931, there were strong indications that 

a serious bark-beetle epidemic was building up in the western yellow pine stands 

in California. Because the attacking species had two generations each season, the 

degree of infestation in different places could not be determined until the late fall. 

In response, arrangements were made with the BE to collect the necessary information to combat the invasion, and a staff of two entomologists, J.M. Miller and G.R. 

Struble, a scientific aide at the time, and two agents was thereafter assigned to 

CFRES under the McSweeney-McNary Forest Research Act as cooperative personnel for forest insect investigations (Stuart 1931, USDA FS 1932b). As predicted, in 

1932 there was a serious increase in the destructiveness of the western pine beetle 

in northern California. Region 5, along with CFRES, began cooperative work with 

the owners of private stands of forest intermingled with pine timber on the Sierra 

National Forest, but losses were heavy both in the mature forest and in seed trees 

left on cutover areas (Stuart 1932).

The Office of Pathology (OP) was also busily at work in District/Region 5. 

During the period 1926 to 1932, pathologist E.P. Meinecke processed years of 

accumulated data concerning District 5’s forests, while pathologist S.N. Wyckoff 

of the Office of Blister Rust Control worked diligently on local control of white pine 

59 By far the most serious menace to California’s forests was insect invasions, such as bark 

beetles, which were always at work in coniferous forests. They threatened to become an 

epidemic when conditions favorable to their multiplication arose. The Forest Service at this 

time controlled bark-beetle epidemics by felling the infested trees and peeling or burning 

the bark. As a rule, epidemics occurred in the older and therefore less-resistant stands 

(Greeley 1927).
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blister rust60 in District 5 (USDA FS 1927). In 1930, white pine blister rust had 

spread rapidly throughout Idaho and Oregon, and foresters feared that similar 

conditions were bound to develop in the sugar pine region of California (Stuart 

1930). The disease had not yet reached the important sugar-pine producing portions 

of California by 1931, but it was known that this tree, like other American fiveneedled pines, was susceptible (Stuart 1931).

Wildlife and Recreation Research

By 1926, wildlife and recreation research within the Forest Service structure was 

barely in its infancy. In A National Program of Forest Research, Earle Clapp (1926) 

proposed that wildlife research should focus on the place of each species in the 

ecology of the environment followed by related research on life habits. Once these 

facts were established, in Clapp’s opinion, the Forest Service could build an effective technology of conservation and control that addressed the biological balance 

of forests (Clapp 1926). In California, understanding the management of growing 

deer populations and their effect on forest range resources was a key problem. Of 

the more than 600,000 deer on the Nation’s national forests at this time, 227,000 

browsed on California’s forests (Greeley 1926). To address the problem, in 1928, 

the Agriculture Departments’ Bureau of Biological Survey (BBS) began to conduct 

cooperative wildlife investigations with the CFRES, and plans were underway to 

assign a forest biologist to the forest experiment station—the first such assignment 

in the country (Stuart 1928). The concept of wildlife research in the 1920s was very 

different than the environmental/ecological approach of today. For instance, in 1927 

when F.E. Garlough was assigned to work with CFRES, he outlined a research program that included studies not just of the natural habits of animals such as deer, but 

studies on the damage to forests caused by wildlife and experiments with poisons 

like strychnine and arsenic for eliminating wildlife considered harmful to productive forests, such as rodents, rabbits, squirrels, porcupines, and coyotes (USDA FS 

1928). In 1929, E.E. Horn replaced Garlough. Horn, a more enlightened biologist, 

60 White pine blister rust was introduced in the East from Europe between 1898 and 1908, 

although the disease is believed to have originated in Asia. In 1910, it was introduced into 

British Columbia and has since spread through the West. In North America as a whole, 

it has caused more damage and more money has been spent to control it than any other 

conifer disease. Thousands of white pine (Pinus strobus) stands have been seriously 

damaged, and many have been entirely lost. Historically, control efforts have focused 

upon removing the alternate host, members of the Ribes family, from stands of white pine. 

However, this never proved to be very effective, despite the thousands of hours of work that 

were invested. Likewise, effective chemical controls have never been developed. As blister 

rust is an introduced species, rather than one that evolved here, genetic resistance is limited 

in the white pines. For this reason the mortality from this disease has been extremely high.
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wished to study animals in relationship to regeneration of forest and range species, 

to erosion, soils, and watersheds, to plant distribution, and to animal life, forest 

fires, and deforested areas. However, D5-IC regrettably informed him that there 

was little probability of getting money for these general studies of biological relationships. They suggested that Horn focus on projects of practical service to forest 

management, such as the rate of invasion of burns by rodent populations—advice 

that Horn followed (USDA FS 1930b, 1932b).

In the field of recreation research, Clapp, Kotok, and others at this time did 

not fully appreciate the critical impact of the growing number of people using 

California’s national forests for recreation in terms of fire control, roads, and campground facilities. Earle Clapp’s A National Program of Forest Research provided 

only a brief statement that the greatest contribution that research could make to 

recreation was the maintenance of wildlife in forests, and the maintenance of the 

forest itself (Clapp 1926). The state of California, however, did understand the 

growing problem of recreation in California and authorized some related research. 

For instance, in 1929, the state forester demonstrated concern regarding the effect 

of excessive tourist travel on plant life, especially regarding the welfare of old redwood groves. Thereafter, the state engaged pathologist E.P. Meinecke to study the 

problem. Meinecke believed that recreation activity was a serious detriment to the 

roots and soil of forests. He recommended the formulation of a state park management policy that would regulate use in parks to stay within the physical capacity of 

the vegetation (Meinecke 1929). Meinecke thereafter wrote a series of publications 

regarding camp planning, camp construction, and campground policy that served to 

direct California State Park and Forest Service managers in constructing recreation 

facilities in the early 1930s.61 Despite this early research on the adverse impacts of 

recreation to parks and forests, formal research in forest recreation would not begin 

to evolve until the 1940s (Camp, n.d.).

61 Interestingly, Meinecke, in a short paper entitled “The Trailer Menace” published in 

1935, warned of the impacts that camper trailers would have on national forest and national 

park lands. In Meinecke’s view, the new type of trailer obviated camping altogether, and 

thought that two or more of them in a campground gave the “appearance of ill kept city 

slums in which cabins and huts, of all colors and all designs, are scattered without order 

or plan and completely destroy the last vestiges of camp intimacy in the wild” (Meinecke 

1935: 1).
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California and Hawaii State Divisions of Forestry

Under the stimulus of Section 4 of the 1924 Clarke-McNary Act,62 the California 

Division of Forestry,63 and the Territory of Hawaii cooperated with the Forest 

Service to promote the growing of forest crops. In California, reforestation efforts 

under the Clarke-McNary Act were limited in scope, but in Hawaii, a major reforestation effort took place after 1926, thanks to this legislation because forest planting 

was considered Hawaii’s greatest forestry need, and Hawaii’s forestry policy and 

programs focused almost exclusively on protecting watershed resources through 

planting programs or similar work.64

From 1927 to 1932, the Territory of Hawaii expended almost $115,000 toward 

the distribution of forest planting stock. The Forest Service contribution under 

the Clarke-McNary Act at this time was an additional 15 percent of that amount. 

Although the majority of federal dollars were used to support production of tree 

seedlings for reforestation, some of these expenditures were also used for reforestation research. However, the Forest Service still did not consider the commercial use 

of timber resources of the islands, and official or personal contact between officials 

of the Territory of Hawaii and CFRES were almost nonexistent (Greeley 1927; 

Nelson 1989; Stuart 1928, 1930, 1931, 1932).

Regarding fire protection, which included fire research, California participated 

in cooperative expenditures under Section 2 of the Clarke-McNary Act from 

the day of its passage. By 1932, federal appropriations for cooperative work in 

California amounted to just under $170,500 with the state of California contributing 

an additional $160,000 and private agencies another $350,000. In that year, Hawaii 

62 The Clarke-McNary Act, passed in 1924, authorized an annual federal appropriation 

of $2,500,000 for five objectives. First, it encouraged the protection of forest and water 

resources and the continuous production of timber on lands chiefly suitable for that purpose. Second, it sought to promote permanent and adequate protection against fire on all 

classes of state and private forest land, whether timbered, cutover, or burned for watersheds 

supplying water for domestic use or irrigation. Third, it provided for a comprehensive study 

of the forest tax question. Fourth, it supplied farmers with young forest trees for planting 

idle lands, windbreaks, and shelterbelts. And fifth, it gave advice to farmers in the proper 

handling of already established woods.

63 California created a Department of Natural Resources under the general supervision of a 

director, with a Division of Forestry administered by the state forester and guided by a state 

board of forestry in the creation of policies. This new department took over all the powers 

and duties of the former state forester and began to match expenditures (Greeley 1927).

64 The Forest Service helped the territorial government establish its forestry policy in the 

early 1900s, and there was minor assistance provided for tree species adaptability thereafter. For instance, in 1910, forest examiner Louis Margolin completed a 6-month assignment 

in Hawaii to study and prepare a report on the many species of eucalyptus (Eucalyptus

spp.) planted previously on the island. But further Forest Service assistance to Hawaii was 

sporadic prior to 1926 (Nelson 1989).
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initiated a program of cooperative forest fire protection under the Clarke-McNary 

Act as well. It was on a much smaller scale and totaled less than $2,000 (Stuart 

1932).

Eddy Tree Breeding Station

Because of the importance of genetics65 to forestry research in California, in 1927 

D5-IC invited the Eddy Tree Breeding Station, located at Placerville, California, 

to report on its research. The Eddy Tree Breeding Station was a private institution 

devoted to genetic research, founded in 1925 by James G. Eddy, a lumberman and 

timber owner from Everett, Washington (USDA FS 1928). Aware of the history of 

forest depletion in New England, in the Lake States, in the South, and in the early 

years in the Pacific Northwest, Eddy feared that a timber shortage was inevitable 

unless some way could be devised to make forest land produce more timber. 

Essentially, he wanted to find a way to develop fast-growing trees to avoid what 

he perceived as an impending forest famine. Meanwhile, the work of horticulturist Luther Burbank on techniques of plant breeding in the practical production of 

flowers, fruits, and field crops, in Santa Rosa, California, was gaining worldwide 

attention. Eddy decided to contact Burbank to ask him if genetics could be applied 

in some way to forestry. After some discussion, they agreed that genetics could be 

applied to forestry, much in the same manner that it was used for the improvement 

of fruit trees. During several subsequent consultations with Burbank, along with 

discussions with Earle Clapp, Edward Kotok, and University of California faculty 

members, such as Walter Mulford and the geneticist Ernest B. Babcock, Eddy 

65 The earliest attempt to improve forest trees was made more than 250 years ago, when an 

Englishman named Hamner noticed that the heaviest tree seed produced the strongest and 

fastest growing seedling. By the beginning of the 19th century, a French scientist named 

Vilmorin began comparative experiments with pine seed from different companies. Eventually, he founded a company of the same name. Today, the Vilmorin Corporation is the 

world’s oldest seed company. In the United States, almost immediately after the establishment of the Forest Service in 1905, work was performed on forest genetics. At this time, the 

American Breeders Association formed a committee on breeding nut and forest trees. The 

first chairman of the committee was Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot. In 1908, Pinchot submitted a report on breeding forest trees and thus laid down a foundation for forest genetics 

work in this country. This report clearly stated the effects of natural and artificial selection, 

showing how detrimental to the quality of our forests had been the practice of removing 

the best trees and leaving inferior ones to perpetuate themselves. As a supplement to this 

report, botany professor Willis Linn Jepson at the University of California made valuable 

suggestions on breeding trees in California (Mirov 1939).
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was encouraged to invest in and develop plans for a tree-breeding institution.66

Therefore, in the summer of 1924, Eddy decided to go forth with his idea of a treebreeding station and employed Lloyd Austin67 to seek a suitable location for the 

institute and direct the work there. After scouring the forest regions of the Pacific 

coast, they finally settled on an inland site three miles east of Placerville, which had 

a comparatively mild climate, good soil, ideal topography, water supply, accessibility, and other requisites favorable for growing trees. Additionally, the Placerville 

site was situated near the lower edge of the main western yellow pine timber belt 

in the central Sierras, where several other important timber species typical of the 

lower Sierras were found nearby. In the spring of 1925, land was cleared, an irrigation system established, and seed was collected on the 65-acre site and stored in 

an underground basement along with valuable records. The following spring, work 

began on nursery plantings (Austin 1927, 1929; Austin et al. 1974; Stockwell and 

Walker 1948; USDA FS 1948b).

The initial staff of the Eddy Tree Breeding Station consisted of Lloyd Austin, 

who served as director until 1940; forester John S. Barnes; and propagator H.M. 

Lumsden.68 When Austin and his staff began their work, they had to decide three 

fundamental issues that would influence the course of the program for years to 

come. First, should a limited group of trees be selected for experimentation, or 

should an attempt be made to improve all of this country’s timber trees? Careful 

consideration was given to breeding possibilities in several groups of trees, including pines, redwoods, firs, ashes, and walnuts. The genus Pinus was eventually

chosen for intensive study among the softwoods group, and walnuts among hardwoods. Second, should the final objective be wood quality, or growth rate, or some 

other desirable attribute? Growth rate was selected. Austin and his staff decided 

that from fast-growing timber pines, those resistant to cold, droughts, insects, and 

diseases could later be segregated. And finally, should the main effort be concentrated on improving existing timber trees by selecting the best available strains, 

66 In 1924, Eddy appeared before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Forestry while it 

met in Seattle to persuade the senators of the need for a station to experiment with tree 

breeding, but failed to convince them.

67 Lloyd Austin at that time was working in pomology at the University of California at 

Davis and had no forestry training whatsoever, but he had visited Luther Burbank on 

several occasions and was interested in tree breeding (Austin et al. 1974).

68 Before being appointed director, Lloyd Austin was on the staff of the Division of 

Pomology, University of California where he studied fruit tree breeding for a number of 

years. John S. Barnes was a graduate of the University of Michigan and had recently taken 

graduate work in forestry at the University of California. His duties covered field work 

of all sorts, particularly pollination and cone collection. Lumsden joined the staff in early 

1926, having previously been a forestry instructor at the University of Michigan. He was 

charged with all work at both the nursery and the arboretum (Austin 1927).

Should a limited group 

of trees be selected 

for experimentation, or 

should an attempt be 

made to improve all of 

this country’s timber 

trees?
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or should the effort be directed primarily toward the production of new strains by 

hybridizing? Austin decided to spend most of the station’s funds and manpower 

upon progeny testing, although hybridization of species was not neglected. Species 

testing of geographic races, including forms of species of pines other than those 

native to Europe, and individual seed trees of ponderosa pines whose progeny might 

show outstanding performance, was the first research work done at the station 

(Austin 1927, 1928a, 1932; Austin et. al. 1974; Stockwell and Walker 1948; USDA 

FS 1948b). 

By 1928, Austin and his staff moved into a new administration building, the 

original 65-acre tract of land was increased by 20 acres, and James Eddy turned 

over ownership of the land to the station. In that year, W.G. Wahlenberg69 succeeded John S. Barnes as station forester, and Francis I. Righter,70 who would later 

become a notable geneticist at the station, replaced Lumsden as propagator. At this 

early date, the station’s nursery section had the largest collection of pine species 

ever grown at one time in any part of the world. A total of 87 species and many 

important varieties were represented, and in the case of several of the major species, 

seed was secured from nearly a dozen localities within the species’ natural ranges. 

At this time, the station also distributed planting stock for experimental plantations 

in various parts of the Pacific coast, shipping to 20 different organizations from 

San Diego to Seattle. The Eddy Tree Breeding Station also distributed pine seeds to 

nurseries throughout the United States and a few foreign countries, including many 

rare species. Besides this nursery and seeding work, during the next few years, the 

Eddy Tree Breeding Station conducted and maintained long-term progeny tests, 

experiments in pollination, vegetative propagation, x-ray stimulation of mutations, 

and cultural experiments involving time of sowing, seedbed density, fertilization, 

and size of seed and irrigation. Each year, the station reported its work and findings 

to D5-IC (Austin 1929; USDA FS 1930, 1931).

In its early years, things went well with the Eddy Tree Breeding Station, but 

by the end of 1930, the station began to face financial difficulties because of the 

economic depression. Accordingly, Austin decided to incorporate the station under 

69 Wahlenberg came to the Eddy Tree Breeding Station with 6 years of experience in forest 

research at the Savenac nursery in Montana and had spent some time at the Southern Forest 

Experiment Station (USDA FS 1930).

70 Francis Irving Righter entered Cornell University as a forestry student and graduated in 

1923, having majored in forestry and minored in genetics. Two years later he took the Civil 

Service examination for a position in the Forest Service, was accepted, and spent a year 

at the Southern Forest Experiment Station at New Orleans, Louisiana. He was, however, 

interested in genetics, and in 1925 accepted an offer by Austin to work at the Eddy Tree 

Breeding Station. Righter was on the Institute of Forest Genetics staff when the Forest 

Service took it over in 1935 (Austin et al. 1974, USDA FS 1930).

The Eddy Tree 

Breeding Station 

also distributed pine 

seeds to nurseries 

throughout the United 

States and a few 

foreign countries, 

including many rare 

species. 
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the name “Institute of Forest Genetics,” to express the broad nature and scientific 

character of the investigations being conducted there. A national board of trustee 

of 15 to 18 prominent and well-qualified scientists and businessmen was selected 

to guide the destiny of the institution, and the property and control of the Eddy 

Tree Breeding Station was turned over to them. Board of Trustee members included 

prominent figures not only in forestry and forestry research, such as Earle Clapp, 

William Greeley, and Ralph Hosmer, but persons working at allied scientific 

institutions like Walter Mulford of the University of California. Personnel and 

objectives of the organization remained as before, but it was hoped that the nomenclature change would bring additional financial support from the business community. Austin and others at the Institute of Forest Genetics, which by this time had 

become the most complete arboretum of pine in the world, felt that the development 

of rapid-growing trees could stimulate reforestation by making it profitable and 

desirable for the individual landowner to grow timber as a crop (Austin 1932, 1937; 

Journal of Forestry 1932; USDA FS 1948b).

Vigorous Beginning

From 1926 to 1932, the California Forest Experiment Station went through the 

pangs of growth that any new institution of its nature went through. At the establishment of the station, the California Experiment Station had a staff of four technicians that included Director Kotok. The station also had two clerks at the Feather 

River Branch Station under its jurisdiction, which had no assigned staff. In the 

beginning, the station’s activities centered on forest management in California’s 

pine region. Six years later, CFRES personnel had grown to 26 permanent staff, 

eight clerks, and five cooperating personnel from other USDA agencies. In addition 

to the permanent force, during the field season, CFRES employed some 30 or more 

students from the University of California, or other short-term assistants, and two 

additional clerical assistants. Six years later, CFRES had six lines of research: forest 

management, utilization of wood and other forest products, forest protection, forest 

influences, range research, and forest economics. Additionally, the station had 

responsibility not just over the Feather River Branch Station in northern California, 

but also the Devil Canyon Branch Station in southern California, as well as two 

experimental forests—the Shasta Experimental Fire Forest (1929) that concentrated 

on the fire problems of Region 5, and the undeveloped Swain Mountain Experimental Forest (1932) for the study of white and red fir.
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Much of the growth of CFRES was attributable to the passage of the 

McSweeney-McNary Forestry Research Act and other federal legislation, as well as 

state and private institution support. Unlike Region 5, which felt the effects of the 

national economic crisis in its budget and declining revenues from forest resources 

such as timber sales and grazing fees (Godfrey 2005), CFRES was sustained by 

the appropriations from the McSweeney-McNary Forest Research Act, which 

provided steady research funding to CFRES during the national economic crisis 

that began after 1929. From its vigorous beginning, CFRES would see even greater 

program and facility expansion during the remainder of the 1930s. As will be seen, 

the McSweeney-McNary Act continued to provide steady support to the CFRES 

research program, and in the coming years, the station was also able to take advantage of the labor and funding provided by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal 

programs to increase its forestry research program into genetics—a seventh line of 

research—and to acquire several additional experimental forests in California for 

various research purposes.
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Chapter 4: 1933–1941, A New Deal for Forest 

Service Research in California

By the time President Franklin Delano Roosevelt won his landslide election in 

1932, forest research in the United States had grown considerably from the early 

work of botanical explorers such as Andre Michaux and his classic Flora BorealiAmericana (Michaux 1803), which first revealed the Nation’s wealth and diversity 

of forest resources in 1803. Exploitation and rapid destruction of forest resources 

had led to the establishment of a federal Division of Forestry in 1876, and as the 

number of scientists professionally trained to manage and administer forest land 

grew in America, it became apparent that our knowledge of forestry was not 

entirely adequate. So, within 3 years after the reorganization of the Bureau of 

Forestry into the Forest Service in 1905, a series of experiment stations was established throughout the country. In 1915, a need for a continuing policy in forest 

research was recognized by the formation of the Branch of Research (BR) in the 

Forest Service—an action that paved the way for unified, nationwide attacks on the 

obvious and the obscure problems of American forestry. This idea developed into 

A National Program of Forest Research (Clapp 1926) that finally culminated in 

the McSweeney-McNary Forest Research Act (McSweeney-McNary Act) of 1928, 

which authorized a series of regional forest experiment stations and the undertaking 

of research in each of the major fields of forestry. Then on March 4, 1933, President 

Roosevelt was inaugurated, and during the “first hundred days” of Roosevelt’s 

administration, Congress passed his New Deal plan, putting the country on a better 

economic footing during a desperate time in the Nation’s history. Many foresters at 

the time looked forward to a New Deal in forestry as well. But before that story can 

be told, a brief description of some of the key New Deal programs that would affect 

their desires for a new day in forestry research is necessary.

New Deal Programs

Roosevelt’s New Deal contained several relief programs for the unemployed that 

were designed to bring immediate assistance to the millions of native-born unemployed and to restore their morale and health. The first of these programs was the 

creation of the Civil Works Administration (CWA) on November 9, 1933, a temporary agency to employ millions of people to help them survive the winter of 1933–

34. By January 1934, the CWA had provided employment to more than 4 million 

Americans, and in California, the CWA employed more than 150,000 Californians 
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in a wide variety of activities, such as building airports, bridges, roads, schools, and 

other public structures. The CWA remained in operation until March 1934, when 

the federal government terminated the program owing to its tremendous costs. 

With the pending expiration of the CWA, Congress established other relief projects. 

There was the Public Works Administration (PWA), created on June 16, 1933, 

under the authority of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA).1 It called for a 

comprehensive program of public works and channeled special allotments to fund 

capital improvements for federal projects. As a result, the Forest Service received 

funding for a great many improvements. Projects ranged from the development and 

improvement of roads, to a wide range of much-needed Forest Service buildings, 

the most common being ranger stations, fire lookouts, garages, residences, and 

maintenance shops. Then there was the Works Progress Administration (WPA)2

created in 1935 to supersede NIRA and other short-term programs. The WPA 

funding was used to construct schools, post offices, and other public structures.A 

program closely related to the CWA, PWA, and the WPA was the popular Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which combined relief and conservation and put 

millions of unemployed young people to work in national forests. The CCC evolved 

from the Emergency Conservation Work (ECW) program, an interagency effort 

established on March 31, 1933, involving the Departments of Labor, Army, Interior, 

and Agriculture and administered by an interagency advisory board. From the 

beginning, the CCC program was intended as a temporary emergency measure, and 

therefore required reauthorization periodically. Camps of CCC enrollees, young 

men between the ages of 19 and 28, carried out emergency conservation work on 

each national forest. The Army was placed in charge of all CCC camps themselves, 

and controlled the enrollees when they were in camp. Alternatively, the Forest 

Service handled all the men while they were on the job, including their transportation between camp and work points. A total of 166 camps were eventually authorized for California national forests and the enrollees set out to build a variety of 

building types, such as ranger stations, guard stations, offices, and large and small 

warehouses (Godfrey 2005).

1

 One of the express purposes of the National Industrial Recovery Act was to conserve 

natural resources. Toward this end, NIRA set up lumber codes for industrial forests requiring practices based on sustained yield that would keep the land from becoming wholly 

unproductive, which was thought of as a great gain over the destructive methods previously 

in general use. Meanwhile, the Forest Service offered its knowledge and research experience to industry through a lumber code that set forth minimum standards of logging with a 

conservation theme. However, on May 27, 1935, the Supreme Court declared NIRA’s code 

system unconstitutional because it unreasonably stretched the Commerce Clause of the 

constitution (Silcox 1934).

2

 In 1939, the WPA changed its name to the Works Projects Administration.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

As will be seen, the California Forest and Range Experiment Station (CFRES) 

took advantage of the New Deal “alphabet” relief and recovery programs such as 

CWA, NIRA, PWA, WPA, and the CCC to obtain lands and construct many of its 

research facilities at a number of experimental forests that it would acquire during 

the New Deal years. These programs contributed indirectly to a new era for forestry 

research in California by supplementing the appropriations available through the 

Forest Service budget. However, these programs cut like a two-edged blade. They 

certainly helped build up needed CFRES facilities and bought experimental forest 

lands, but in some respects, regular dollars needed for research were forgone at the 

expense of these federal activities. Ironically, because these emergency programs 

dollars could not be used for research activities, CFRES was left at times with 

excellent facilities with no funding for conducting investigations.

A National Plan for American Forestry: 

Copeland Report

On that March morning of President Roosevelt’s inauguration in 1933, Earle Clapp, 

head of the Forest Service Research Branch, perhaps hoped that Congress and the 

president would move just as quickly on forestry issues as they seemed to be willing 

to attack the relief and recovery of the Nation from the Great Depression. Opportunity was not wanting. Shortly after Roosevelt’s inauguration, Agriculture Secretary 

Henry Wallace submitted for the president’s consideration A National Plan for 

American Forestry (USDA FS 1933) (known more commonly as the Copeland 

Report)—a two-volume nearly 1,700-page report on the state of forestry in America 

with recommendations.3 Beside calling for planned forestry development through 

cooperative arrangements with forest industries for sustained yield and to build up

3

 On March 27, 1933, A National Plan for American Forestry was transmitted to the Senate. 

The idea for this report, according to Clapp, developed during a meeting of a small group 

of people in the fall of 1931. While reviewing the forest situation from the standpoint of the 

responsibilities of research organizations in general, and of the research organization of the 

Forest Service in particular, they came to the conclusion that one imperative need was for 

an entirely fresh examination of the whole forestry situation in the United States as a basis 

for clarification and reorientation. This opportunity came “out of a clear sky” on March 

30, 1932, months before the 1932 presidential election, when Senator Royal S. Copeland 

from New York called for a congressional investigation of forestry under Senate Resolution 

175. The central purpose of Copeland’s investigation was to outline a coordinated plan that 

would “insure all of the economic and social benefits which can and should be derived 

from productive forests by fully utilizing the forest land” (Clapp 1934, Godfrey 2005). In 

July of that year, Earle Clapp wrote to all experiment station directors that the Copeland 

resolution offered a “great opportunity” to restate American forestry in a positive fashion, 

much like the Capper Report had done a decade earlier (Steen 1998). Regional Forester 

S.B. Show, along with Director Edward Kotok and his staff, responded to Clapp’s letter 

by preparing a lengthy, detailed, and very comprehensive report on California’s forestry 

situation including research (USDA FS 1932a).
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public forests (Stuart 1933), the Copeland Report brought together the latest forestry 

information and included two sections on Forest Service research.4 The first section 

written by Clapp himself provided a history of the BR, which Clapp portrayed 

as a “nearly heroic struggle for independence from the administrative side of the 

agency.” Clapp’s chapter contained an impressive list of accomplishments. It also 

criticized previous Forest Service administrations for “routinely using Research as 

a dumping ground for those who did not fit well in Administration.” The second 

section, written by Earl Frothingham,5 provided a recommended research program 

for the future. Frothingham’s piece pointed out that although the Forest Service 

research program had been coordinated and given independence, much of forestry 

research was still being conducted outside the agency,6 making it dependent upon 

the works of the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) for forest pathology; the Bureau of 

Entomology (BE) and the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils (BCS) for handling naval 

stores; the Biological Survey for forest biology;7 the Bureau of Fisheries (BF) for 

research on fish living in forest waters; and the Weather Bureau for contributions 

to fire research.8 Subsequent developments would make the Forest Service less 

dependent on the work of some of these USDA agencies (Steen 1998). Despite 

the enormous staff time that the experiment stations and Clapp’s Branch of 

Research put into this project in the latter half of 1932 and early 1933, the

4

 Regular research activities were curtailed by the experiment stations in order to prepare 

raw material for the report. Then, in Washington, D.C., the BR digested the information 

to formulate the final report. In this effort, a considerable number of ranking officers of 

the Forest Service field force, and experiment station staff members, like S.B. Show and 

Edward Kotok, were detailed to the Washington office to assist in writing and rewriting 

various sections of the report (Stuart 1933).

5

 Earl Frothingham was Director of the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station in Asheville, North Carolina.

6

 At this point, the bulk of forest research in the United States was being done and would 

continue to be done by government agencies, such as the Forest Service, although in the 

aggregate considerable amount of research was being conducted by forest schools, universities, states, and other public or semipublic agencies. The BR directed the research, but the 

regional forest experiment stations were charged with all regional work in forest management and other wild lands, and in a few instances, investigations in forest products (Graves 

and Guise 1932).

7

 The McSweeney-McNary Act authorized experiments and investigations as needed to 

determine the “life histories and habits of forest animals, birds, and wildlife, whether 

injurious to forest growth or of value as supplemental resource, and in developing the best 

and most effective methods for their management and control.” However, this work was 

assigned to the Biological Survey (Storey 1975).

8

 The McSweeney-McNary Act also authorized investigations of the “relationships of 

weather conditions to forest fires as may be necessary to make weather forecasts.” This 

work was assigned to the Weather Bureau at the time (Storey 1975).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Copeland Report landed with a dull thud.9 President Roosevelt appeared disinterested in it, and Congress took no action on the plan, largely because the monumental two-volume report strongly and repeatedly advocated federal regulation of 

the forest industry, a concept that Congress would not support (Steen 1998, Stuart 

1933). For instance, the Copeland Report stated that practically all of the major 

problems of American forestry centered in, or had grown out of, private ownership, and that there was a serious lack of balance in constructive efforts to solve the 

forest problem between public and private land ownership. The report ultimately 

recommended greater public ownership of forest lands versus private ownership 

and proposed a land acquisition fund of $50 million per year for that purpose10

(Godfrey 2005, Steen 2004).

The Battle for a National Forestry Plan

Regardless of the indifference to the Copeland Report, things were looking good 

for the Forest Service by August 1933, thanks to the relief and recovery measures 

of various New Deal programs. Then came the shocking news on the morning of 

October 23, 1933—Chief Forester Robert Stuart had died11 (Silcox 1934). Stuart’s 

untimely death came in the midst of a transition period in the Nation’s forestry 

policy, and the campaign to implement the Copeland Report’s recommendations for 

a single national forestry plan into a single bill before Congress. Within a week of 

Stuart’s death, President Roosevelt approved the appointment of Ferdinand A. Silcox

12 to succeed Stuart. Inevitable questions arose regarding Silcox’s appointment. 

Forest Service leaders had not been consulted prior to the appointment, and some 

9

 For an excellent description of various reactions to the Copeland Report, see Steen 2004.

10 At the start of the New Deal period, reforestation became a prime factor in the New 

Deal’s sustained-yield forestry effort, and timberland acquisitions were a major component 

of Region 5’s program. Region 5’s acquisition program included plans to buy up cutover 

pine regions, and to acquire various redwood forest tracts from private landholders for a 

future redwood national forest. The depressed timber market meant many private holdings 

were tax delinquent, and owners wished to liquidate their holdings to the Forest Service. 

The National Forest Reservation Commission, a commission authorized by the Weeks Act 

(1911), approved Region 5 acquisitions of these lands (Godfrey 2005).

11 Stuart died on October 23, 1933, under questionable circumstances of whether he had or 

had not committed suicide (Steen 2004).

12 Ferdinand A. Silcox was a contemporary of early California District 5 Forester’s 

Frederick E. Olmsted and Coert DuBois who had come west when the forest reserves were 

transferred from the General Land Office (GLO) to the Forest Service. After serving as 

District 1’s Forester under Chief Forester William B. Greeley and in the 20th Engineer 

group during World War I, Silcox transferred to the Labor Department after the Great 

War to act as an arbitrator in shipyard labor problems. There he met Rexford Tugwell, a 

Columbia University economics professor, who became a leading spokesman and prophet 

of the New Deal. Assistant Agricultural Secretary Tugwell secured Silcox’ appointment 

through political lobbying with the president (Godfrey 2005).

Practically all of the 

major problems of 

American forestry 

centered in, or had 

grown out of, private 

ownership, and that 

there was a serious 

lack of balance in 

constructive efforts 

to solve the forest 

problem between 

public and private land 

ownership.
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regional foresters, like Stuart B. Show, felt that Silcox had been out of the Forest 

Service for too many years, and that he was far out of date. Silcox tried to assuage 

these concerns by making quick trips to various regions and attending regional 

forester meetings to educate himself on the current state of affairs (Godfrey 2005). 

To enlist the support of research scientists, in December of 1935, he delivered an 

address entitled “Science in the Service of Society” at the Minnesota Agricultural 

Experiment Station that emphatically defended the role of scientists in the Forest 

Service (Silcox 1935b).

However, by 1935–1936, Chief Silcox, in what can only be described as a 

power struggle with his regional foresters, reorganized procedures between the 

Washington office (WO) staff, regional foresters, and experiment stations directors. 

First, Silcox asked Earle Clapp, BR head, to become his associate chief.13 Clapp 

accepted the promotion with great reluctance, writing to Forest Service scientists 

across the country that he was “leaving Research with an uneasy feeling about its 

future” (Steen 1998). Then Silcox began a new plan of regular staff conferences. 

The regional foresters, directors of the forest experiment stations, and members of 

the central staff were to meet quarterly (except in the summer) to consider questions 

of policy and strategy (Silcox 1935a). Finally, in 1936, Silcox reorganized the WO, 

increased the number of divisions from 8 to 23, and based them upon function. 

Research was grouped into five distinct divisions (Silvics, Forest Products, Forest Economics, Forest Influences, and Range Research). Forest protection, which 

included fire, disease, and insect control, was placed in a group of divisions designated as national forest administration under Silvics. Then Silcox appointed a staff 

of eight assistant chiefs of the Forest Service14 who served collectively as Silcox’s 

staff, with such lines of duties as were delegated by the chief of the Forest Service 

(no longer referred to as chief forester) and performed on his behalf (Silcox 1936).

After this shake-up of the Forest Service administration, Silcox, Clapp, and 

others resumed the campaign to implement the recommendations of the Copeland 

Report through an all-inclusive bill before Congress. They circulated bill drafts 

and set the target passage date for 1936. But because of bad political timing, and 

continued economic woes, their lobbying efforts failed (Steen 2004). Despite not 

achieving a national plan, the period after 1936 was not bereft of other legislative 

13 Before Clapp left his position as BR head, the Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment was established in Fort Collins, Colorado, thereby completing the chain of continental 

forest experiment stations officially authorized by the McSweeney-McNary Act (Silcox 

1935a).

14 Although these assistant chiefs were not to be administrative officers interposed between 

the Chief and his division chiefs, in S.B. Show’s opinion, they had the potential to block off 

access by regional foresters to the Chief (Godfrey 2005).

Silcox, in what can 

only be described 

as a power struggle 

with his regional 

foresters, reorganized 

procedures between 

the Washington 

office (WO) staff, 

regional foresters, and 

experiment stations 

directors.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

accomplishments, such as the passage in 1937 of the Norris-Doxey Cooperative 

Farm Forestry Act and the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act.15 During this interim 

period since Clapp left the BR, Raymond E. Marsh, a long-time assistant of Clapp’s, 

had served as “acting” head. Marsh held this position for 2 years, along with his 

position as the head of Division of Forest Economics Research. Marsh continued 

along the path chartered by his mentor Clapp, but certainly not with the same intensity as his former boss. In 1937, Marsh moved on to be Assistant Chief for Program 

Planning, and Clapp put Clarence L. Forsling16 in charge of the Branch of Research, 

a position he reluctantly accepted (Forsling 1978, Storey 1975). Clapp believed that 

Forsling was “one of the strongest and most promising of the new forest experiment 

station directors,” and Forsling held the post until 1944, when he transferred to the 

Interior Department and served as Director of the Grazing Service (1944–46).

Meanwhile, in September 1938, the McSweeney-McNary Act celebrated its 

decennial year. To honor the occasion, the Journal of Forestry published a special 

issue on the act (Journal of Forestry 1938). The Journal attested to the substantial 

advances made in federal forest research, calling its passage “second in importance 

and significance only to the Act of March 3, 1891, authorizing the President to set

15 These pieces of legislation supported economic studies related to farm forestry and 

agricultural cooperatives, respectively, and bolstered various economic research studies 

at the experiment stations (Steen 1998). The Cooperative Farm Forestry Act passed on 

May 28, 1937, authorized cooperation in developing farm forestry in states and territories, 

and had an annual appropriation of $2.5 million (USDA FS 1937a) to raise and distribute 

trees and plant them on farm woodlands; to advise farmers with respect to protecting and 

managing farm forests and harvesting, utilizing, and marketing farm-forest products; and 

to investigate farm-forestry problems and methods generally. Overall administration was 

left to the Soil Conservation Service, but parts of the appropriation were available to the 

Forest Service (USDA FS 1939b). The relevant portion of the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant 

Act required the Secretary of Agriculture to develop a program of land conservation and 

utilization to correct maladjustments in land use and assist in such things as reforestation 

and the protection of fish, wildlife, and natural resources.

16 Clarence Forsling joined the Forest Service in 1915 as a grazing assistant assigned to 

the Cache National Forest in Utah after receiving his B.S. at the University of Nebraska. 

Forsling served the agency for 35 years. His years of service included work on the Jornada 

Experimental Range in New Mexico (1916 to mid-1920), Office of Grazing Studies in 

Washington, D.C. (mid-1920 to 1922), as head of the Great Basin Experimental Station 

in Utah (1922–1929), director of the Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station 

(1929–1934), Director of the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station (1935 to mid-1937), 

when he became assistant chief of the Forest Service in charge of research.
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aside forest reserves from the public domain” (Jounal of Forestry 1938). The 

Journal furthermore editorialized that the “scientific basis of American forestry” 

has emerged largely under the act and that in this 

...brief span of ten years the Forest Service has developed an effective and 

efficient forest research organization, an organization which has served 

the public well, an organization which has met its problems with ability, an 

organization which is destined to serve the American public in a still wider 

field of usefulness [Journal of Forestry 1938: 830].

The Journal of Forestry issue featured several articles on the state of affairs 

in silviculture, fire control, managing range resources, watersheds, and numerous 

other important subjects (Journal of Forestry 1938). Earl Clapp contributed the 

lead article (Clapp 1938) that highlighted the contributions and achievements under 

the McSweeney-McNary Act. In his article, Clapp also aptly pointed out that the 

current picture had some shadows as well, putting forward that although a station 

had been authorized for the Plains Region,17 no stations were forthcoming for 

Alaska, Hawaii, and the West Indies as authorized by the McSweeney-McNary Act. 

Clapp also noted that the McSweeney-McNary Act had not explicitly provided for 

investigations in the crucially important fields of forest and range influences. Clapp 

felt that serious financial limitations had been placed on the nationwide Forest 

Resources Survey, or FRS, authorized by the act, and he argued that the act made 

no provision for the publication of investigative results by the Forest Service. Consequently much-needed information frequently was delayed several years until it 

appeared in formal publications. Finally, he stated that although provision was made 

for the collection of basic data needed in national planning, there was no specific 

provision for forest land and forest resource planning—a statement referring to his 

failure to achieve the basic recommendation of the Copeland Report (Clapp 1938).

Meanwhile, Clarence Forsling’s general plan for the Research Branch was 

to improve the organization, and obtain a budget sufficient to address the problems 

faced by the Forest Service. He wished especially to expand studies in forest products, forest economics, and range management (particularly the influence of forest 

and range plant cover on runoff and erosion). In regard to organization, Forsling 

tried to cut down the number of regional stations and consolidate and redistribute

17 The McSweeney-McNary Act did not specifically call for a station to serve the Great 

Plains region. However, the myriad of problems connected with the planting of shelterbelt 

stands in the region was just beginning, which made the need for such a station evident 

in Clapp’s mind (Silcox 1935a). In 1936, the act was amended to authorize a Great Plains 

Forest Experiment Station (Silcox 1936).

No stations were 

forthcoming for Alaska, 

Hawaii, and the West 

Indies as authorized 

by the McSweeneyMcNary Act.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

the territory covered by each18 (Forsling 1978). Like his predecessor, Earle Clapp, 

Forsling also struggled to fully activate the research program authorized by the 

McSweeney-McNary Act. Increasingly, Forsling recognized that the gap between 

needed work and what was being accomplished was steadily widening. For 

instance, Forsling pointed out that in 1938, the Forest Service’s research program 

met only about two-thirds of the needs visualized in the Forest Research Act passed 

10 years prior. Furthermore, Forsling stated that new problems had arisen, or had 

become better recognized, since its passage. Although it was true that from a 

dollars-and-cents standpoint, Forest Service research appropriations had increased 

from $906,000 in 1928 to $2.6 million in 1938, Forsling saw a research appropriation need at a level of $10 to $12 million (Storey 1975). 

In the interim, the Roosevelt administration started to support the national 

forestry plan asked for by the Copeland Report. On March 14, 1938, the President 

recommended to Congress an immediate study of the Nation’s forest problem 

(Journal of Forestry 1940, USDA FS 1939b). Congress responded to the presidential suggestion and on June 13, 1938, adopted Senate Concurrent Resolution 31 

creating the Joint Congressional Committee on Forestry (JCCF). The JCCF was 

charged with investigating the present and prospective forest situation, including 

research19 (Steen 2004, USDA FS 1938b). Roosevelt reiterated his support for JCCF 

on November 18, 1939, in a letter addressed to the Society of American Foresters (SAF) (Journal of Forestry 1940), and Chief Silcox and Earle Clapp provided 

testimony to the congressional committee that emphasized the need for public 

regulation—a crucial point that had undermined the Copeland Report in 1933 by 

antagonizing industry. Much of this information came from regional foresters and 

experiment station directors like S.B. Show and Edward Kotok (Steen 2004). The 

Forest Service annual report for 1939 also called for public ownership of privately 

owned forest land (USDA FS 1939b). In the midst of this private vs. public ownership of forest lands battle, tragedy once again struck the leadership of the Forest 

Service. On December 20, 1939, Chief of the Forest Service Silcox died suddenly 

18 Forsling succeeded in combining the Adirondack and Northeastern stations prior to his 

leaving the Forest Service. Other combinations would eventually follow. By 1978, reorganization efforts included combining the Northern Rocky Mountain and the Intermountain 

Stations, and the merging of the Southwestern and Rocky Mountain Research stations. By 

this date, the Central States Station was merged with several others and, together with the 

Great Lakes Station, became the North Central Station (Forsling 1978).

19 At this point, according to CFRES Director Edward Kotok, from a forest-resource 

standpoint, America was in “transition from a philosophy of exploitation to one of planning 

and applying sustained management and orderly utilization.” Kotok felt that organized 

research was the “surest, quickest, and most economical way of obtaining the information” 

(Kotok 1948: 2).

The Roosevelt 

administration started 

to support the national 

forestry plan asked 

for by the Copeland 

Report.

America was in 

“transition from 

a philosophy of 

exploitation to one of 

planning and applying 

sustained management 

and orderly utilization.” 

Kotok felt that 

organized research was 

the “surest, quickest, 

and most economical 

way of obtaining the 

information.”
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at his home of coronary thrombosis (USDA FS 1940d). However, prior to Silcox’ 

death, Clapp had begun a nationwide educational program designed to obtain public 

understanding of his point of view of the forest problem in the United States and 

to drive the Forest Service into a “New Crusade” for conservation (Godfrey 2005), 

and President Roosevelt felt compelled to name Associate Chief of the Forest Service Clapp as “acting” Chief, even though Clapp had angered Roosevelt with his 

earlier efforts to oppose the transfer of the Forest Service to the Interior Department 

(Steen 1998).

Early in 1940, Acting Chief Clapp and the Forest Service presented background material to the JCCF and recommended an overall action program. The 

basic purpose of the Forest Service program was to create and maintain a nationwide economy, through productive use of forest land. They felt that doing so would 

help solve such pressing problems as rural poverty and unemployment and create 

added security and stability for families, communities, industry, and labor (USDA 

FS 1940d). However, Clapp’s efforts proved unsuccessful. On March 24, 1941, after 

some delay and after digesting a huge mass of detailed information provided by 

the Forest Service,20 and the recorded testimony of industrial and other forest land 

owners such as farmers, and many others, the Joint Congressional Committee on 

Forestry submitted its report to the Congress. The JCCF report stressed the need 

for more public cooperation with private owners of forest lands (USDA FS 1941b), 

but in fall 1941, when a “Forestry Omnibus Bill” was reported out by the JCCF to 

Congress, it did not contain any federal regulation of privately owned forest lands. 

Therefore, the Forest Service failed to support it, and the Omnibus Bill died in 

committee (Steen 2004).

The demise of the Forest Omnibus Bill that fall ended the social/public forestry 

movement in America. Meanwhile, in August 1940, as a result of what was happening in Europe and the Far East, Acting Chief Clapp placed the Forest Service on a 

war footing, pointing out that although America’s first line of defense was her manpower, much of the Nation’s immediate strength lay in its natural resources, such as 

forest lands (USDA FS 1940d). As involvement in World War II approached, total 

annual appropriations for the Forest Service remained at a constant amount, but 

various research programs received decreasing assistance from the various New 

Deal programs that had started in the early 1930s. Then, quickly, the Forest Service 

research program was thrown into a war effort after the Japanese bombed Pearl 

Harbor on December 7, 1941. By then, the Forest Service had greatly reoriented 

its work programs and pushed defense projects to the forefront, slowing down

20 For instance, CFRES staff submitted various materials for the JCCF, such as statistics on 

forest areas, timber types, and consumption in California as requested (Aitro 1977).

The demise of the 

Forest Omnibus Bill 

that fall ended the 

social/public forestry 

movement in America.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

basic forestry research work. Most functional lines of research (silvics, economics, influence, and range research) were forced to retrench, with the exception of 

forest products, which mushroomed as the Forest Products Laboratory began doing 

extensive work for the armed services.

Research Station Exponential Growth, 1933–1938

In 1933, the area of the California station’s responsibility was that of Region 5, 

which included all of California, plus a strip of Nevada of 9 to 10 million acres. 

California’s forest area included approximately 20 million acres that supported a 

timber stand estimated at about 363 billion board feet. The Nevada area had very 

little timber, limited mainly to mountain juniper and subalpines. Millions of acres 

of land, running through every topographic class, were also used for the grazing 

of cattle and sheep, a major industry in the state. Although the station’s territorial 

responsibilities remained the same as when the station was established in 1926, its 

research program and physical facilities grew in leaps and bounds. For instance, 

in 1926, the California Experiment Station had a staff of four technicians and 

two clerks. Ten years later, there were 32 permanent technical staff and 12 clerks, 

besides a force of relief workers, which at its peak had reached nearly 1,000 (USDA 

FS 1937b, 1937d; Casamajor, n.d.). During the Great Depression, the station and its 

projects also turned out to be an important source of part-time, full-time, and career 

employment for University of California foresters and students (Casamajor, n.d.). 

According to Station Director Kotok, at this time, 

...many of the graduates of the forestry school found themselves without jobs. The first opportunity for direct extra money that the station...

received, we recruited these forestry graduates who were without jobs 

and gave them these temporary jobs. We trained them specifically in such 

research jobs in which they could apply their skills later as administrators 

[Show 1965: 9].

Subsequently, A.E. Wieslander’s cover type map project, begun in 1926, 

initially tested many of these young recruits. Thereafter, they were transferred to 

different planning jobs (Show 1965).

To meet the demand of station scientists and research staff, the station’s library 

grew as well. The function and services of the station library were under the direction of Annie M. Avakian. By the end of the decade, the station’s library catalogued 

10,000 volumes and received over 100 scientific and professional periodicals, not to 

mention branch libraries at various facilities, such as the San Dimas Experimental 

Forest (SDEF) and the Institute of Forest Genetics (IFG) (both discussed below). 

Besides routing magazines, monthly accession lists, and circulating books, library 
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staff fielded research questions, translated key articles (French, German, Spanish, 

and Russian), assembled specific subject matter for lectures and manuscripts, and 

published a one-page publication Library Notes in which brief abstracts of selected 

publications were presented. Finally, Director Kotok designated the library as the 

agency for distribution of all station publications (USDA FS 1940a).

In addition to the collection of books and other research material, CFRES, 

with the cooperation of the University of California and WPA labor, established an 

herbarium on the Berkeley campus. By 1938, the herbarium contained a collection 

of more than 25,000 species and was widely used by botanists and ecologists. For 

CFRES, it was a very important adjunct to the vegetation type mapping project 

because it furnished reference material of known sources for field-mapping crew 

training. By this date, CFRES also proposed building a separate seed collection 

herbarium at Berkeley as well (USDA FS 1939a).

Interestingly, by the end of 1935, the increase in visitors to CFRES and its 

branches, especially at SDEF, had become a serious drain on staff time. Station 

Director Kotok realized that making public contact was a valuable asset, but 

scientists, who for the most part constituted the majority of visitors, could hardly 

be satisfied with a “canned” lecture. To solve the problem, Kotok organized a corps 

of employees whose sole duty was to conduct tours for distinguished visitors, many 

of whom came from as far away as Sweden, Germany, and even India. Visitation 

demands had not only increased at the station, but by late 1935, the need for a statistical service became evident as well (USDA FS 1935). To meet this demand, Station 

Director Kotok organized a centralized statistical division and placed it under the 

direction of Kathleen G. Brecheen. She and her staff of emergency workers from 

the NIRA and PWA programs handled government statistical analyses as requested 

by various divisions and Region 5. These services, which saved much division staff 

time, included both routine calculations and advisory work (USDA FS 1941a). At 

CFRES, the statistical services section was placed under the forest products division, where it conducted statistical research not just for the CFRES, but also for 

outside agencies, such as the California Economic Research Council (CERC). H.R. 

Josephson was one important employee hired through NIRA funding. Josephson 

received his M.S. in forestry at the University of California in 1933, and joined 

CFRES in January 1934, to work in the wood products division helping C.L. Hill 

on various projects, such as compilations regarding forestry statistics for CFRES 

divisions, as well as wood requirements of wood-using industries for building in 

various California urban communities. Another assignment that took up the time 

of the statistical section included an evaluation of the purchases for the redwood 

region for Hubert Person (USDA FS 1934: January, February, March, April). By 

Kotok organized a 

corps of employees 

whose sole duty was 

to conduct tours for 

distinguished visitors.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

1939, personnel at the section numbered 16, of whom 13 were WPA clerks. In this 

precomputer era, much of their time was devoted to keeping up with the current 

statistical literature in order to receive the fullest benefits from new trends in 

methodology and statistical design in current routine project work. Their work 

was essential in forest management, fire, and genetics research (USDA FS 1940a).

Probably the most important individual administrative development during 

the 1930s at CFRES occurred when the Forest Service acquired the IFG at Placerville, California. Since 1933, IFG had continued to suffer financial reverses, 

despite grants from the Carnegie Foundation and temporary aid from the BPI, the 

Forest Service, and the Soil Erosion Service (later Soil Conservation Service). 

This assistance barely kept it afloat. Rather than lose valuable work underway, 

Congress appropriated $40,000 to purchase the institute so that CFRES could carry 

on the valuable lines of investigation as part of its research program. On August 

23, 1935, after a long series of negotiations between Clapp and Kotok and the 

IFG’s Board of Trustees, the institute was gifted to and officially transferred to the 

Forest Service.21 The IFG kept its designation but was placed under CFRES’ forest 

management research division. This action marked the first step in a program of 

genetics studies long contemplated by the Forest Service. However, the scope and 

application of the IFG’s research expanded beyond California to the Nation, and 

now involved cooperative work with various other experiment stations22 (Austin et. 

al. 1974; Silcox 1935a, 1936; Stone 1968; USDA FS 1935: September).

Acquiring IFG was but part of an enormous push to expand the station’s research program. When the station was established, its activities largely pertained 

only to forest management in the pine region, and to conducting a forest survey 

(type map) of California. A decade later, the CFRES research program included 

forest management in California’s pine and redwood regions, as well as range 

research, fire research, forest influences, forest survey, forest products, forest 

economics, and genetics with the acquisition of the IFG (Casamajor, n.d.; USDA FS 

1937d). The CFRES grew regionally outward as well, thanks to the quick actions of 

both Regional Forester Show and Director Kotok in taking advantage of the CCC

21 Apparently, there was competition between the Forest Service and the BPI over acquiring the institute. Lloyd Austin preferred the latter organization because he felt they were 

more scientific and could better understand the institute’s fundamental research goals than 

the practical-minded CFRES (Austin et al. 1974).

22 At this time, parallel work in the East was assured through congressional approval 

of genetic studies at the Northeastern Experiment Station at Amherst, Massachusetts. 

However, the Forest Service budget was too tight at this time to allow genetics work at 

other stations, such as in the South, which had to wait until World War II drew to a close to 

obtain sufficient congressional increases for research in genetics (Harper 1978).

Acquiring IFG was but 

part of an enormous 

push to expand the 

station’s research 

program.
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program. Director Kotok wanted to expand the work of the station further by developing experimental forests throughout California—a research program ambition 

dating to the station’s beginnings. Therefore, when President Roosevelt requested 

a detailed work program for each CCC camp, S.B. Show submitted a list that provided a sufficient number of camps allocated to the work on the experimental 

forests and ranges on Director Kotok’s wish list. In the end, Regional Forester Show 

managed to secure 127 CCC camps on national forests for Region 5—a remarkable 

number. By June 30, 1933, all of the camps were fully occupied and the enrollees 

ready for work. Some Forest Service regions in the country had no plans for their 

experiment stations, and unlike Region 5, had to wait many years before they found 

the necessary labor to build them (Godfrey 2005, Show 1965).

During the years 1933 to 1937, Station Director Kotok made a conscious effort 

to acquire experimental forests and ranges for the California station and to develop 

physical facilities on them using emergency program labor with a long-term point 

of view in mind. By the end of 1937, Director Kotok commented that the construction of the station’s desired physical facilities were nearly complete thanks to New 

Deal emergency employment programs. Thereafter, a drastic curbing of emergency 

funds in 1937 slowed construction, and in 1938, a dire curtailment of CCC funds 

occurred. Nonetheless, besides its Giannini Hall offices on the campus of the 

University of California, by 1938, CFRES had 10 experimental forests, areas, and 

ranges. Only two, the Shasta Experimental Fire Forest (SEFF) (1931) and the Swain 

Mountain Experimental Forest (SMEF) (1932), had been established prior to the 

New Deal. However, the utility of the old and new experimental forests, according 

to Kotok, in providing adequate quarters for field parties, in supplying a base of 

operations in representative forest types, and in making available important centers 

for the assembly of the interested scientists, would be amply demonstrated in the 

future (USDA FS 1939a).

The history of each new experimental forest will be discussed later in the text, 

but for now, they included the following. In 1938, three experimental forests and 

one experimental area were established to study forest management. They included 

the Feather River Experimental Forest (FREF) (1933) on the Plumas National Forest 

that studied west-side mixed conifers, SMEF (yet undeveloped) on the Lassen 

National Forest for the study of white and red fir (see “Scientific and Common 

Names” section), and the Blacks Mountain Experimental Forest (BMEF) with 

Branch Station (1934) on the Lassen National Forest. There was also the Stanislaus 

Experimental Area23 with Branch Station—a small 30-acre experimental area for

23 An experimental forest had yet to be approved here, but eventually the StanislausTuolumne Experimental Forest (STEF) was designated in 1943.

Construction of the 

station’s desired 

physical facilities were 

nearly complete thanks 

to New Deal emergency 

employment programs.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

the study of ponderosa and sugar pines. For dedicated range research, the San 

Joaquin Experimental Range (SJER) with Branch Station (1934) near the Sierra 

National Forest was devoted to cattle range problems in the San Joaquin Valley and 

foothills, and the Burgess Springs Experimental Range (BSER) (1935) with Branch 

Station on the Lassen National Forest was dedicated to cattle grazing problems on 

the east-side cutover forest ranges. On the other hand, SEFF with Branch Station 

(1929) on the Shasta National Forest concentrated on the fire problems of Region 5. 

Finally, forest influence research was conducted at two locations. Research on 

chaparral cover of southern California forests was conducted at the SDEF (1934) on 

the Angeles National Forest, while influences on woodland grass cover types of the 

Sierra Nevada were studied at the Kings River Branch Station (1938) on the Sierra 

National Forest, which was divided between two units, the Big Creek Unit and the 

Teakettle Creek Unit (USDA FS 1937b 1937d).

In addition to the above experimental forests, there were also several research 

withdrawals that did not have experimental forest status. First, there was the Devil 

Canyon watershed study unit on the San Bernardino National Forest with Branch 

Station and nursery. In 1930, the Devil Canyon unit was selected for the first 

intensive forest influence study in California after a 117-acre area at Devil Canyon 

was completely denuded by fire in 1925 (Kotok 1930). At Devil Canyon, CFRES 

staff continued to conduct intensive research on watersheds.24 Then there was the 

Butterfly Valley research unit on the Plumas National Forest, set aside to study 

mixed conifers, which in 1937 was fenced and accessible. Finally, there was the 

Badger Wells research unit on the Modoc National Forest, whose research value 

unfortunately had been severely damaged by a bark beetle epidemic in the mid1930s (USDA FS 1937d, 1940b).

Although by 1937 many items on the station’s experimental forest wish list 

had been fulfilled, Director Kotok and the CFRES staff felt they urgently needed 

three additional experimental forests. For forest management research purposes, 

the station wanted an additional experimental forest in the Sierra Nevada foothills 

second-growth pine forest. At this time, more than a quarter million acres of this 

second growth, which had succeeded the cutting of the mining days, was just 

reaching or approaching merchantable size. The CFRES staff felt that destructive 

exploitation by migratory small mills was already beginning there, and proceeding 

at an accelerating pace. Station staff also desired two experimental forests in the

24 This forest nursery of just over 2,700 acres also provided nursery stock used by the 

CFRES and cooperating agencies.

CFRES staff 

continued to conduct 

intensive research on 

watersheds.
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redwood region to meet the urgent problems of older redwood forests of Humboldt 

County, and the younger ones of Mendocino County. Finally, they also hoped to 

gain an experimental sheep range, preferably in the foothills tributary to the Sacramento Valley. Sheepmen were making urgent demands that their industry receive 

the same help that was given to the cattle industry through the San Joaquin Experimental Range. Finally, in the not too distant future, station staff wanted to acquire 

a northern experimental watershed forest, preferably on one of the watersheds tributary to the Sacramento Valley, where many conditions (soil erosion, cover, rainfall) were significantly different from those found in the southern part of the state 

(USDA FS 1937b, 1937d, 1939a). As will be seen, only a few of these wishes, such 

as the establishment of an experimental forest in the redwood region of the state, 

were fulfilled prior to the beginning of World War II.

Forest Problems of California and Lost Leadership

While vying for additional experimental forests, the station was tasked by 

Acting Chief Earle Clapp to educate the California public regarding the differences between public and private management of forest resources—the frequently 

opposing forces that were then testifying before the Joint Congressional Committee 

on Forestry or JCCF. Clapp hoped that if people became interested in the forestry 

problem they would naturally want to do something about it, and that interest would 

reach the JCCF. In support of Clapp’s education program, Director Kotok and 

the California Station produced a lengthy report entitled The Forest Problems of 

California25 (USDA FS 1940c).

25 This report detailed difficulties associated with private ownership, which controlled 

half of the commercial forest land in California (5.5 million acres of pine timberland and 

1.4 million acres of redwood). In comparison, public ownership (federal, state, county, and 

municipal forests) controlled the other half of California commercial timber. However, 

although publicly owned forests in California accounted for 40 percent of the total annual 

growth of commercial timber, it furnished only 12 percent of the annual cut, mainly 

because cutting was regulated and public timber was generally located in more inaccessible 

districts. The Forest Problems of California also closely described the national forests in 

terms of their extent, and the problems affecting them, particularly in regard to protection, use, and proper development of their four major resources: water, timber, forage, and 

recreation. The crux of the water problem on the national forests rested in the condition 

of the vegetative cover, which in turn depended on effective fire protection and prompt 

restoration of cover where natural processes were slow to recover. But in 1940, 15 million 

acres of water-yielding protection forest were in private holdings, which, according to The 

Forest Problems of California, prevented a well-managed forested watershed. The most 

critical problem in timber on the forests pertained to the difficulty of properly utilizing 

the 90 billion board feet of government timber and adjacent private holdings through 

sustained-yield management plans. Many public units were intermingled with private 

holdings, which, according to The Forest Problems of California, hindered this type of 

utilization and presented problems in fire, insect, and disease control, as well as reforestation (Godfrey 2005).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

But, on December 4, 1940, the leadership of the CFRES changed abruptly when 

Earle Clapp named Station Director Edward Kotok as Assistant Chief of the Forest 

Service in charge of the Division of State and Private Forestry. In his new position, 

Kotok directed a number of cooperative programs underway between the Forest 

Service and state and extension foresters that sought to improve forest management, fire control, and forest planting in the various states. Kotok was also placed 

in charge of two other projects. The first was the New England Forest Emergency 

Project, which was concerned with forest fire hazard reduction and timber salvage 

following the 1938 New England hurricane,26 and the Prairie States Forestry Project, which supervised WPA shelterbelt projects (Journal of Forestry 1941). Murrell 

W. Talbot, who headed CFRES’ grazing division, was made associate director, a 

position he held until war’s end, 27 although he is officially considered as the station’s second Station Director.

CFRES Contributions to the “Grandeur” in Forestry, 

1933–1941

It would be great if one could say that research at the CFRES in the New Deal 

period resulted in a giant step forward in forestry. But in forest research, as in other 

research, as one CFRES researcher pointed out, “bits of information must be combined with other facts in order to achieve even a small step forward. Aristotle once 

said, ‘From all the facts assembled there arises a certain grandeur’” (Fowells 1978: 

11). During these years, facts gathered by CFRES scientists certainly contributed 

to some grandeur in forestry, as the station delved into five lines of research set out 

by Forest Service Chief Silcox: forest management, range research, forest products, 

forest economics, and forest influences (forest and range).

26 In September 1938, New England was hit by a terrific hurricane, which left the most 

dangerous and widespread forest-fire hazards the region had ever known. On large forest 

tracts, and on some 30,000 farm wood lots, it left an estimated total of 3 to 4 billion board 

feet of downed timber. This amount represented more than one-sixth of the total annual cut 

of timber in the entire United States at this time. To handle the crisis, the Forest Service set 

up the New England Forest Emergency Organization with headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. Timber salvage recovered an appreciable part of the wrecked forest resource 

there. By June 1941, the Forest Service had taken delivery of and paid for the equivalent of 

nearly 700 million board feet of timber from farm woodlands and other forest lands in six 

New England states (Journal of Forestry 1938; USDA FS 1939b, 1941b).

27 Talbot graduated in forestry from the University of Missouri in 1913 and joined the 

Forest Service shortly thereafter working at various positions in the Southwest. He came 

to CFRES in 1931 and worked chiefly on range research. After World War II, Stephen B. 

Wyckoff was named Station Director, but Talbot remained on, serving as associate director 

until his retirement in 1955 after 42 years of service. Subsequently, he worked as a consultant in forest range management to the government of Spain and in watershed management 

for the Charles Lathrop Pack Forestry Foundation (Journal of Forestry 1941).
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Forest Management

By the end of the 1930s, the CFRES forest management research program included 

three basic areas: silvics, silviculture, and forest fire protection.28

Silvics— 

When CFRES acquired IFG in 1935, it became the center of most silvics research at 

the station. During its first year of operating IFG as a Forest Service facility, Lloyd 

Austin and his staff’s initial concerns pertained to the physical transfer of the property and records, reorganizing them to conform to Forest Service methods of handling research, and then analyzing and interpreting them. Little new investigative 

work was undertaken until this back work was well in hand (Silcox 1936, USDA FS 

1935: November). 

While Austin and his staff conducted this backlog work from 1935 to 1938, they

were also occupied with the development of improved facilities (early buildings 

were demolished and replaced) and the task of filling various staff positions necessary for the full realization of the institute’s program. By 1938, the institute had a 

superintendent’s residence, office, laboratory, seedhouses, staff house, warehouse, 

nurseries, and an arboretum of 33 acres of established plantings (fig. 47). Here, the 

institute’s five technical personnel and three workers could research general subjects such as progeny tests, breeding and hybridization, cytology, taxonomy, and 

the physiology of forest trees. While Director Austin publicized the work of the 

institute and the science of genetics (e.g., Austin 1928b, 1938), important CFRES 

scientists, such as Francis I. “Pete” Righter, physiologist Nicholas T. Mirov,29 and 

cyto-taxonomist Palmer Stockwell,30 began to publish on various aspects of the 

subject as well. With a complement of new technical personnel and new facilities,

28 During the New Deal period, no significant mensuration studies were conducted at 

CFRES, except for performing the seasonal 5-year growth measurements of the sample 

plots at the Stanislaus and Feather River Branch Stations (USDA FS 1940a). There was 

also a need for satisfactory volume and taper tables for redwoods (USDA FS 1937b). The 

CFRES began this work in 1938 (USDA FS 1939a), but the work would not be completed 

until World War II (USDA FS 1940a).

29 Nicholas T. Mirov was a Russian-trained plant physiologist who emigrated to America 

after political disruption in his native country forced him to leave. He received his Ph.D. 

at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1937, he joined the staff of the institute as 

the first plant physiologist appointed by the Forest Service. Mirov spent 27 years at the 

institute where he demonstrated the importance of physiological studies in determining 

relationships among plants (Stone 1968).

30 Palmer Stockwell received his Ph.D. in cyto-taxonomy from the University of Arizona 

and did some work at Stanford University’s Carnegie Institute Laboratory prior to joining 

the institute’s staff in 1937 (Austin et al. 1974).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

attention was now given to planning and coordinating a long-range research 

program. In the past, IFG devoted research efforts to two types of studies. The 

first type was the production of new and superior forms of timber trees. By 1936, 

preliminary studies resulted in a number of hybrid pines. Furthermore, they learned 

that particular pines produced fertile flowers at the very early age of 2 to 5 years, 

thereby dispelling the myth that tree breeding could not be accomplished in the 

short term.31 Apparently, the time necessary to run through a breeding cycle, long 

considered a major disadvantage in tree breeding, had been greatly exaggerated, 

and was only slightly longer than that required by a number of other major crop 

plants. The second past study goal for the institute was pioneering the genetic 

approach to the problems of forestry, and the development of better techniques 

for general application by public and private forestry agencies (Austin et al. 1974; 

Mirov 1939; Silcox 1936; USDA FS 1939a, 1940a, 1940c, 1940b, 1965c).

Up to 1939 or so, the station’s forest genetics division placed its research 

emphasis on the production of rapidly growing hard pines especially through the 

selection of vigorous strains and individuals of the ponderosa pine—California’s 

most important tree. However, it was felt that, although progeny testing was a 

31 For instance, Luther Burbank thought that conifers would have to be 20 years of age 

before producing flowers (Austin et al. 1974).

Figure 47—View of buildings at the Institute of Forest Genetics.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

very important part of the IFG’s program, it had been overemphasized because of 

the lack of technical personnel in other important fields. It was also decided that 

progeny tests underway were sufficient to demonstrate the possibilities of this pine 

breeding method, and that no further progeny tests should be initiated until all 

results of past tests had been completely analyzed and reported. Research emphasis 

therefore swung to hybridization, in part pushed by Director Kotok and energetically carried out by geneticist Righter. Although IFG continued to analyze past 

progeny test data for publication, the institute suspended any new progeny and 

selection experimentation for several years. Instead, the time arrived for field testing promising hybrids of economic value and selected strains of pine.32 This work 

was done in cooperation with other governmental agencies and private landowners. 

Special attention was directed to various indigenous pines of California, with a 

view to producing hybrids that combined certain of their desirable attributes in new 

forms. Laboratory work was carried out mainly in Berkeley, but fieldwork on native 

pines was carried on along what was called the “El Dorado transect,” a belt several 

miles wide that traversed the Sierras from Folsom to Echo Summit, paralleling U.S. 

Highway 50. The IFG staff members also began to take advantage of the concentration of scientists at CFRES, freely consulting them on their hybridization program, 

and cooperating with them on a number of projects, such as preliminary work to 

produce a blister-rust-immune white pine.33 A white pine that was immune to 

blister rust was needed because by 1940, the Forest Service had spent some $30 

million on Ribes eradication work, yet blister rust continued to spread in California 

(Austin et al. 1974; Hill 1939; Stockwell and Walker 1948; Talbot 1940; USDA FS 

1940a, 1941a, 1948a). 

The future of IFG looked bright in 1939–1940. Some staff even expressed their 

desire to expand its applied and fundamental research further. But World War II 

brought a loss of relief labor, and the exigencies of war necessitated a reorientation 

of the genetics program. Thereafter, no new work was contemplated and ongoing 

work was reconsidered (USDA FS 1942a). Furthermore, in 1940, Institute Director 

Austin voluntarily demoted himself to staff geneticist. The decision had been made

32 The history of the IFG’s research program cannot be fully understood without some 

discussion of the basic disagreement over approaches that developed between Lloyd Austin 

and Francis Irving Righter. In sum, Austin was committed to a program of using the 

variation within the institute’s principal commercial species. The logical tactic therefore 

was to progeny test selected individuals. On the other hand, Righter chose the strategy 

of combining the desirable characteristics of species-to-species hybrids, and, if possible, 

of using hybrid vigor. With limited staff and facilities, the two strategies were, in effect, 

mutually exclusive (Duffield 1979).

33 N.T. Mirov, for instance, in 1938 investigated the vegetative propagation of white pine as 

a possible method of blister rust control (Aitro 1977).

The time arrived for 

field testing promising 

hybrids of economic 

value and selected 

strains of pine.
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to move the institute’s full-time staff and library to Berkeley. Austin felt strongly 

that the staff, which was not administrative but scientific, should be headquartered 

at Placerville, the site of the laboratory (arboretum) and reference library holdings, 

with trips as necessary to Berkeley, but he was overruled. Forest Service regulations required that all division chiefs work at stations. Lloyd Austin declined to 

leave Placerville where he had built his home and his family lived. So, given no 

choice in the matter, Station Director Kotok accepted his resignation and replaced 

him with his colleague Francis Righter (Austin et al. 1974).

Silviculture— 

In the period 1933 to 1941, CFRES reforestation studies gave fairly distributed attention to two fields: natural reproduction and forestation, or direct seeding. Studies 

in the field of natural reproduction included studies of seed production

and seedling incidence and survival. These studies aimed to determine the physical conditions that limited natural reproduction, and that were subject to control by 

silvicultural treatment favoring the pines. This was California’s major means of 

forest regeneration on lands that had not been subject to too much abuse through 

harvesting or fire or both. Seed production was studied by means of cone and seed 

counts, and seeding incidence by the use of seed traps.34 The CFRES research in 

natural reproduction of native plants included the topics of collecting, diseases, 

dispersal, dormancy, germination, handling, insects, longevity, physiology, production, storage, treatment, and viability (USDA FS 1934: September, November; 

1935: January, October; USDA FS 1937d). Before his untimely death in 1929, H.W. 

Siggins conducted some of the earliest work on conifer seed distribution and rate of 

fall at CFRES. Thereafter, scientists such as N.T. Mirov published articles that discussed related subjects, such as germination methods for coniferous species35 (Aitro 

1977). Researchers at CFRES had not given up on direct seeding, but they were 

very cautious and reluctant to profess any faith in the possibilities of direct seeding 

of ponderosa and sugar pines because of the uniformly disastrous failures of 

1908 to 1913. For instance, one CFRES report in 1933 stated bluntly: “We have not

34 Early in the New Deal years, CCC and State Emergency Relief Administration crews 

gathered and cleaned seeds of more than 100 species of plants for the station, and they 

weeded seeding and planting beds, extracted and cleaned seed for research purposes for the 

Devil Canyon and Feather River nurseries.

35 In addition to this work on conifers, CFRES staff scientists, such as Charles J. Kraebel 

and N.T. Mirov published several articles pertaining to collecting and propagating the 

seeds of California’s wild plant life, including CFRES Research Note 18 (Mirov and 

Kraebel 1937), a popular manual printed in 1937 and supplemented in 1940, that described 

the collection, extraction, germination, treatment, and storage of seeds for 255 species of 

California flora (Aitro 1977).

Studies aimed to 

determine the physical 

conditions that limited 

natural reproduction.
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dared to risk duplication of those earlier failures on a large scale” (USDA FS 1935: 

April). Nonetheless, the station continued to dabble with direct seeding in connection with the study of natural reproduction of coniferous species in California’s pine 

country. But in 1940, Duncan Dunning reported that the net results were mostly 

negative, and not very new. He surmised that there were still problems in obtaining 

good seed, site treatment, and preventing rodent damage. With unprotected seeding, rodent destruction of pine seed was still so great as to make the work fruitless 

(Aitro 1977; USDA FS 1935: April, October, 1937b). On the other hand, CFRES 

appeared to be more successful in forestation experiments of succulents on sites 

selected for firebreaks in several southern California national forests. Experiments 

showed that direct seeding of succulents such as the Australian saltbush and common iceplant was possible and far superior to the results from transplanted nursery 

stock. Because of their succulence and great resistance to fire, these plants offered 

considerable hope for covering the firebreaks in southern California and reducing 

the tremendous cost of annual clearing (USDA FS 1935: April, October). 

Pine region silvicultural investigations— 

By the New Deal period, pine region silvicultural investigations had become a 

designated part of the CFRES research program, and the goal of the station’s pine 

management division was to discover, test, and demonstrate those forest practices 

conducive to sustained timber production in California’s mixed-conifer forests. By 

1940, the division had six permanent and three temporary technical employees, 

three branch field stations (Blacks Mountain, Feather River, and Stanislaus), and 

several experimental forests at the division’s disposal. Investigations at these locations, as described below, were directed mainly toward the more urgent practical 

problems faced by managers of public and private forests, rather than more abstract 

biological problems. Studies fell into several categories: harvesting methods, reforestation of wastelands, thinning techniques, and some silvics. Research results were 

made available through conferences with lumbermen and forest managers, and by 

reports and publications (Talbot 1940).

Swain Mountain Experimental Forest— 

As noted in the previous chapter, the Swain Mountain Experimental Forest or 

SMEF, the first in California, was formally designated in early 1932 as a place for 

field studies and demonstration of forest management practices in the true-fir types 

of California. The experimental forest, located on the Lassen National Forest, occupied most of a volcanic mountain, a compact 6,080 acres, which was stocked 

with true fir stands, and was recommended as an experimental forest by A.E. 

Wieslander. The SMEF eventually proved to be worth Wieslander’s confidence. 

The goal of the

station’s pine 

management division 

was to discover, test, 

and demonstrate 

those forest practices 

conducive to sustained 

timber production in 

California’s mixedconifer forests.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

However, the experimental forest sat idle for the next 23 years until 1955 when an 

access road was finally constructed into it. A number of reasons were responsible 

for delaying activities at Swain Mountain. Principal among them was the limited 

interest in true-fir investigations prior to World War II, and limited CFRES funding, which annually amounted to only one-and-a-half person-years of direct timber management research and operation at SMEF (Gordon 1978; USDA FS 1937d, 

1940b, 1956).

Blacks Mountain Branch Station and Experimental Forest— 

The research fate of the 10,252-acre Blacks Mountain Experimental Forest, or 

BMEF, created on March 28, 1934, differed considerably from that of SMEF, although its designation was not without controversy. Apparently, some members of 

Region 5’s staff doubted the usefulness of this experimental forest, and especially 

one as large as proposed. Nevertheless, with the support of Station Director Kotok 

and Regional Forester Show, who often worked hand-in-glove with Kotok, BMEF 

was set-aside as CFRES’ principal site for management studies of the interior ponderosa pine type in poor sites—the only forest cover type on the forest. The Station/

Region 5 program at BMEF had the following research objectives: studying methods of harvesting to convert old growth into regulated productive forests, investigating methods of reforesting waste lands, experimenting with methods of thinning 

and pruning timber trees, as well as various silvics studies (Gordon 1982; USDA FS 

1937d, 1940b).

Located in the Eagle Lake Ranger District of the Lassen National Forest 40 

miles northwest of Susanville, California, about half of BMEF lay in a gently rolling basin with the remainder extending up the moderate slopes of Blacks Mountain 

to the north and to the summit of Patterson Mountain to the east (fig. 48). Construction of BMEF facilities by WPA builders began almost immediately after the Chief 

of the Forest Service approved the experimental forest. They were completed in one 

year. Newly built facilities included a residence, dormitories, garages, and shops for 

the research staff and maintenance people (Gordon 1982). (fig. 49)

Meanwhile, from July 1933 to November 1934, a 10-member CCC crew conducted an impressive 100-percent inventory of trees over 3.5 inches in diameter at 

BMEF. This “legendary” project, designed by Austin Hassel, mapped all timber 

types as well as types of low vegetation such as grass and brush by species to 

the quarter-acre. Once logging began, the species, diameter class, and other data 

pertaining to each tree went into another record. In this manner, a close estimate 

of inventory on each compartment could be prepared, modified by growth and 

insect-caused mortality. The unique data from BMEF would later be analyzed at the 

Berkeley Station to form the basis for sampling methods that became widely used 
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Figure 48—California Forest and Range Experiment Station, Blacks Mountain Branch, Susanville, 

California, headquarters site map with proposed improvements.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 49—View of buildings at California Forest and Range Experiment Station Blacks Mountain Branch, Lassen County, 

California.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research 

Station

in the future. Additionally, BMEF was subdivided into 100 compartments and an 

intensive road system (46 miles) was constructed. Built between 1935 and 1938, this 

road system was laid out so that a road bordered every compartment, and was the 

first in the West designed specifically for truck hauling of logs. The compartment 

system was installed for purposes of logging convenience and for inventory recordkeeping. As far as possible, roads were located to allow trucks to run downhill with 

their loads. The CCC provided all labor and a large part of the equipment operation 

for BMEF. Besides this first in western logging methods, BMEF also was the first 

to use its own equipment, and eventually its own crews, to conduct its logging on a 

scale not tried elsewhere by the Forest Service (Berg 1990, Gordon 1982, USDA FS 

1938a). 

Management, silviculture, and insect control for interior ponderosa had been 

studied since 1910. However, the initial objective of the BMEF program was to 

develop these theories into a system of management and to test, demonstrate, and 

improve this system through continuous operation of a timber tract on a commercial scale (Berg 1990). Consequently, in the first part of the 1930s, experimental 

timber harvests at BMEF were primarily conducted for insect control in hopes of 

advancing and testing an insect risk-rating system that identified large, old ponderosa pines at risk of being killed by the western pine beetle. By 1936, the “California 

Pine-Risk System”36 came into being and essentially classified ponderosa pine as 

36 Kenneth “Ken” A. Salman and J.W. “Jack” Bongberg of the Entomology Laboratory 

at Berkeley developed this system of tree classification from research conducted in the 

late 1920s by Duncan Dunning. Salman and Bongberg’s work was published in a 1942 

article “Logging High Risk Trees to Control Insects in the Pine Stands of Northeastern 

California,” that appeared in the Journal of Forestry (Berg 1990, Gordon 1982, Salman and 

Bongberg 1942, Wickman 2005).
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to vigor. The rating system resulted in a silvicultural approach (selective treatment) 

to managing western pine beetles instead of the direct control method (mid-1920s 

to mid-1930s) that amounted to felling the obviously attacked trees, peeling their 

bark with axes to expose and kill insect broods by means of sunlight, dry air, and 

in some cases, burning the bark (Gordon 1982, Wickman 2005). In 1937, the basic 

experiment to test and verify the California Pine-Risk System was started at BMEF. 

Each year, CCC enrollees, entomologists, and foresters joined battle with the beetle 

for California’s pines, and conducted light insect-control salvage logging on cutover 

lands at BMEF. By the fifth season, selective stand treatment seemed to have beaten 

the insects to the punch. During that time, damage on the lightly cut areas was only 

a small fraction of that in older uncut timber stands (Dunning 1941). Thereafter, it 

was demonstrated at BMEF that small cuts could be made to reduce the annual rate 

of tree killing and sanitation-salvage began to be widely adopted in ponderosa pine 

regions. The California Pine-Risk System of insect control was soon used for both 

ponderosa pine and Jeffrey pine stands in eastern California. In 1939 and 1940, 

large-scale applications were made elsewhere in California, and the word began to 

spread of its success. The California System was the first insect risk-rating system 

of its kind to be developed and applied, and it continues to be used widely today 

(Gordon 1982; Salman and Bongberg 1942; USDA FS 1938a, 1940a, 1941a; Wickman 2005). 

The California Pine-Risk System was not the only research conducted at BMEF 

in the 1930s. In the second half of the decade, CFRES chief of pine management 

Duncan Dunning used BMEF for an ambitious study of stand growth and development as well. In February 1937, Dunning outlined a plan of development for sustained yield research at BMEF. In this planning document, the outspoken Dunning 

severely criticized current forestry practices. Public forest practices, in his opinion, 

had been scaled down to the standards of lumbering needs. Furthermore, he wrote: 

Only a spirit of optimism can support beliefs that, somehow, growth will be 

very much more rapid than records indicate: that mere fire protection will 

insure future merchantable stands; that economic selective culling will 

incidentally result in some semblance of forestry; or that any other cutting 

practice will approach forestry, if essentially subjugated to the aim 

of unreasonable profit for an inefficient custodian [Gordon 1982: 67]. 

Dunning recommended an unheard-of 140-year rotation (the period from 

regeneration to final harvest). Apparently, Regional Forester Show and his timber 

management officer T.D. Woodbury could not swallow Dunning’s statements and 

Each year, 

CCC enrollees, 

entomologists, and 

foresters joined battle 

with the beetle for 

California’s pines.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

opinions. They made little effort to assist CFRES in getting finances for this forest 

management research at BMEF37 (Gordon 1982).

Nonetheless, starting in 1938, and each year for the next 10 years, plots were 

installed at BMEF (Halls Flat) to test cutting prescriptions, ranging from commercial clearcut, to various intensities of partial cutting, to no harvest. The Forest 

Service did not ordinarily engage in actual logging when timber was sold, but in 

this case, it wanted to control all woods operations in connection with this feasibility test of sustained yield timber production. Previous research had shown that the 

usual practice of cutting most of the timber in a single operation resulted in longdeferred second cut with consequent interruptions of employment and business. It 

was hoped that lighter, more frequent logging with better timing and selection of 

trees would result in more rapid growth and reseeding, and would reduce serious 

insect damage at the same time (Dunning 1938, USDA FS 1938a).

The approach of World War II curtailed this and other research at BMEF, but 

by this time, BMEF research projects had led to two more “firsts.” The experimental forest was the first to show that light salvage cutting was no more expensive 

than heavier cutting. And BMEF was the first to help design and construct the 

first unmanned, rapidly portable log loader—the Le Tourneau industrial crane. It 

handled overmature pine timber—the key to the success of “light salvage cutting” 

that revolutionized subsequent logging practice (USDA FS 1982).

Feather River Branch Station/Nursery and Experimental Forest— 

The Feather River Branch Station and the Feather River Experimental Forest 

(FREF) had varying histories during the 1930s. The Feather River Branch Station 

was first established on the Plumas National Forest in 1912. From then until 1926, 

District 5 had supervised research and located a nursery there. When the California 

station was established, it assumed supervision of the Feather River Experiment 

Station and nursery from District 5, and renamed it the Feather River Branch 

Station/Nursery, but it had no assigned staff (Fowells 1983).

In 1933, the Feather River Branch Station/Nursery included a superintendent’s 

residence, staff house, office and laboratory, warehouse, and nursery, and also a 

training school for Region 5 personnel (fig. 50). In 1934, the Feather River Branch 

Station/Nursery was renovated, and forestation and nursery studies began here once 

again. Following the renovation, the nursery produced small amounts of ponderosa 

and Jeffrey pine planting stock for use in the national forest planting programs. But 

37 Dunning was a central figure in pine forest management and a prolific publisher on the 

subject. Some regarded him as the “keenest observer and best naturalist at the station.” 

However, there seemed to be a “deep-seated friction” between him and Director Kotok and 

probably Regional Forester Show as well (Conners 2006: Section 8, 8).
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Figure 50—Office building for California Forest and Range Experiment Station Feather River 

Branch, Quincy, California.

California Forest and Range Experiment Station 

in late 1937, following discussions between CFRES and Region 5, a decision was 

made that the nursery would no longer produce experimental planting stock. The 

remaining stock on hand was used on the Plumas National Forest. Thereafter, the 

station/nursery participated in a number of smaller reforestation studies. In 1938, a 

poplar hybrid developed by the Northeastern Station was tested at the nursery and 

destroyed after early survival and growth were measured. In the same year, a large 

and complicated study comparing seed sizes, seedling sizes, and transplant sizes 

of ponderosa and Jeffrey pine was started and carried on at the nursery until the 

1960s. And, in 1940, the station/nursery cooperated in a study of Scotch pine. After 

the initial survival and growth were determined, the planting was destroyed during 

World War II to make room for other studies (Fowells 1983).

By contrast, little research work was conducted at FREF, which was approved 

on June 27, 1933, and located 10 miles east of Quincy, California, in the drainages 

of Willow Creek and Thompson Creek tributaries of the North Fork of the Feather 

River on the Plumas. As established, FREF contained 3,970 acres of which 83 percent was mixed conifers (ponderosa and sugar pine, Douglas-fir, white fir, and 

incense-cedar). Under the direction of Duncan Dunning, FREF was set up to study 

the same five pine forest management research objectives that Dunning listed for 

research at Blacks Mountain, but in mixed-conifer timber in sites of medium 
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

quality. Additionally, Walter Lowdermilk and then Charles Kraebel were to conduct 

some water management research at the FREF. Unluckily, the FREF contained a 

great number of mining claims, the existence of which made the establishment of 

research installations therein impossible. The mining claim situation would not be 

resolved until the mid-1950s, but, as it turned out, no forestry research would ever 

be conducted at FREF (Fowells 1983; USDA FS 1937d, 1940b).

Stanislaus Branch and Experimental Forest— 

As at the Feather River Branch/Nursery, forestry research at the Stanislaus Branch 

(fig. 51) began long before the founding of the California station. Scattered harvest 

cutting plots, in what would become the Stanislaus-Tuolumne Experimental Forest 

in 1943, were established and monitored by District 5 personnel from approximately 1909 to 1924. They were started to study the growth of residual stands, growth 

characteristics of regenerated timber stands, and decay of logging slash. Other plots 

were important for “methods of cutting” experiments, which were periodically 

remeasured and results analyzed until the 1930s (Conners 2006). However, until 

the CFRES took over the research program from District 5 in 1926, no permanent 

facilities existed in the area.

Some sources indicate that the Stanislaus Branch Station had a 30-acre experimental area set aside, perhaps associated with a potential nursery site, whereas 

other references indicate that a larger area was assigned to the California station 

Figure 51—Building No. 4, caretaker's cottage at California Forest and Range Experiment 

Station, Stanilaus Branch, Pine Crest, California, 1935.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
196

general technical report psw-gtr-233

for research purposes. Nonetheless, the Stanislaus Branch Station seemed to evolve 

slowly and informally from 1927 to 1929 in response to the need to supervise 

a research program that determined desirable silvicultural practices in part of 

California’s pine region. The first building constructed at this time was a caretaker’s cottage in the Cow Creek area. Additional facilities eventually included a tworoom office-laboratory and a garage-storage building. Thereafter, 12 new harvest 

cutting plots were established up to 1930, but vegetation was charted intensively 

on only six plots. For the next 28 years, staff counted all cones on pines and firs 

on these six plots. Silviculturalist Duncan Dunning and other scientists conducted 

research in this area that focused on the development of harvesting methods for oldgrowth stands that could provide for regeneration of sugar pine, Jeffrey pine, and 

ponderosa pine. To determine factors influencing mortality and survival of seedlings, five “site factor” stations were constructed between 1931 and 1934 in a small 

30-acre experimental area. These site factor stations were established to monitor 

conditions related to seedling establishment. Beginning in 1932–1933, records were 

kept for 30 years at one site, 19 years at another, and 11 years at three other sites. 

These data were used in the definitive work on seed and cone production38 (Berg 

1990, Conners 2006, Fowells 1978, USDA FS 1937d).

With the advent of the New Deal emergency programs (ECW, PWA, and CCC), 

funds and labor became available to increase facilities at the Stanislaus Branch Station. In 1936, Harry Fowells,39 a research scientist, was nominally placed in charge 

of the Branch Station, a position he held through 1953. From the 1933–1937 period, 

a staff house, an office-laboratory, a dormitory, and large garage-warehouse were 

constructed. These facilities housed staff that seasonally came to the Stanislaus 

facility to conduct research studies on seed production or cone development, to 

remeasure harvest cutting plots, or to check on the site factor stations. To find out 

why cone crops were so periodic, Fowells and staff also constructed and climbed 

80- to 120-foot wooden ladders that reached the crowns of individual sugar, ponderosa, and Jeffrey pines, as well as a white fir. But as already noted, as early as 1931, 

CFRES had sought an experimental forest on the Stanislaus National Forest near 

the Branch Station’s center of work there. Silviculture scientist Duncan Dunning 

drove this effort and in 1935 proposed the development of an experimental forest on

38 Harry A. Fowells and Gilbert H. Schubert summarized 28 years of seed production of 

sugar pine, ponderosa pine, and white fir and interpreted this information for application 

to cutting practices and seed collection in USDA Technical Bulletin 1150 Seed Crops of 

Forest Trees in the Pine Region of California (Fowells and Schubert 1956).

39 Harry Fowells was accepted to the doctoral program at the University of California at 

Berkeley in 1930, and given a research assistantship. Instead, Fowells accepted a full-time 

job at CFRES, “an offer too good to turn down” at the time. Eventually, he found time to 

complete graduate courses and earned his Ph.D. in 1958 (PSW 2001b).

Staff constructed and 

climbed 80- to 120-foot 

wooden ladders that 

reached the crowns 

of individual sugar, 

ponderosa, and Jeffrey 

pines, as well as a 

white fir.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

which to apply the theories emerging from detailed research on the experimental 

plots at the Stanislaus Branch Station, but he was turned down (Fowells 1978). In 

1940, Dunning renewed his effort for an experimental forest area on the Stanislaus 

National Forest, whose objectives would cover the same five pine forest management research objectives that Dunning listed for research at BMEF and FREF, but 

in a totally different type, namely sugar pine timber in sites of high quality (USDA 

FS 1940b). In light of the new U-1, U-2, and U-2A Regulations (1938) that replaced 

the L-20 Regulation, allowing experimental forests and ranges to be set aside for 

long-term research, Dunning pointed out that the new experimental forest would 

also serve as a public relations asset to recreation management. But a formal designation creating an experimental forest near Pinecrest, California, a very popular 

recreation area, would not come until late 1943,40 when the Stanislaus-Tuolumne 

Experimental Forest was finally created (Conners 2006, Fowells 1978).

Redwood region silvicultural investigations— 

The function of the CFRES redwood management division was to develop and 

demonstrate the best possible system of management for the forest lands of the redwood region. This involved the determination, through experimentation, of sound 

practices that would provide continuously the greatest quantity of desirable timber 

products. Along with this sustained-yield research program, the California station 

needed background knowledge regarding redwood cutover areas, results of planting 

timber and related resources, logging methods, costs and damages, and other information relating to the proper management of redwood timber lands (Talbot 1940). 

Prior to the New Deal, CFRES redwood regional studies had revealed that planting could not restore stands on logged areas that had already been subjected to the 

destructive clearcut logging and slash-burning methods of the day. These investigations also indicated that redwoods reproduced well from seed under proper conditions, and it appeared feasible to leave seed trees as a rule rather than to attempt 

planting, and that selective logging with tractors was possible and afforded greater 

returns to the operator (Silcox 1934, Stuart 1933). 

To further test these and other research questions, Hubert Person, who was 

assigned to investigate forest management issues associated with California’s 

redwood region, desired the acquisition of areas suitable for redwood experimental 

40 In December 1943, two tracts were formally set aside for long-term database studies. 

One tract was on the South Fork of the Stanislaus River and a larger tract was on the lower 

slopes of Dodge Ridge, south of the North Fork of the Tuolumne River. These tracts were 

selected because they were typical of mixed-conifer stands of the Sierra Nevada, specifically those of high site quality on mid-elevation west slopes in the Sierra Nevada range 

(Berg 1990).
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forests to acquire this information.41 With the coming of the New Deal, considerable discussion took place at CFRES regarding this need, and also among Region 

5 officials, who wished to acquire land for a new Redwood National Forest. For 

instance, in a 1933 memorandum to Director Kotok, Hubert Person openly discussed three areas that he considered suitable for experimental forest status. He recommended areas at Caspar Creek near Fort Bragg, California, at Van Duzen River, 

a major tributary of the Eel River southeast of Eureka, California, and at Weott, 

also southeast of Eureka. Although nothing came of Person’s recommendation at 

this time, the California station did not give up pursuing the issue. Then during 

1935–1936, Region 5 finally convinced the National Forest Reservation Commission to establish purchase area boundaries for two redwood areas in California, a 

Northern Redwood Purchase Unit (NRPU) in Del Norte County and a Southern 

Redwood Purchase Unit (SRPU) in Mendocino County. Thereafter, Region 5 began 

slowly acquiring redwood lands within these broad zones to form the nucleus of 

a much larger Redwood National Forest. Naturally, CFRES was also involved in 

the transactions and negotiations, with Hubert Person pushing the idea to set aside 

2,300 acres in the NRPU either for scientific purposes as an experimental forest, or 

as a research natural area (RNA) (Boe 1983, Conners 1995, Silcox 1936).

Meanwhile, Hubert Person continued the redwood research program that he had 

begun in 1931 that included general research in the areas of planting, condition of 

cutover land, redwood logging, and establishment of natural reproduction. By 1937, 

Person’s program included planting studies, natural reproduction studies on selectively logged areas, tree measurements for construction of volume tables, logging 

studies, and slash disposal in cooperation with the California Redwood Association.42 Among the important publications Person produced was Commercial Planting on Redwood Cut-Over Lands (Person 1937), which concluded that successful 

planting was possible at moderate cost if newly logged areas were planted promptly 

and care taken in choice of stock. William E. Hallin and Person also published 

widely on tractor and selective logging methodology and costs associated with the 

redwood region while R.C. Wilson traced the history of early day logging operations in the Santa Cruz redwood region (Aitro 1977). However, Person realized that 

any future redwood studies and investigations could only be facilitated on fully 

41 At this time, there was only a scattering of redwoods within the boundaries of 

California’s national forests, and they were chiefly on the Monterey division of the 

Santa Barbara National Forest, which in 1936 was renamed the Los Padres National 

Forest (Godfrey 2005).

42 The California Redwood Association was founded in 1916.

Successful planting 

was possible at 

moderate cost if newly 

logged areas were 

planted promptly and 

care taken in choice of 

stock.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

controlled lands located within an experimental forest. Once again, in 1939, he 

pushed for a redwood experimental forest in his report Problem Analysis for 

Silvicultural Investigations in the Redwood Region (Person 1939) His paper realized the need for an experimental forest, and suggested one in each of the northern 

and southern redwood zones.43 Finally, in late 1939 and early 1940, after prolonged 

and involved transactions, the Forest Service completed the purchase of substantial 

acreage for the NRPU and made it part of the Trinity National Forest. Of this acreage, with the support of Acting Chief Earle Clapp, the Forest Service designated 

14,500 acres of redwood timberland north of the lower Klamath River in Del Norte 

County as an experimental forest44 (Boe 1983, Conners 1995). 

Redwood (Yurok) Branch and Experimental Forest— 

On January 14, 1940, Regional Forester Show and Director Kotok approved the 

designation of the Redwood Branch and Experimental Forest 4 miles north of the 

town of Klamath, Del Norte County. The purpose of the experimental forest was 

to develop and demonstrate the best possible system of management for the forest 

lands of the redwood region, which included studies related to tree selection, natural 

reproduction, logging, slash disposal, and yield. Plans for buildings at the Redwood 

Branch Station got started immediately. By using CCC labor from a nearby camp 

to clear the site, and WPA project funding, CFRES constructed a two-story multipurpose headquarters building with interior panels constructed from the principal 

tree species in the area. The building, complete with fireplaces throughout (someone may have thought that CCC crews would be around for awhile to cut firewood), 

was finished just before World War II altogether interrupted research there. Studies 

on coastal redwood silviculture and techniques for regeneration and management 

would not restart at the Redwood Experimental Forest, also known as the Yurok 

Branch and Experiment Station (fig. 52), until the mid-1950s (Boe 1983, Conners 

1995, USDA FS 1940b). 

43 By this date, the environmental and stand differences between the two units were evident 

to most foresters.

44 At this time, tax delinquency made many private landowners anxious to sell their redwood holdings for federal government cash. Apparently, 50 percent of the private cutover 

land in NRPU was in arrears and could be purchased at bargain basement prices (Conners 

1995). Acting Chief Earle Clapp strongly supported this and similar purchases. In a letter 

to Regional Forester Show dated May 31, 1940, Clapp stated: “The remaining old-growth 

redwood stands of California and possibly also the remainder of the old-growth pine 

stands constitute one of these problems [raised by the Joint Congressional Committee on 

Forestry]....In the past the Forest Service has in the main let liquidation of the old-growth 

timber run its course, without concrete, aggressive attempts to stop it. The time has come, 

however, when in my judgment we should submit through appropriate channels whatever 

specific recommendations may be necessary to get on top and control in the public interest 

such problems” (Clapp 1940: 1–2).
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Figure 52—California Forest and Range Experiment Station, Yurok Experimental Forest, Requa, 

California.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Forest fire protection— 

Adequate protection from fire was the first requisite to sound management of the 

land resources of the pine and redwood regions of California. Without it, no form of 

management, whether it be for timber production, livestock forage, conservation 

and storage of water, or for recreational values, could succeed. The purpose of fire 

research at CFRES was to substitute quantitative and scientific data for fire-control 

lore on fire behavior, damage, and the effectiveness of different planning and suppression methods and facilities for fire-control lore. Fire research at CFRES augmented the knowledge already gained from the combined experiences of fire-control personnel (Talbot 1940). California Station effort was in line with the objectives 

of the Copeland Report, in which Director Edward Kotok, who by this time was 

a nationally recognized expert in fire research, reviewed the fire situation in the 

Nation and the objectives of fire control, including organization, spread of attack, 

economic considerations, and limitation of fire damage (Aitro 1977).

In spite of 20 years of constant attempts to better fire protection performance 

that began when District 5 Forester Coert DuBois published his Systematic Fire 

Protection in the California Forests (DuBois 1914), at the beginning of the New 

Deal, fire risks in the state were still a major burden of every national forest administrator. Finally, in 1930, fire research had become a formal section at the station, 

and with Region 5 cooperation, the Shasta Experimental Fire Forest (SEFF) was 
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created that year (fig. 53). However, CFRES fire research at SEFF and publications 

by Kotok and Show on fire protection, such as The Determination of Hour Control 

for Adequate Protection in the Major Cover Types of California Pine Region (Show 

and Kotok 1930), offered eventual hope. By the onset of the New Deal, facilities 

at SEFF included a central staff house and laboratory in the town of Mount Shasta 

and a combination office-laboratory at Pilgrim Creek, 25 miles distant. An area of 

several thousand acres of dense chaparral tributary to the Pilgrim Creek center had 

also been set aside for experimental brushland fire work; it was an area representative of over a million acres of high-quality timberland captured by brush as a result 

of fire or logging followed by fire (USDA FS 1937d). The SEFF provided Kotok 

and Show the opportunity to test the concepts of their 1930 Hour and Control

publication (Cermak 2005). At SEFF, the most acute fire problems of the California 

region (detection, organization planning, fire behavior, and firebreak development) 

continued to be studied. This forest fire protection effort greatly benefited from 

the New Deal’s alphabet agencies, especially the CCC. By the end of the New Deal 

years, fire research in California was on good footing.

For instance, in the past, CFRES had given considerable attention to forest 

fire detection problems. Studies included the development of singular techniques 

for visibility maps and the selection of lookout points (fig. 54). The station’s fire 

research staff led by George Gowen investigated the radius of vision of lookouts 

under varying conditions (sun, haze, smoke conditions, and seasons). During the 

New Deal, CFRES staff continued forest fire visibility work. In 1934, with the aid 

of the CCC, research staff set carefully controlled fires at SEFF and observed them 

under a wide variety of conditions (Silcox 1934), and completed their research just 

in time to permit Region 5 to use the data gathered. With this new information, and 

under station direction, Region 5 completely revamped its lookout system45 using 

available CCC labor (USDA FS 1937d). 

This action created a domino effect of additional work. Revision of California’s 

lookout system brought forth the necessity for review of the communication and 

road transportation systems of the national forests. Therefore, CFRES began testing 

the adequacy of Region 5’s communication system. Completing its communication/

transportation study in 1935–1936, CFRES revealed many weaknesses in the 

location and type of construction of Region 5’s telephone lines, as well as other 

45 The number of lookouts went from about 100 to 200, and some of the “old standby lookouts were abandoned often with tears because of sentimental attachment” (Show 1965: 85).

The most acute 

fire problems of 

the California 

region (detection, 

organization planning, 

fire behavior, and 

firebreak development) 

continued to be 

studied.
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Figure 53—Laboratory and office, California Forest and Range Experiment Station, Mount 

Shasta Branch, Mount Shasta, California, 1942.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Figure 54—Metal lookout towers replaced many early wood platform 

lookouts, such as this one on the Mendocino National Forest.

U.S. Forest Service
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

problems.46 The CFRES study showed that 400 miles of telephone lines should be 

reconstructed, 1,330 miles abandoned, and 3,243 miles of new line built (Silcox 

1935a, USDA FS 1937d). Again, the presence of the CCC enrollees helped in many 

ways. Their work included the construction of new telephone lines as well as foot, 

horse, and motor-truck trails. These various physical improvements for fire control 

were finished in 1936, giving Region 5 a foundation never before available for fire 

performance efficiency (USDA FS 1937d). The research and construction activity 

also provided material for Director Kotok and Regional Forester Show’s publication 

Planning, Constructing, and Operating Forest-Fire Lookout Systems in California

(Show and Kotok 1937).

Besides the research in detection and organization planning, CFRES and 

Region 5 also undertook fire behavior research in the New Deal years. Fire behavior became an important research area after the devastating 1932 Matilija Fire on 

the Santa Barbara National Forest that burned close to 220,000 acres, and occupied 

much of the time of station fire research staff, such as George M. Gowen and J.R. 

Curry at SEFF thereafter47 (Cermak 2005). Fire behavior studies were necessary 

in order to forecast fire danger, to permit determination of size of crews and speed 

of attack requirements, and to promote development in fire suppression tactics and 

strategies. Advances in the knowledge of how various factors, such as wind, slope, 

moisture content, size and arrangement of fuels, and degrees of compaction, significantly improved fire suppression efficiency. Toward this end, again with the help of 

the CCC, in 1937, the station began studying this problem through the observation 

of approximately 300 test fires at SEFF. Station fire research staff analyzed these 

factors with the aim of integrating them into a series of indexes expressing the 

chance of fires starting, rapidity of spread, and the type of organization needed to 

46 Many trunk lines were seriously overloaded and dependable service suffered. Furthermore, in some cases, Forest Service lines had been tied to farmer lines, and service was 

tricky and uncertain because of interference on such party lines (Show 1965).

47 In 1935, responsibility for fire research at the station was shifted from George M. Gowen 

to J.R. Curry. Gowen had moved over to a Region 5 administration position. Curry led 

CFRES during the next critical phase of fire research at CFRES that began after a fire 

research conference held at Pasadena attended by 10 Forest Service experiment station 

directors and an equal number of regional foresters. They voted unanimously for a new 

fire suppression policy of “immediate control” by 10 a.m. After the Pasadena conference, 

Chief Silcox in a circular letter dated May 7, 1935, outlined this policy (Loveridge 1944). 

This “new” policy had the same objective as Show and Kotok’s minimum-damage theory, 

which they espoused in USDA Circular 358, Fire and the Forest (Show and Kotok 1925). It 

had looked closely at historical damage done by recurring fires in California’s pine region 

(Gisborne 1942, Loveridge 1944).

They voted 

unanimously for a new 

fire suppression policy 

of “immediate control” 

by 10 a.m.
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cope with current fire danger. Then, a coordinating committee of Region 5 and station personnel attempted the first fire danger rating (FDR) for four of California’s 

national forests. By 1939, the rating system they developed was expanded to the 

remaining national forests48 (USDA FS 1937d, 1939a).

As indicated above, Region 5 worked closely with the station in fire management studies—a collaboration that eventually led to several landmark publications 

and helped cement the working relationship between researchers at the station and 

fire specialists in Region 5. The station’s first important publication, Region 5: 

Fire Control Handbook (USDA FS 1937b) provided a working tool for fire control 

people based on fire research results at SEFF and actual practical experience. Two 

other significant publications came at this time. The first was Principles of ForestFire Detection on the National Forests of Northern California (USDA FS 1937a), 

which included the results of large-scale fire tests at SEFF. The second publication was A Planning Basis for Adequate Fire Control on the Southern California 

National Forests (USDA FS 1941c). It stated that “person-caused fires in flash-fuels 

and brush zones presented the dominant Southern California fire problem.” It also 

indicated the objective of southern California fire control should be to hold losses 

in individual watersheds to an endurable maximum acreage burn for any fire49

(Arnold 1949, Cermak 2005, Show and Kotok 1938, Show et al. 1941, USDA FS 

1940a). 

Finally, there was the subject of firebreak development and maintenance. It 

was during the CCC period with its large pools of humanpower, that the firebreak, 

known as the Ponderosa Way, was built (fig. 55). This continuous fireline, or 

fuelbreak between timber and brush, stretched over 800 miles along the west front 

of the Sierra Nevada50 and was perhaps the most publicized single CCC project in 

48 Apparently, by prearrangement, perhaps at the Pasadena Fire Research Conference, 

the development of fire-danger rating systems was left to Forest Service Regions 1 and 6. 

However, Charles C. Buck (CFRES fire research) and George Gowen (at the time in Region 

5 administration) developed a fire-danger system to meet the unique needs of Region 5. 

They also set up a grid of weather observation stations in the state, and the Fire Weather 

Service of the United States Weather Bureau played an important part through continued 

active participation in the development of the fire-danger rating system (Wilson 1984).

49 Thereafter, Region 5 used the results of the latter study for many public relations pieces, 

including one article entitled “Put It Out.” This article admonished smokers by blaming 

them for 43 percent of all human-caused forest and brush fires in the state and may have 

led to the Smokey Bear “antismoking” campaigns of the future (Godfrey 2005).

50 In an attempt to aid in cutting firebreaks, CFRES developed a power brush saw that 

operated with a 1-1/2-horsepower gasoline motor to cut through dense brush and in stands 

of small samplings. The saw was developed by E.A. Morrow, a mechanic who had been in 

the Army Air Force overseas in World War I. Morrow’s power brush cutter, a horizontal 

circular saw mounted ahead of a wheel, and maneuvered like a wheelbarrow, weighed 100 

pounds, which probably limited its usefulness (Fowells 1983, Silcox 1934).

Person-caused fires in 

flash-fuels and brush 

zones presented the 

dominant Southern 

California fire problem.
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Figure 55—Ponderosa Way constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps near Grass Valley, 

California, 1934. 

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

California. A.E. Wieslander of the California Station and C.E. Dunston of Region 

5 worked together to outline the route of the firebreak (Cermak 2005; Show 1963; 

Silcox 1934, 1935a). One major problem in firebreak maintenance tackled by the 

station alone was sterilization of the soil along the right-of-way to keep vegetation down. In an era not cognizant of the environmental hazards associated with 

unrestrained and unwise chemical usage, the station’s solution depended on simple 

treatments of diesel oil and a variety of arsenic compounds to hinder the growth of 

annuals on the truck trail and firebreak. N.D. Bruce, along with C.A. Abell, led the 

way in this research on methods of killing sprouting stumps and eradicating dense 

perennial shrubs, such as bear clover, and sterilizing soil with chemicals against 

annual vegetation on firebreaks (Aitro 1977). Thereafter, weed and brush control 

became a research area within the station’s forest management research program 

that eventually turned to developmental research in cooperation with the University 

of California College of Agriculture on herbicidal chemicals that would prove more 

effective, if not just as hazardous (USDA FS 1937d, 1939a, 1940a).

By 1941 and the approach of World War II, CFRES fundamental investigations 

in fire management, which included determining the physical relationships between 

the manner in which fires start and spread and the variables that influence them, 

including fuel, weather, and topography (USDA FS 1940b), had produced a healthy 

body of fire management literature. Related aspects of fire management, such as 

designing national forest transportation plans to meet fire control problems in 
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California, redesigning telephone communication systems, or the complex problem 

of selecting and distributing lookouts for maximum efficiency in fire control, 

found publication, thanks to CFRES fire scientists such as A.A. Brown, Charles C. 

Buck, George Gowen, and Regional Forester S.B. Show. Other CFRES staff, such 

as John R. Curry and W.L. Fons, looked at the relationship between forest firedanger rating and fire control planning and its application to California as well as 

various aspects of fire behavior. Still others such as C.A. Abell and P.D. Hanson51

concerned themselves with determining the desirable size of suppression crews in 

various parts of California, among other subjects (Aitro 1977). In 1941, CFRES fire 

research knowledge was gathered into one publication, A Forest Fire Protection 

Problem Analysis for California, (Buck et al. 1941), a lengthy fundamental analysis 

of 77 problems in fire management that confronted the protection agencies of the 

state of California. It covered four basic fields in fire research: fire prevention, 

presuppression, suppression, and fire effects. Of course, CFRES fire research staff 

knew it would be impractical to attack each of the 77 problems at the same time, so 

CFRES selected eight problems as having the highest priority for research in the 

near future, which will be discussed in chapters to come (Buck et al. 1941). Nonetheless, reductions in both regular and emergency personnel, such as CCC labor 

because of World War II, resulted in a definite reduction in the rate of productive 

research in fire management (USDA FS 1942a), and fire research almost came to a 

halt as most of the limited staff was assigned to projects of interest to the military 

(Wilson 1984).

Forest Products

Forest products research began in the California region with the establishment of 

the Forest Service in 1905. With the founding of the California station, most of the 

earlier products activities in subjects such as wood preservation, marine piling, 

and air-seasoning of lumber gradually were closed out or transferred to the Forest 

Products Laboratory (FPL) in Madison, Wisconsin. This shift had been in pursuance of Director Kotok’s policy that all lines of station research contribute directly 

to the major station objective of advancing the better management of forest lands. 

Following the policy shift up to about 1936–1937, regular research projects centered 

on east-side logging studies conducted mostly by M.R. Brundage of the CFRES 

products division. These studies demonstrated to the regional lumber industry that 

cutting of trees below specified diameters cost more in direct expenditures than the 

total returns from the lumber produced. They also improved log-grading rules for

51 In 1938, P.D. Hanson, Forest Supervisor of the Lassen National Forest, was asked to head 

up Region 5’s fire planning projects (Wilson 1984).
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the pine region, and led to the publication of a manual of procedure for logging and 

milling studies. In spite of some hopeful signs, station staff believed the picture 

was still dark. Although some large operators were enlightened by the station’s 

evidence, the majority of the lumber industry apparently were unable to abandon 

the traditional notion that maximum realization per acre during the first cut was the 

most profitable practice (USDA FS 1937d).

The regular wood products research program at CFRES, however, was at times 

interrupted by several special projects.52 One such project of significance involved 

a logging and lumber industry study in Eldorado County pursued in cooperation 

with the University of California and the Giannini Foundation. Much like the 

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), but on a smaller scale, the objective of this 

project was the permanent socioeconomic betterment for Eldorado County through 

proper coordination of industry, agriculture, and forestry, and hinged on maintaining a permanent lumber manufacturing plant in the town of Diamond Springs. The 

CFRES viewed the Eldorado County investigation as the perfect setup for applying 

silvicultural treatment to areas that had not been properly cut under private management during the previous 15 years, as recommended by the 1933 Copeland Report

(USDA FS 1934: January, September). A year later, C.L. Hill, A.E. Wieslander, 

and University of California professor David Weeks published the results of this 

study (Weeks et al. 1934), which described the complex problems arising out of the 

economic and social structure of El Dorado County and its land utilization (Aitro 

1977, USDA FS 1937d). Their research was so well received, that Eldorado County 

officials formed a land committee to push forward a regional plan based on the 

report’s recommendations. Moreover, CFRES expanded this land-use research to 

a whole series of Mother Lode counties, running northward from El Dorado to the 

Feather River (USDA FS 1934: January, September; 1935: May, September; 1937d).

Important changes at CFRES occurred in wood products in the mid-1930s. 

Until 1937, wood products research had been largely confined to working out the 

economics of lumber production and its integration with management practices. 

Brundage’s ongoing logging and milling study exemplified this work, as well as 

various cooperative projects with Region 5 Division of Timber Management and 

private industry associations, such as the California Redwood Association. In 1938, 

C.L. Hill complained that the demands for work by his Division of Products 

far exceeded the capacity of the division’s limited personnel, so much so that Hill 

wrote Director Kotok informing him that no new comprehensive projects could

52 The FPL often requested cooperative work of the CFRES, and published jointly. For 

instance, in 1934, CFRES and the FPL published data on the properties of western whitefir and their relation to uses of the wood in a technical bulletin (Silcox 1934).

The majority of the 

lumber industry 

apparently were 

unable to abandon the 

traditional notion that 

maximum realization 

per acre during the 

first cut was the most 

profitable practice.
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be undertaken until his division could clean up a backlog of manuscript commitments, especially Brundage’s logging and milling study report, which had yet to be 

completely written. At the same time, Hill wished to reorganize the work of wood 

products research and to shift personnel from practical lumber production studies 

and forest management studies to accommodate a different line of work—utilization studies. In particular, Hill wanted to explore the consumption of lower grade 

materials from species harvested within the region itself, such as white fir, incensecedar, and Douglas-fir—a development Hill linked to the rapid development of 

tractor and truck logging in parts of California and the work at the Blacks Mountain 

Experimental Forest on different cutting systems. In Hill’s opinion, California forests offered a large production potential for harvesting low-grade lumber, and an 

even larger production potential from species left in the woods. This low-grade 

lumber situation constituted not only inefficient utilization, in Hill’s assessment, but 

complicated future Region 5 timber management plans. In mid-1939, a Washington 

office General Integrated Inspection (GII) agreed with Hill’s reorganization plan 

but left the task to his successor. Hill, who had been in charge of products for 20 

years, was transferred to the station director’s office, probably in anticipation of 

a Forestry Omnibus Bill being introduced into Congress.53 Simultaneously, L.N. 

Ericksen was made the new director (Hill 1939; USDA FS 1939a, 1940a). 

In 1940, based upon the GII, the wood products division gave more consideration to utilization problems. When CFRES divisions were asked to provide a 

short summary of the scope, problems, and objectives of their work for the Forestry 

Omnibus Bill, L.N. Ericksen readily pointed out that his division’s objective was 

more efficient utilization of forest products for construction and industrial uses; that 

the division acted in an advisory capacity on wood-utilization problems within the 

region; and that the work of the products division was closely integrated with that of 

the pine and redwood divisions of the station (Talbot 1940). To approach these problems, Ericksen planned to conduct a survey on a number of utilization problems 

in the coming year. However, attention toward this end was delayed because of the 

mounting interest in the defense program of the Nation and impending worldwide 

conflict. As the war approached, increased demands for lumber and other forest 

products owing to the national defense program placed new burdens on wood

53 C.L. Hill, who had held various positions in the Forest Service related to forest products, 

announced his retirement in January 1941. Since reporting as a technical assistant on 

the Sierra National Forest in 1912, Hill’s California experience in both District 5 and the 

California Station included timber surveys, management plans, experimental plantings, 

insect-damage surveys, wood technology, protection of wooden piling against marine borers, air seasoning of lumber, extraction of heptanes from Jeffrey pine, and forest economics, particularly land utilization in relation to forestry (Talbot 1941).

As the war approached, 

increased demands 

for lumber and other 

forest products owing 

to the national defense 

program placed new 

burdens on wood 

utilization research.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

utilization research, as wood products research faced new and increasing responsibilities (USDA FS 1940a, 1941a).

Forest Influences

Besides forest products research, forest influence fact-finding also provides an 

interesting story because in California, the problems of water supply, floods, and 

erosion control were very important.54 The relation of forests and other vegetation 

to watershed conditions had caught the attention of foresters, engineers, and others since floods and droughts caused substantial losses in America. The perennial 

question raised was whether or not vegetation, such as forests, exerted a beneficial 

influence on watersheds and helped prevent such losses to human developments. 

By the early 1930s, two sides of the debate emerged. One group held that vegetation 

conserves water supplies and its management is so important in flood protection 

that it should have complete protection from any form of depletion. The other group 

maintained that vegetation might accentuate water shortages through its consumption of this valuable fluid, that it had a dubious value in watershed protection, and 

that the removal of vegetation rather than its protection would constitute good 

watershed management (USDA FS 1937c, Wilm 1946). Early on, the Forest Service 

appeared to side with the first group, as protecting watersheds was stated as one of 

the main reasons for public management of forested lands, especially in the Western 

States.55 Alongside this academic debate, major changes pertaining to erosion 

54 Forest influences constituted the first new project undertaken by the California station 

after its establishment in 1926. Prior to that time, E.N. Munns pioneered forest influences 

work in California, and his report Erosion and Flood Problems in California for the 

California State Board of Forestry (Munns 1923) led the way.

55 Because of a lack of thorough knowledge on the matter, in 1909, the Forest Service 

embarked on a quantitative watershed experiment in southern Colorado near Wagon Wheel 

Gap, partially to shed light on the debate. In 1921, the experiment resulted in a report by 

Carlos G. Bates and A.J. Henry that was considered a classic in watershed literature at the 

time (Bates and Henry 1921, Forsling 1978, Price 1976, Wilm 1946). The Wagon Wheel 

Gap Experiment was a milestone in watershed management investigation and brought to 

light a number of facts on streamflow-forest relations in Western mountain states, and 

showed that areas did exist where the removal of forest cover did not cause damage, but 

even benefited water yields. In 1932, W.G. Hoyt and H.C. Troxell reanalyzed the Wagon 

Wheel Gap data along with additional information from two southern California watersheds in Los Angeles County—one of which had been denuded by fire. They concluded 

that indeed there were increases in water yield induced by denudation, but the occurrence 

of severe floods and damage from sediment during the years immediately after could not 

be overlooked (Hoyt and Troxell 1934). In 1933, W.C. Lowdermilk analyzed the Hoyt-Troxell report in an article for the Journal of Forestry, pointing out contradictions and conflicting evidence (Lowdermilk 1933). Nonetheless, Lowdermilk called for further research. His 

article, along with similar articles from 1932 to 1935 on water conservation, aspects of soil 

erosion and floods, and watershed protection by him and Clarence Forsling, Scott Leavitt, 

and Edward N. Munns, respectively, added to the debate. They developed the thesis that the 

protective benefits of vegetation were worth more than any costs incurred through water 

consumption, and that well-vegetated areas produced maximum yields of useable, silt-free 

water. Nevertheless, the debate continued (Aitro 1977, Storey 1982, Wilm 1946).
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streamflow investigations were taking place between the Forest Service and the 

newly formed Soil Conservation Service or SCS. It was decided in 1935 that the 

SCS should direct its scope of research to lands primarily agricultural in character, 

whereas the Forest Service research program was to relate to forest and range 

lands, including the influence of plant cover on runoff, streamflow, flood control, 

soil-erosion control, and climate. The Forest Service program would be carried out 

as part of the activities of the regional forest experiment stations (Silcox 1935a), a 

position that was bolstered when Forest Service Chief Silcox set up a Division of 

Forest Influences in 1937 (USDA FS 1937c). Influences research got fully underway thereafter at seven regional forest experiment stations (USDA FS 1937c).

By 1937, forest influences research at CFRES was geographically distributed 

in the following manner. In southern California, the San Dimas Experimental 

Forest was the major center of research with limited watershed studies conducted 

at the Devil Canyon Branch. In the San Joaquin Valley, forest influences research 

occurred at the Kings River Branch Station along with some work by P.B. Rowe, 

on the hydrology of the Sierra Nevada foothills conducted at a watercycle installation at Northfork, California (Aitro 1977). Erosion control and reforestation of 

smelter-fume denuded areas and research on erosion in foothill brush type in the 

Sacramento Valley were carried out at limited facilities at Kennett, 56 and Redding, 

California, respectively. Finally, limited work on foothill brush type was also done 

at the University of California using its plots, lysimeters, and tank installation 

(USDA FS 1937d).

San Dimas Experimental Forest— 

The 17,000-acre San Dimas Experimental Forest, the only such forest in southern 

California, was established in early 1934. Lying along the front range of the San 

Gabriel Mountains, it became an outdoor hydrologic laboratory to document and 

quantify the water cycle in these semiarid steep lands and to answer watershed, 

erosion, and other questions. Prior to its establishment 30 miles northeast of Los 

Angeles on the northern edge of the Los Angeles Basin near Glendora, California, 

Station Director Kotok and others had recognized the need for an experimental 

56 One of the first areas considered for revegetation/erosion control was the denuded 

“smelter fume” area (75,000 acres) along the Sacramento River in the vicinity of the former 

copper-producing town of Kennett, California, in Shasta County, which is now submerged 

by a reservoir. E.N. Munns originally started this erosion and reforestation project in 1921, 

and in 1934, CFRES revived work at Kennett using CWA labor. Over 1.2 million willow 

cuttings were planted in the gullies, and 800 acres were sown chiefly to ponderosa, Jeffrey 

pine, incense-cedar and, black oak. The CFRES terminated the project when emergency 

labor became unavailable (USDA FS 1934, 1935, 1937b).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

forest in this part of California since 1926. However, CFRES could do nothing 

toward that end until May of 1932, when Kotok, Charles J. Kraeble, and Walter 

C. Lowdermilk of the station’s research staff evaluated several potential sites. A 

year or so later, in an establishment report dated November 8, 1933, they officially 

recommended San Dimas as “eminently suitable” for the station’s needs. They decided on San Dimas for several reasons. The type of cover, topography, and geologic structure of the two major watersheds selected (Big Dalton and San Dimas 

Canyons) were typical of southern California’s chaparral region. Both watersheds 

were accessible by means of mountain roads. There was a minimum amount of 

development in the area, and flood control dams on the two key canyons (Dalton 

and San Dimas) furnished outside controls for all experimental data collected on 

smaller drainages. Finally, the experimental forest was especially suited for forest 

influences research because the San Dimas Water Company had maintained detailed records of runoff supply for irrigation purposes from this region for fully 

20 years (Berg 1990, Dunn et al. 1988, Storey 1982).

Although Chief Forester Silcox did not officially set aside SDEF until 

March 28, 1934, in January, Director Kotok sent J. Donald Sinclair57 to SDEF as the 

scientist-in-charge prior to being formally named director. Sinclair’s mission was 

to get research work started at SDEF during the heady early days of the New Deal, 

and perhaps to address an urgent erosion control situation in southern California.58

Prior to his arrival, Walter Lowdermilk had developed the original working plan 

and experimental procedures for SDEF. Sinclair’s task was to supervise the construction of the necessary research facilities at SDEF, which was a major undertaking made possible first by State Emergency Relief Administration (SERA) labor 

57 Sinclair joined the Forest Service as a silviculturalist after graduation from the University of California with an M.S. in 1929. Two years later, he transferred to CFRES, where he 

worked with watershed specialist Lowdermilk (Robinson 1980).

58 Erosion control work became more urgent after the disastrous La Crescenta-Montrose 

flood, which on January 1, 1934, killed 44 people and damaged 483 homes. The flood was 

more mud than water, and a CFRES study indicated that the source of the flood turned 

out to be a 4,000-acre fire-denuded watershed above Pickens Canyon, which carried off 

50,000 cubic yards of eroded debris per square mile, whereas the runoff from nearby San 

Dimas Canyon, a few miles distant, carried only 56 cubic yards per square mile of eroded 

material. This study demonstrated to Forest Service scientists the value of forest cover and 

the economic wisdom of safeguarding it (Cermak 2005, Silcox 1934). Afterward, a floodcontrol survey of the Los Angeles River watershed was undertaken that resulted in the 

establishment of a remedial program, which included a Forest Service operation within the 

Arroyo Seco subdrainage, most of which was on the Angeles National Forest. This operation involved fire control, vegetative-cover improvement, road improvement for erosion 

prevention, and mountain-channel improvement. A similar operation to prevent damage by 

erosion, sedimentation, and possible floods from an 8,000-acre burn was undertaken on the 

San Bernardino National Forest (USDA FS 1941b).
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and then by Depression-era CWA, WPA, and CCC labor programs in the 1930s. It 

was a perfect example of the aid given to CFRES by such emergency organizations 

(Robinson 1980, Storey 1982). 

San Dimas Experimental Forest was formally dedicated on June 15, 1935. The 

initial broad objectives of the work undertaken at SDEF were twofold: to learn what 

happens to rain falling on brush-covered watersheds in terms of water yields and 

losses and how water and soil movement is influenced by watershed features such 

as vegetation, soil, and geology; and to apply this information in the management 

of watersheds to increase yields of good water59 and decrease water flows and erosion (Sinclair 1960). However, research activity was postponed for 5 years, until all 

construction was completed. (fig. 56) Therefore, the primary activity at the experimental forest in its first few years was equipping it with necessary facilities, such 

as roads, trails, telephone lines, shelter cabins, field headquarters, and experimental 

equipment for hydrologic and other phases of its research program. To measure 

precipitation, 320 rain gauges, one of the largest and most concentrated networks 

of rain gauges in the world, were placed on contour trails to measure rainfall and 

its variations in the rugged mountains. To measure streamflow, 17 stream gauging 

stations (fig. 57) were built to measure runoff from watersheds of 35 to 8,400 acres 

(seven of the smaller watersheds were equipped with basins to measure sediment). 

To measure climate, six climatological stations were established to supply a continuous measurement and recording of air temperature, humidity, wind velocity 

and direction, evaporation of free-water surfaces, and soil temperatures. To measure runoff and erosion, 22 plots, each 1/40-acre, were established in three groups 

at elevations of 1,500, 2,700, and 4,900 feet.60 Each group was representative of 

a different type of site and vegetation and equipped for measurement of surface 

runoff and erosion. Finally, to study the effect of vegetation on the percolation of 

water through the soil and on water losses through transpiration and evaporation, 

59 The sole source of water supply for southern California at the beginning of the New Deal 

was precipitation, making water an extremely valuable resource. In fact, since 1865, the 

cost of water in southern California had risen from $900 a second-foot of continuous flow 

to over $300,000 per second-foot. As a result, in southern California, all feasible means of 

recovering greater portions of precipitation were explored. In the face of continued shortages of water supply, the question of whether transpiration of noncommercial chaparral 

forest cover represented a water loss that might be recovered by systematic destruction of 

this mantle of vegetation by fire needed an answer (Lowdermilk and Hamilton 1933).

60 The group at 4,900 feet was burned over by a wildfire in 1938 that moved out of San 

Antonio Canyon and burned about 430 acres in the San Dimas Experimental Forest. 

Thereafter, CFRES used the opportunity to provide quantitative measurements of the effect 

of fire on runoff and erosion (Storey 1982).
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Figure 56—Site map of California Forest and Range Experiment Station, Tanbark Flats Headquarters, San Dimas Experimental 

Forest, 1935.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Figure 57—Water gauging station, c. 1940.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
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one of the largest lysimeter installations (128 in all) in the world was constructed to 

compare the influence of different native plant species on water yields and losses. 

These lysimeters, which were constructed between 1935 and 1937 at Tanbark Flats, 

consisted of tanks of various sizes and shapes, which in 1937 were filled with a 

uniform soil. To allow the soil to settle, the lysimeters remained bare from 1937 to 

1940. Thereafter, various types of native vegetation were grown under observation 

and with detailed measurements of the water cycle (Dunn et al. 1988, Robinson 

1980, Sinclair 1960, Storey 1982). 

By 1940, the SDEF had all its facilities completed. They included a technician’s 

residence, offices, laboratories, warehouses, shelter cabins, flumes and weirs, gauging and climatic stations, and lysimeters (fig. 58). As soon as some of these installations were completed, SDEF staff began its major long-time effort—the day-to-day 

accurate record collection of baseline data pertaining to precipitation, streamflow, 

climatic factors, erosion, and plant growth from all facilities. Fortunately for 

CFRES, in the 1930s, CCC enrollees helped in this tremendous task. For instance, 

during the first 6 years of operation, 114 storms were recorded at the SDEF, or an 

average of 19 a year. For each storm, enrollees had to cover about 100 miles of trails 

to note the readings of each rain gauge. Then there was the constant need to develop 

new instruments and techniques. For example, in March 1938, a record-breaking 

storm and flood61 caused so much damage at SDEF to the original gauging stations, 

that they were extensively rebuilt and modified into what was called then the “San 

Dimas Flume.”62 Then there were also problems with the design and performance

61 The tremendous disaster of March 1938 pointed again to the enormous importance of the 

station’s program of research in watershed management, streamflow, and erosion control in 

the chaparral forests. During a 5-day period, about 19 inches of rain fell upon SDEF, causing a great deal of damage to the experimental forest. All damages were soon repaired and 

SDEF was reasonably rehabilitated within a short period of time because of the station’s 

close working relationship with the WPA (USDA FS 1939a). Meanwhile, federal agencies 

(Forest Service, SCS, and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics), along with the state of 

California, began a series of flood control surveys in the Los Angeles basin to determine 

measures necessary to prevent and control abnormal erosion and retard flood runoff in the 

interest of flood control and water conservation. Staff members of CFRES were detailed to 

these interagency flood control surveys authorized by the 1936 Omnibus Flood Control Act 

(USDA FS 1939a, 1940a, 1941b).

62 This new approach consisted of a large concrete flume with capacities adequate for 

expected maximum flows, a smaller flume of steel set in concrete and placed downstream 

in tandem with the larger flume to measure intermediate flow stages, and a 90-degree 

V-notch weir to measure small clear-water flows.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 58—Office and laboratory building of California Forest and Range Experiment Station, 

Tanbark Flats, San Dimas Experimental Forest, 1935.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

of rain gauges within the rugged San Dimas mountain terrain, and the lysimeter 

complex that also needed to be worked out. Nonetheless, with all facilities completed, studies at the experimental forest got underway. Thereafter initial investigations covered a whole range of engineering, ecology, hydrology, climatic, and soil 

fields of work that met SDEF’s stated research objectives (Dunn et al. 1988, Storey 

1982, USDA FS 1940b). 

Donald Sinclair, as the SDEF Director, naturally published articles on watershed management research, focusing on the research program investigating rainfall, 

geology, streamflow, soils, and vegetation on the watershed. Wendell E. Davis, 

Everett L. Hamilton, H.G. Wilm, and Herbert Storey covered watershed precipitation research. On the other hand, throughout the 1930s Charles Kraebel published 

extensively on erosion control, especially in regard to the serious problem of erosion 

resulting from motor traffic and road building in mountainous areas, and suggested 

a variety of preventive and corrective measures to refine location, alignment, 

bridges, tunnels, retaining walls, and drainage of new roads, and improve drainage 

and treatment of fill slopes on already existing roads. But it was Director Kotok 

who took the lead in championing the forest influences studies being investigated 

at SDEF. Throughout the late 1930s, Director Kotok attended a number of water 

conservation conferences trying to distinguish between the cosmic forces, which 
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shaped and controlled geologic processes, and people’s power to develop and protect the natural forces at work in watersheds. He often discussed the significance 

of plant life in a watershed and described the activities of humankind that affected 

vegetation unfavorably such as range overuse, fires, logging, and unregulated 

agriculture, and clarified the forester’s function to develop and protect the natural 

forces at work (Aitro 1977).

Kings River Branch Station— 

Forest influences research in the San Joaquin Valley in central California began in 

1937, when the Kings River Branch Station was approved on the Sierra National 

Forest. The Kings River Branch Station consisted of two units. The first unit was 

the Big Creek Unit, which initially comprised several hundred acres of woodlandgrass forest at elevations that ranged from 500 to 3,500 feet. In late 1935, WPA 

workers began construction work on this set of small experimental watersheds. Five 

years later, the installation here included a headquarters bunkhouse, office, small 

dams, water measuring devices, and shelter cabins. (fig. 59) The purpose of study 

at the Big Creek Unit was to investigate the relation of forest cover to streamflow in 

the Kings River watershed (fig. 60). Studies dealt with precipitation, runoff, groundwater, and erosion in relation to topography, geology, soil, vegetation, and fauna 

in two specific areas—a 200-acre foothill woodland site and a 1,500-acre fir forest 

(USDA FS 1935: December, 1937d, 1940b). (fig. 61)

The Teakettle Unit also was created to investigate watershed issues, especially 

after the passage of the 1936 Flood Control Act and the Federal Soil Conservation 

and Domestic Allotment Act,63 and after California state agencies began exploring 

how the Central Valley of California’s water supply might be increased through 

management of the Sierra Nevada watersheds (Kraebel and Kellogg 1938). The 

snow zone of state of California lay here on the west side of the Sierra Nevada and 

along the Cascade Ranges above 3,500 feet, and although they are only 12 percent 

of the state’s land area, these areas produced about 50 percent of the state’s total 

streamflow. Given its importance, CFRES began preliminary studies of watershed 

management techniques for these high-elevation timberlands. Research was aimed 

at problems of snow accumulation and melt under various cutting practices in the 

steep topography of this mountainous region (Berg 1990, USDA FS 1977b). 

63 The 1936 Flood Control Act (49 Stat. 1519) authorized public works for flood control 

and particularly authorized investigations by the Secretary of Agriculture with respect to 

watersheds and measures for runoff and waterflow retardation (Silcox 1936). The Flood 

Control Act recognized that downstream engineering must be supplemented by upstream 

measures for retardation of runoff and control of erosion on watersheds, and the Federal 

Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act made possible the actual job of controlling 

streams at the source, which included 450 million acres of national forests (Kraebel and 

Kellogg 1938).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 59—Headquarters of California Forest and Range Experiment Station, San Dimas Experimental Forest, Glendora, California.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Figure 60—Gravity masonry dam used to catch eroded material from California Forest and 

Range Experiment Station Kings River Branch-Big Creek watersheds, 1936. 

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
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Figure 61—Boat-and-cable ferry at California Forest and Range Experiment Station, Kings River 

Branch Station, 1938.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Toward this end, in 1938, five drainages on the Teakettle Creek watershed, 

located on the north fork of the Kings River in the Sierra National Forest east of 

Fresno, California, between Yosemite and King’s Canyon National Parks, were 

selected for long-term watershed management studies. This acreage contained 

old-growth forests (primarily mixed-conifer—red fir, and Jeffrey pine with some 

lodgepole pine). The CCC built stream gauging stations and sediment basins here, 

and by the end of the year, calibration studies were begun on what was considered 

the Teakettle RNA.64 The research program’s objective was to determine methods 

of managing watersheds in representative fir and fir-pine types of the Sierra 

Nevada (tributary to the San Joaquin Valley) of the maximum beneficial yield 

of water consistent with satisfactory control of floods and erosion and with other 

legitimate uses of the forest. But by early 1939, because of a limitation of personnel, 

little could be done at this Kings River Branch unit except for the maintenance of 

records from the pine-fir unit at Teakettle Creek, and from the important foothills 

area. The research program continued until about 1940, when a lack of funds forced 

its closure. However, prior to its closure, a bunkhouse cabin, dry laboratory, and a 

small garage were built for research scientists visiting there (Berg 1990; USDA FS 

1937d, 1939a, 1955a, 1977b) (fig. 62). 

64 The Teakettle RNA later was officially designated as part of the Teakettle Experimental 

Forest, which was established in 1958.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 62—Teakettle station building, California Forest and Range Experiment Station, Kings 

River Branch, Sanger, California.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Range Research

Range research had been established at the station in 1931, followed by a year of 

orientation work and surveys to develop improved yardsticks for range condition 

measurement.65 Prior to the New Deal, range management in California had drawn 

upon the findings of systematic research in other Forest Service regions, which 

were then applied in California. But the broad problem of sustaining the most 

profitable range use was especially vexing in this region of the country. Simply put, 

range research facts developed elsewhere in the West did not fit well in California 

whose range-forage cover was highly unstable both in plant ingredients and yield

65 Since the founding of the Forest Service in 1905, forage resources and grazing on 

California’s national forests had declined significantly because of a number of factors. 

However, relief and recovery came to the livestock industry with the introduction of CCC 

labor and NIRA funding, which allowed for range improvement projects, such as the 

construction of drift fences, stock driveways, erosion control dams, stock bridges and 

trails, holding corrals; the development of springs, windmills, wells, reservoirs and water 

tanks; the reseeding of the range; the eradication of poisonous plants; and rodent control. 

Overgrazing conditions on California’s national forests eventually were reversed, in part 

because of these improvements, but more likely as the result of abundant rainfall over the 

next few years. Save for the above work, and some administrative improvements during 

the New Deal, Regional Forester Show and his forest supervisors demonstrated very little 

interest in grazing matters. Acting on this instinct, in 1938, Show turned all Region 5 range 

research over to CFRES (Godfrey 2005).

Range research facts 

developed elsewhere in 

the West did not fit well 

in California.
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of forage. California’s range conditions necessitated new approaches and techniques 

by which to measure the effects of different range treatments. This was the broad 

problem that fell to CFRES and a number of cooperating agencies.

To meet California’s unique range situation, CFRES initially divided its research program to cover five ecological regions—central valley and adjacent foothills, east-side (of Sierra Nevada) region, west-side timbered region, north coastal 

area, and south coastal area. Both cattle and sheep range problems were found in 

all of these regions. (Nonetheless, in the end, no detailed studies of sheep range 

management were undertaken in the New Deal years because of a lack of staff and 

funding.) But by 1941, CFRES’ range research program had investigated only the 

first two ecological regions—the Sierra Nevada foothills of the San Joaquin Valley and the cutover mountain ranges of the east side, which included the Shasta, 

Modoc, Lassen, Plumas, and Tahoe National Forests (USDA FS 1937d, 1940a). To 

investigate these ecological regions, CFRES set up two experimental ranges—the 

San Joaquin Experimental Range (SJER) and the Burgess Springs Experimental 

Range (BSER). However, with mounting demands for meat and wool caused by the 

outbreak of World War II, research at these two ranges was somewhat curtailed. 

San Joaquin Experimental Range— 

In 1933, Murrell W. Talbot (fig. 63) led the range management team at CFRES. 

Under Talbot’s supervision, range survey work continued in the San Joaquin Valley, 

a project now linked to the Copeland Report, which recommended a survey of forage resources and conditions being conducted throughout the Western States. The 

CFRES reconnaissance work assembled information on the broader aspects of the 

current use and condition of some 10 million acres of grazing lands in California, 

chiefly in the foothills below national forest lands and national parks, and almost 

entirely in private ownership. Passage of NIRA and CWA in early 1933 gave 

CFRES and Talbot sufficient funding to continue and complete the first phase of 

the foothill-range survey of the San Joaquin Valley66 (USDA FS 1934: January, 

February, March, April). Interest in and enthusiasm for establishing an experimental range research area in the San Joaquin foothills mounted when CFRES range 

reconnaissance work revealed the serious problem of range use and watershed protection in the Sierra foothills adjoining the San Joaquin Valley in central California. 

Besides facilitating the solution to the many evident important foothill-range problems, a new experimental range offered the opportunity for closer contact with the 

66 In conjunction with this project, a range bibliography with California information was 

brought up to date with the aid of CWA workers. This work was incorporated into Frederic 

G. Renner’s 1938 classified index to range research covering the 1800s through 1935 

(Renner 1938).

A new experimental 

range offered the 

opportunity for closer 

contact with the 

livestock industry.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

livestock industry, for correlation with Region 5 range management issues, and for 

cooperation with related CFRES erosion streamflow studies (Silcox 1934). 

In March 1934, this expectation was fulfilled, when the Forest Service used 

PWA funding to purchase approximately 3,500 acres of typical foothill land in 

O’Neals, California, north of Fresno for an experimental range. This land purchase 

became SJER’s core area to be used to learn how to better manage San Joaquin 

Valley grazing lands (fig. 64). Thereafter, from 1934 to 1938, the Forest Service 

periodically added land to SJER under the Weeks Act until its holdings reached 

5,000 acres.67 San Joaquin Experimental Range was California’s first range research station. The first task on the new experimental range was to develop basic 

information underlying sound range management in San Joaquin Valley’s Sierra 

67 Open woodland dominated by oaks (blue and interior live oaks) and digger pines with 

scattered shrubs and a nearly continuous cover of herbaceous plants (grasses and various 

legumes) covered most of the San Joaquin Experimental Range. Perennials—primarily 

rushes—were found in the bottomlands. An RNA of approximately 73 acres was eventually established on a small portion of the range and has remained ungrazed since 1934. Two 

smaller ungrazed areas (6 and 10 acres, respectively), and numerous other small enclosures 

(less than one acre), were also set aside for range research over time as well.

Figure 63—Murrell W. Talbot, range 

management expert and California 

Forest and Range Experiment Station's “unofficial” second director 

(1941–1944). U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
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Figure 64—Building overview of California Forest and Range Experiment Station, San Joaquin 

Experimental Range, 1939.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

foothills. Furthermore, it was originally conceived as a cooperative interdisciplinary research center to identify cost-effective methods of commercial livestock production in the annual grass-oak-pine woodlands, while maintaining the integrity 

of the ecosystem. Livestock on the range were used in experiments to evaluate the 

relationships among livestock, grazing, plants, and other animals (fig. 65).

During the summer of 1934 and under the supervision of the Sierra National 

Forest, construction immediately began on a work center for the new experimental 

range.

68 Meanwhile, Talbot’s range research team began the second phase of its 

foothill-range survey—to survey a representative cross section of range forage 

plants in the valley by major vegetative types as blocked out by A.E. Wieslander’s 

cover type map. (fig. 66) Additionally, Director Kotok and CFRES staff met with 

an advisory committee of Madera County stockmen and other landowners. Together, they reviewed research plans for experiments to be undertaken on SJER. At 

the end of this meeting, they gave general approval for SJER’s main lines of work,

68 During the initial building period, a caretaker’s residence, garage, and office was 

built. By November, a 70-man CCC winter camp, also under the supervision of the Sierra 

National Forest, was established on the experimental range for the purpose of building 

an extensive pasture fence and other general work such as water development and other 

range improvements. Thereafter, in cooperation with Region 5, a crew of CCC workers was 

used to make a detailed topographic survey of the selected site. By 1940, the San Joaquin 

Experimental Forest consisted of a superintendent’s house, technician’s residence, offices, 

laboratories, greenhouse, warehouse, equipment shed, barn, corrals, and water developments (USDA FS 1940b).
223

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000 U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Figure 65—Typical cattle grazing scene at California Forest and Range Experiment Station, 

San Joaquin Experimental Range, 1935.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Figure 66—Scientist examining range land at San Joaquin Experimental Range.

which included investigating the question of insufficient forage production in 

the critical early winter period (USDA FS 1934: March, April, September, 

November, December).

One of the most puzzling questions that SJER needed to answer was when 

exactly did new feed seasonally appear on California’s foothill ranges. To answer 

this question and related ones, SJER collected forage data from approximately 

800 temporary plots located at intervals over the 3,500 acres of SJER rangeland. 
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This forage inventory was needed to provide for future comparisons of pastures 

treated in different ways in future experiments. To make this assessment, six 

grazing-capacity pastures were constructed by early 1935 and used for measuring the results of different intensities of grazing use. The pastures were arranged 

in duplicate and stocked at three rates: 10, 15, and 20 acres per cow. Following 

completion of these and additional experimental pastures, Jesse W. Nelson, who, 

for the past 15 years, had been in charge of District and then Region 5’s Division of 

Range Management, was reassigned to the CFRES and to SJER as its senior range 

examiner. Nelson’s first action was to purchase and introduce 70 head of two-yearold Hereford heifers onto these pastures for a controlled cooperative grazing project 

with the University of California. Under Nelson, CFRES’ experimental range soon 

became a full-fledged ranching operation. In 1936, the first season of controlled 

grazing took place at SJER. The University of California owned and ran the cattle 

herd while SJER’s staff managed range and wildlife conditions, which included 

thwarting coyote raids on the young herd and rounding up rattlesnakes69 (USDA 

FS 1935: February, April, May, September, November, December; 1937d). In 1938, 

SJER sold the first cattle from the project, and they topped the San Francisco meat 

market.70 For SJER, this was an encouraging start on the problem of maximum 

utilization in producing beef to meet market demands (USDA FS 1939b). 

Meanwhile, in 1936, the Forest Service Branch of Research (BR) released 

The Western Range (USDA FS 1936), which bluntly stated that rangelands in the 

Western States were seriously deteriorating, and which Earle Clapp proudly saw as 

significant as the Copeland Report. The CFRES staff contributed to The Western 

Range, which placed an especially heavy load on CFRES staff time demands. They 

used San Bencito County as a key sample of California’s range problems (USDA FS 

1937d). But with The Western Range project out of the way, SJER range researchers 

began making available SJER’s initial research results, starting first with the 1935 

“Forage Inventory” study.71 The inventory study represented the first attempt, by 

any agency, to actually measure the composition of the complex foothill vegetation 

of California (Silcox 1936; USDA FS 1935: September, 1937d). 

69 SJER was nicknamed the “rattlesnake ranch” because more than 200 snakes were killed 

during the spring of 1935.

70 In the 2 years on SJER’s range, each cattle herd was given supplemental feeding each 

summer and 49 days prior to sale. By 1941, CFRES cooperative cattle breeding herds were 

maintained yearlong on annual plants growing on California foothill ranges. With supplemental feeding at critical times, calf production per breeding cow averaged 98 pounds 

heavier, and cows earned $6 per cow more than without such feeding (USDA FS 1941b).

71 The forage inventory found over 80 species of importance on SJER’s 1,120 temporary 

plots, which were distributed throughout 11 experimental pastures. 

SJER was nicknamed 

the “rattlesnake ranch” 

because more than 

200 snakes were killed 

during the spring of 

1935.
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Several CFRES publications soon followed the 1936 forage inventory study. 

Some CFRES findings criticized the rule-of-thumb approach to range management, 

which failed to supply adequate information for averting continued range depletion. That approach, according to CFRES investigations, led to harmful practices, 

including too many animals on the range, poor balance between classes of animals 

and type of range, improper seasonal use, and promiscuous light burning. Another 

article72 outlined a program for range rehabilitation built around the multiple-use 

principle involving livestock production, watershed protection, wildlife, recreation, 

and timber production (Aitro 1977, Watts et al. 1936). Additionally, August L. 

Hormay, 73 in a series of publications, summarized and described the problems in 

past and present grazing use in several key San Joaquin Valley counties (Madera, 

Merced, and San Benito). They aided in defining and solving some of the more 

important problems connected with the maintenance of California’s range resources 

(Aitro 1977). However, Arthur W. Sampson and Aaron Gordon wrote arguably 

the most significant publication to come out of SJER research in the late 1930s. In 

Composition of Common California Foothill Plants as a Factor in Range Management, Gordon and Sampson (1939) reported on the chemical characteristics of 

certain range plants. Composition of Common California Foothill Plants provided 

important information on plant succession, classification, and economic value of 

particular range plants. This information was important to perfect more dependable methods of estimating the carrying capacity of the San Joaquin Valley range. 

Authors of articles of similar nature and related subjects included Jay R. Bentley, 

H.H. Biswell, H.R. Guilbert, August L. Hormay, M.W. Talbot, and Kenneth A. 

Wagnon (Aitro 1977, Sanderson and Duncan 1985). 

By the approach of World War II, cooperating agencies at SJER involved in 

foothill range research included several USDA agencies (Bureau of Plant Industry, 

Soil Conservation Service), the Department of the Interior’s Biological Survey, 

the University of California, California Division of Fish and Game, and California 

livestock associations and community groups. Besides the cooperative controlled 

grazing projects, which involved investigations of grazing capacity and forage

72 Interestingly, M.W. Talbot, (CFRES head of range research), Lyle F. Watts, Charles 

Connaughton (future Region 5 Forester, 1955–1967), and others authored The Management 

of Range Lands (Aitro 1977, Watts et al. 1936).

73 August “Gus” Ludwig Hormay (1907–1999) graduated from the University of California, 

Berkeley, in 1929 with a forestry degree, and in 1931 went to work for the CFRES as a 

junior range examiner. As later chapters will note, August Hormay’s 35 years of research 

and experimentation for the station led him to develop a theory of rest-rotation that asserted 

that proper livestock grazing management allowed the range to “rest” in cycles. This concept of grazing proved sound, and was adopted throughout the West. Hormay’s papers 

are in Merrill G. Burlingame Special Collections, Montana State University, Bozeman, 

Montana.

CFRES findings 

criticized the rule-ofthumb approach to 

range management, 

which failed to supply 

adequate information 

for averting continued 

range depletion.
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utilization, other cooperative studies took place at SJER during the 1930s. They 

included artificial revegetation and reseeding, testing of new range plants, rodent 

forage consumption, and the role foothill woodland-grass cover played in the 

regulation of stream runoff and erosion. One significant topic, for which SJER 

enlisted the help of the USDA Biological Survey and CCC recruits, was the first of 

many bird studies. The SJER was a natural habitat of valley quail,74 and by the late 

1930s, SJER began a cooperative study with Region 5, the Division of Zoology of 

the University of California, and the Biological Survey on quail management (food 

habit and hunting recovery studies) (USDA FS 1937d, 1939a, 1940a, 1941a). 

Burgess Spring Experimental Range— 

The key research question in the northern California region, California’s second 

range ecological region, centered on the proper management of east-side pineland 

range, and involved questions such as what was the value of the range, what effect 

did cattle grazing have upon pine regeneration, and what was grazing’s relationship to other major land uses on the Shasta, Modoc, Lassen, Plumas, and Tahoe 

National Forests? To facilitate this work, in September 1935, the California station 

established the Burgess Springs Experimental Range, an outpost area of the nearby 

Blacks Mountain Experimental Forest. The BSER, located 16 miles east of BMEF 

headquarters, encompassed an area of approximately 1,280 acres. By the end of 

the year, the CCC completed the physical construction work needed here, which 

included a number of livestock enclosures, a game and rodent enclosure, and a few 

other improvements of lesser importance.

In its first year, studying range management on cutover ponderosa pine lands 

began at Burgess Springs. Initial investigations studied the damage to tree reproduction by cattle, paying particular attention to the effect of grazing on the survival 

of pine seedlings. By the late 1930s, research at BSER determined that cattle caused 

very little damage to pine reproduction in the northeastern California region. By 

1940–1941, range research work at BSER was refocused. After many field visits 

and office consultations with Region 5 administration, it was decided to complete 

an analysis of broader range problems confronting Region 5’s east-side ranges. 

They included plant succession and cattle carrying capacity75 of cutover pine land, 

74 Henry S. Fitch and Ben Glading were the principal scientists who cared out studies on 

quail that frequented the San Joaquin Experimental Range, as well as other birds such as 

the horned owl, at this time.

75 At this time, sheep were excluded from cutover lands in some east-side national forests. 

However, there was pressure from the livestock industry to establish an experimental sheep 

station somewhere in the north end of the Sacramento Valley to answer similar questions 

regarding sheep management (Hill 1939, Talbot 1940).
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season of range use, utilization standards, fluctuations in forage production, 

livestock control and management, artificial and natural revegetation and erosion 

control, livestock grazing versus wildlife, and livestock grazing versus timber 

production. Essentially, this reorientation modernized the CFRES range research 

program in this part of California, and put it on a long-range basis (USDA FS 1935: 

April, September, November; 1937d, 1939a, 1940b, 1941a).

Forest Economics

Like range research, forest economics research, 76 the science of production, distribution and consumption of forest wealth, hit its stride during the New Deal years, 

largely because preparations of portions of the Copeland Report fell particularly 

within the field of forest economics (Stuart 1933). In California, no longer did forest 

economics research center just on the forest survey mapping project.77 Instead, it 

included the analysis of the financial and social aspects of forest-land use, and was 

seen as a yardstick that gauged whether technical developments and recommended 

practices were feasible and could be applied in forestry. In a sense, forest economics 

worked for all the other divisions. But in another sense, all other divisions worked 

for forest economics, as their recommendations would sooner or later have to stand 

the test of economic analysis (Talbot 1940). 

As the 1930s progressed, the CFRES forest economic research program transitioned from conducting a few specific studies78 into a well-rounded comprehensive 

attack on California’s forest economic problems. This changeover accelerated after 

1936, when economics was designated as a full-fledged station division, and staffed

76 One of the earliest pieces of research conducted in California pertaining to economics was a study conducted by C. Stowell Smith, who was Chief of Products in District 5, 

a position he held from 1908 to 1917. In 1914, Stowell authorized a study entitled “The 

Lumber Industry in California,” which was intended for official publication, but was 

sidetracked by World War I research problems (USDA FS 1937b).

77 Mapping of forest-cover types in California continued in cooperation with Region 5 

staff, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the National Park Service. In 1933–1935, several 

maps covering over 4 million acres were completed, which proved useful to a large variety 

of agencies, universities, private firms, and individuals (Silcox 1935a, Stuart 1933). By 

1937, CFRES field type mapping covered 29 of the total of 72 million acres in California. 

These maps were seen as indispensable to the timber-inventory phase of the survey yet to 

come (Silcox 1936, USDA FS 1937a). By 1940, a skeleton staff was still working on the forest survey, and their energies were being used in interpreting and preparing for dissemination the data already collected (Talbot 1940).

78 One such investigation was a forest-insurance study completed in 1934 for the sugar 

pine, ponderosa pine, and redwood regions of California that concluded that there was no 

reason why forest-fire insurance could not operate successfully in these regions (Silcox 

1934). Another study demonstrated the financial disadvantages of cutting smaller trees, 

and compared the conservation values of selective or partial cutting to indiscriminate 

clearcutting (Silcox 1935a, USDA FS 1937a).

In California, no longer 

did forest economics 

research center just 

on the forest survey 

mapping project.
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in part with wood products personnel (CFRES 1937: 27, USDA FS 1937d). The 

CFRES economics research concentrated on two economic questions: forestland 

ownership and the relation of taxation and public finance to land use. Regarding the 

former, CFRES, with the cooperation of the Giannini Foundation, assumed control 

of the land-use research in five counties in the Sierra foothills, begun by the wood 

products division in the early 1930s. The CFRES economics division was interested 

in the possibility of stabilizing local communities that were partly dependent on 

the adjoining public and private forest resources. Researchers set out to work out a 

stable coordinated form of forest utilization based upon sustained-yield forest management for the foothill lands where forestry played a key element in the local economy. Regarding the latter problem, CFRES began a somewhat similar study of the 

relationship between taxation and public finance and land use in four south-central 

Sierras counties (Silcox 1936, USDA FS 1937c). Economic investigations, such as 

these, reflected Chief Silcox’s view that there was a social obligation inherent in 

forest-land management (USDA FS 1937a).

Economist H.R. Josephson, 79 who joined the CFRES wood products division 

in 1934 after graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, published 

several articles in the late 1930s that discussed the desirability of sustained-yield 

forest management, and the need to consider economic trends in planning, including taxation policies, to realize the highest monetary and social returns from the 

use of forest resources. In several significant publications, Josephson also discussed 

the competitive and supplementary relationships between forestry and agriculture, 

the intensity of forest-land use, and policies of best use in order to realize productive forests, profitable and stable industries, and permanent forest employment 

(Aitro 1977). Simultaneously, Station Director Kotok, in a 1938 paper entitled 

Some Economic Problems in Pacific Coast Forestry, examined another important 

economic question being discussed at the time by a new breed of economists calling themselves forest economists (Kotok 1938). They, along with lumbermen and 

foresters, posed the question of whether the Pacific Northwest would go through the 

same cycle of forest resource exploitation that had occurred in New England, the 

Great Lakes region, and the South. Kotok concluded that the Pacific Coast States 

had not reached the final stages of forest exploitation as had these other regions. He 

did believe, however, that there were adverse symptoms evident in many spots. 

79 In 1940, Josephson left the station, when he was appointed to the faculty of the Department of Forestry, University of California College of Agriculture (Oakland Tribune 1940).

Researchers set out 

to work out a stable 

coordinated form of 

forest utilization based 

upon sustained-yield 

forest management for 

the foothill lands where 

forestry played a key 

element in the local 

economy. 
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Beyond the value of timber and lumber products and associated aspects, Kotok 

pointed out that forests also played an additional economic role in recreational use, 

in livestock grazing, and in watershed protection, which he and others considered 

paramount and the first requisite in forest management. In conclusion, Kotok stated 

that the best economic development for California’s forests was a “multiple land 

use plan” that integrated “timber, forage, wildlife, water, hydroelectric energy and 

recreational opportunities” as the “wealth which could insure stable and permanent 

communities” (Kotok 1938). Kotok and Josephson looked forward to researching 

specific studies, such as comparing the relative income from forest or grazing use, 

or financial comparisons of liquidation and sustained yield in industrial forest 

enterprises. But World War II interrupted those plans.

Wildlife and Recreation Research

The year 1936 was a turning point in wildlife research, as it had been for economic 

research. Prior to the 1930s, the Forest Service had increasingly realized the interrelations of wildlife resources with economic, recreational, and other forest uses. 

Many in the agency believed there was a need to research them and instigate sound 

planning based on the study of the subject. That opportunity came on June 1, 1936, 

when the Forest Service organized a separate division of wildlife management and 

83 specialists for wildlife assignments in the regional offices, with 63 of them 

trained in colleges and universities (1936: 32–33; Silcox 1936, USDA FS 1937c). The 

CFRES would not get a wildlife research specialist for some time to come. Instead, 

this research continued to be conducted by the Bureau of Biological Survey (BBS).

As noted in the previous chapter, biologist E.E. Horn of the BBS had begun 

cooperative wildlife investigations with the CFRES in 1928. In the 1930s, Horn 

continued these investigations, which were of practical service to forest and range 

management. By this time, BBS stationed Horn in residence at the San Joaquin 

Experimental Range. Along with WPA help, Horn investigated the influence of 

wildlife on SJER’s rangeland, namely the food habits of rodents and the function of 

rattlesnakes as predators influencing rodent populations. At about the same time, 

CFRES, in cooperation with Region 5, initiated a study on the Los Padres National 

Forest pertaining to coyote-deer predation. In northern California, wildlife research 

continued on the perpetual problem of rodent and rabbit attacks and pine regeneration, but found no active deterrents at this time (USDA FS 1939a, 1940a, 1941a). 

Finally, the BBS developed a new wildlife manual that helped forest officers to 

administer wildlife resources on the national forests in cooperation with the states 
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(USDA FS 1941b), but it would not be until after World War II that the Forest Service realized it needed to conduct its own wildlife research programs if the organization was to better understand the management of this resource.

Much the same could be said for recreational research efforts. From the 

moment President Roosevelt took office until the outbreak of World War II, recreation issues began to dominate many of Region 5’s activities, and the administration increasingly focused its attention on recreational management. For instance, 

in 1936, Regional Forester Show initiated a recreation inventory that rated each 

of California’s national forests on their suitability for recreational use. According 

to Show, this was the first such program completed anywhere in the country80

(Show 1965). However, many recreational questions regarding mixing camping and 

summer resort home areas, or calculating canyon capacity for camping units, went 

unresolved. Furthermore, the Forest Service had no clear idea of how unrestricted 

summer and winter recreational use by visitors and by sightseers affected the 

national forests, and would not until Forest Service recreational research programs 

began after World War II (Camp, n.d.). However, recreational research would not 

become a research function at CFRES until the early 1960s.

Other USDA Agency Research

From the very beginning, the California station’s investigational program was 

closely coordinated with that of Region 5, the administrative branch of the Forest 

Service in California. Regional Forester S.B. Show highly valued the CFRES work 

and liberally supported it because the station’s research program affected Region 5’s 

work directly. Therefore, CFRES research was mutually beneficial to both organizations. While Region 5 subsidized the station in building its work stations on 

experimental forests, Region 5 benefited by learning the results of up-to-date and 

very practical research in timber and range management (Show 1965). Cooperative 

projects between Region 5 and the station have been identified already in this narrative, and need not be repeated. Cooperative studies in California that also continued

80 Before World War II, California Region 5 was able to provide the public with lists of all 

the national forests by name and location, together with thumbnail sketches of special recreational features and types of accommodations available. Each national forest had simple 

facilities for the visitor’s convenience, such as stoves or grates, tables, good drinking water, 

and sanitary facilities at all improved campgrounds and picnic grounds. It had simple 

shelters, bathhouses, playfields, and nature trails at some of the more popular ones. There 

were even parking areas, ski shelters, runs, and jumps, and some toboggan slides at winter 

sports areas. Besides supporting good recreational design, Chief Silcox also instructed his 

regional foresters to lend greater attention to the “social” functions of the forest in their 

recreation programs (Godfrey 2005, USDA FS 1941b).
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with three USDA agencies, the Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, and Agricultural 

Engineering (BPISAE), Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine (BEPQ),81 and 

BBS are briefly discussed below.82

Forest Pathology and Entomology Research

At the start of the New Deal period, white pine blister rust was the most immediate menacing tree disease on national forests throughout the country. The disease 

had been found 50 miles north of the California-Oregon border, and many feared 

that the disease would soon reach California’s sugar pine region, the most valuable 

timber species of the state. To control any spread of the disease into these valuable 

stands, the Forest Service continued to eradicate the alternate host plants of the disease—shrubs of the genus Ribes—from the forest. The BPISAE recommended this 

treatment. By 1935, close to 120,000 acres of sugar pine in California and Oregon 

were treated in this way, and a year later, total treated areas reached 187,000 acres. 

However, the Forest Service estimated that 1.1 million acres needed protection—a 

worrisome situation. The Forest Service annual report for that year indicated that 

serious losses in future timber production could be averted only by concentrated 

work during the next 2 years. However, although progress was made in the war on 

white pine blister rust by mobilizing and using emergency labor of CCC and WPA 

crews, the effort was inadequate, and the disease became established in northern 

California and continued to spread (Silcox 1934, 1935a, 1936; Stuart 1933; USDA 

FS 1937c, 1938b, 1939b, 1940d, 1941b). 

In regard to insect control, CFRES staff did very little basic research on the 

biological factors concerned in forest insect infestations in Region 5 during the 

New Deal period.83 Essentially, CFRES left this activity to cooperative work with 

senior entomologist J.M. Miller at BEPQ’s Forest Insect Laboratory located on 

the Berkeley campus. From 1933 to 1935, major insect infestations continued to 

plague the Sierra, Stanislaus, Modoc, and Shasta National Forests. To combat them, 

California Region 5 conducted insect-control work as recommended by BEPQ with 

the help of CCC labor and in cooperation with private owners of adjoining infested 

81 Effective July 1, 1934, the Bureau of Plant Quarantine was consolidated with the Bureau 

of Entomology in the Department of Agriculture by the Agricultural Appropriation Act of 

March 26, 1934.

82 In 1939, the Bureau of Biological Survey was transferred from the Department of 

Agriculture to the Department of the Interior as part of the Fish and Wildlife Service.

83 At this time, Hubert Person and Harry A. Fowells conducted the only direct CFRES 

insect control work. Person wrote on the insect enemies of redwoods (Person 1933), and 

Harry A. Fowells investigated the cutworm damage to seedlings to California pine stands 

(Fowells 1940) (Aitro 1977).
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areas. Despite their industrious efforts, emergency labor only marginally stemmed 

the tide of bark beetle epidemics on some national forests as new epidemics developed elsewhere. But, in 1936–1937, in contrast to reports on the situation from 

previous years, there appeared to be a return to normal conditions on most of 

California’s national forests. Destructive outbreaks of beetles continued, but they 

appeared to be localized attacks (Silcox 1934, 1935a, 1936; Stuart 1933; USDA FS 

1937c, 1941b). 

Even so, in 1937–1938, funds from both the Forest Service and BEPQ were 

used to establish two new forest insect laboratories in California because they 

feared that renewed extensive bark beetle infestations could still cause severe losses 

of high-value trees in the Sierra Nevada. Their mission was to continue to gather 

seasonal information on the causes and extent of these outbreaks. One field laboratory was located at Hat Creek Ranger Station on the Lassen National Forest in eastern Shasta County, and was designated to conduct forest insect research in northern 

California. Kenneth A. Salman was placed in charge of the Hat Creek Field Laboratory. The second insect research station, the Miami Field Laboratory, was placed on 

the Sierra National Forest. John E. Patterson directed it. Both laboratories were built 

during the summer and fall of 1937 by CCC crews, and were in operation by the 

summer of 1938. The Hat Creek and the Miami Field Laboratories, along with the 

Hackamore Field Laboratory, which had been established at an earlier date on the 

Modoc National Forest,84 conducted biological research to obtain better knowledge 

regarding the problem of insect control, development and testing of insect control 

methods, and classification of pine stands according to insect hazards as a basis for 

utilization of expected losses. Besides these laboratories, BEPQ added personnel to 

its main office and laboratory on the Berkeley campus. By early 1939, BEPQ began 

an annual detection survey program in California. This program supplied information on current insect conditions in the more important commercial and recreational 

forest areas of the California region. But priorities of the war program soon cut 

funding for the Berkeley Laboratory, and the war effort soon eliminated a number 

of projects there and at the Hat Creek, Miami and Hackamore laboratories as well 

(Hall et al., n.d.; Tilden 1983; USDA BEPQ 1939; Wickman 2005).

84 In the early 1930s, “a rather crude station” was built at Hackamore in the Modoc 

National Forest. “It consisted of small cabins and a small lab and rearing building for study 

of the western pine. A.S. West, Jr., Jack Whiteside, and Jack Bongberg worked there under 

Salman. The buildings at this site were the temporary type, probably because it was not at a 

convenient location” (Wickman 2005).

Destructive outbreaks 

of beetles continued, 

but they appeared to 

be localized attacks.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Prelude to War

During the New Deal years, the vigorous research roots of CFRES were nurtured 

from seed in 1926 to a full-body research organization that worked cooperatively 

with many federal, state, and private institutions to fulfill the research needs of 

Region 5. By the approach of war, CFRES had eight major lines of work (silviculture [pine and redwood], wood products, range, economics, fire, influences, genetics, and forest survey), with the personnel, funding, facilities, and experimental 

forests to match most of their research needs. But, World War II retrenchment 

would nibble the station’s domestic research program to the bone.
This Page Left Blank Intentionally
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Chapter 5: 1941–1945, Off to War

“The fact that we are at war makes it necessary that all the work of the Department 

of Agriculture be reviewed in the light of the new situation.... Every activity now 

must be measured by the contribution it can make to a victorious conclusion of the 

war,” declared Agricultural Secretary Claude R. Wickard on December 11, 1941, 

4 days after Pearl Harbor. When Wickard asked how the Forest Service, along with 

the rest of the Department of Agriculture, could help the defense effort, Acting 

Chief of the Forest Service Earle H. Clapp was prepared. Clapp had already begun 

shifting employees from less essential work to activities that contributed directly 

to national defense. Normal Forest Service business was pruned down to the barest 

minimum consistent with the discharge of the agency’s irreducible obligation to 

protect and maintain the country’s national forests. In general, during the war, the 

Forest Service national defense program included making timber, range, and other 

resources available for war without destructive depletion of them, providing direct 

aid to combat defense, supplying specialized equipment, services, and skills to the 

military, and aiding civilian defense and anti-FC activities (USDA FS 1945). 

Under the leadership of Regional Forester S.B. Show, Region 5, effectively and 

efficiently handled the majority of these Forest Service defense and war activities 

in California. Region 5’s wartime program was a multifaceted one that included 

locating critical raw materials and strategic metals on California’s national forests; 

manning the Aircraft Warning System (AWS); preventing fires caused either by 

enemy sabotage, by friendly forces, or by natural events; and by increasing timber 

production for defense purposes (Godfrey 2005). The California Forest and Range 

Experiment Station (CFRES) did its part by undertaking research to find the best 

and largest possible uses of wood and wood products to further the war effort 

(USDA FS 1945). Although the Forest Service in general directed research toward 

national defense, the agency also aimed to establish and maintain a healthier and 

more prosperous national economy after peace was reestablished (USDA FS 1941b). 

The CFRES, under the leadership of Acting Director Murrell W. Talbot, or “Tally,” 

was tasked with the wartime research mission in California.

Wartime Retrenchment

From the outbreak of World War II, transfers of key personnel to other USDA and 

Forest Service assignments seriously affected the CFRES research program. For 

instance, by late 1942, L.N. Ericksen from the wood products division had transferred to the Washington office, physiologist Nicholas T. Mirov from the Institute 

of Forest Genetics (IFG) had gone to the Southern Station for a short time, 
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N.D. Bruce was on loan to the Forest Products Laboratory (FPL),1 and C.L. Abell 

was transferred to Region 5. At the same time, other personnel simply resigned 

from working at CFRES to go into various war industries, and others were drafted. 

Still others, frustrated by their mundane tasks of keeping and maintaining records 

and data at the station, and impatient to contribute to the war effort in a more active 

role, were given military furlough to enter the armed services. By September 1942, 

they included men like R.K. Blanchard, L.W. Hill, D.M. Ilch, D.H. Rogers, and 

A. Simontachhi. W.E. Hallin left for the United States Army Air Corps, and C.H. 

Gleason and B.M. Kirk applied for commissions. Still others were reassigned to 

Selective Service work in connection with the conscientious objector camps run by 

the Civilian Public Service (CPS).2 Although these personnel losses were distributed among all of the CFRES divisions, they hurt forest products and influences the 

most, eventually forcing these programs to close by the end of the year. In addition 

to the loss of key professional and technical personnel, CFRES could no longer take 

advantage of New Deal emergency program labor as it had in the 1930s. In the heyday of the New Deal, CFRES had approximately 700 Works Progress Administration (WPA) and State Emergency Relief Administration (SERA) enrollees working 

at the Berkeley Station, the IFG, and the San Dimas Experimental Forest (SDEF). 

By the end of 1942, only 42 remained (USDA FS 1945). Fortunately for the CFRES, 

in mid-1941, the CPS established a camp at Tanbark Flat on the SDEF. The 90 or 

so conscientious objectors there took up some of the work previously done there 

by New Deal emergency laborers. A CPS side camp was also assigned to the field 

research station at the San Joaquin Experimental Range (SJER) (Price 1948, USDA 

FS 1945). The CFRES budget fared no better. According to one report, as the war 

progressed, CFRES’ dependency on CPS funds, which could be discontinued any 

time during the war years, was “breathtaking” (Loveridge and Dutton 1946).

Because of the loss of personnel and research funds, the research program 

naturally suffered during the war years. Prior to retrenchment, the station’s program, which was developed in close cooperation between the station and Region 5,

1

 In World War II, the laboratory was called upon to lay aside long-range research in order 

to devote its resources to war-related problems. Unlike the California station, with the 

outbreak of war, FPL’s budget, personnel, and operations grew quickly. Within a short 

time, the FPL’s budget grew from $600,000 to $2.5 million; personnel increased from 175 

in 1940 to 700 in 1944 with many projects on a three-shift basis. National defense research 

activities of the FPL were many and it was acclaimed as a “real wartime star” (Godfrey 

1990, Steen 1998).

2

 The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, approved September 16, 1940, provided 

in part that “any person who, by reason or religious training and belief, was conscientiously 

opposed to participation in war in any form, whose claim was sustained by the local draft 

board, should be assigned to non-combatant services.” On February 6, 1941, President 

Roosevelt authorized the Director of Selective Service to designate work for conscientious 

objectors and establish camps from which to carry on such work (Price 1948).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

was an accomplished one. However, by 1944, personnel loss and diminished 

financial resources caused CFRES to completely drop, or to continue on a maintenance basis only, many of its research lines. Among those dropped completely 

were all silvical and site factor observations (except simple weather records), stand 

and tree growth records, utilization studies in connection with harvesting, regional 

redwood (see “Scientific and Common Names” section) research, further statistical 

analysis of fire data, studies on the use of water and chemicals in fire suppression, 

fire behavior and speed and strength of attack research, periodic insect and disease 

control investigations, and periodic records and data for genetics studies. The budget for the Forest Resources Survey, or FRS, was slashed by 50 percent, and the 

products budget was cut 19 percent with no work being done because the one man 

assigned to the work spent most of his time on other jobs. The forest influences 

budget was slashed by 45 percent. All influences work now was concentrated at 

SDEF because CPS labor was available there. Because of the war, R.H. Weidman 

was the only regular staff member to remain at IFG, and project work at the institute for a time was slowed down to a maintenance basis only (Loveridge and Dutton 

1946).

War Research Program, 1941–1945

In the turmoil of the first month following Congress’ declaration of war on 

December 9, 1941, Acting Director Talbot and CFRES staff scrambled to find the 

station’s niche in the war effort and to gear up for defense activities. Silviculture 

research pushed vague forest management ideas for California’s pine and redwood 

regions. The forest products division meekly offered consultation services to local 

industries and to the FPL. Range research simply had no wartime program offerings, while economics, working with the western pine and redwood associations, 

began to maintain charts and statistics of lumber production, orders, and shipments. 

Meanwhile, fire research contributed limited resources to urban fire defense, and 

influences research studied the establishment of ground cover for mud and dust 

control, erosion control, and landscaping planting for new military facilities. Genetics offered to test the quantity and quality of naval stores in western pine, or survey 

native plants for possible products during the war crisis. Finally, forest survey staff 

made an effort to use aerial photographs for activities of value to wartime and 

postwar planning (USDA FS 1945). 

Although disorganization reigned at first, by January 1942, a clear wartime 

program had begun to emerge. And by June of that year, CFRES found its stride in 

contributing to the war effort. In fact, former Station Director E.I. Kotok, who now 

was an Assistant Chief in the Washington office, took the time to “give his best 

By June of that year, 

CFRES found its stride 

in contributing to the 

war effort. 
238

general technical report psw-gtr-233

to the gang for a good job under way” (USDA FS 1945). Because CFRES worked 

so closely with Region 5 during World War II, in many instances, separation of 

their individual organization contributions in the war job was virtually impossible. 

Nonetheless, CFRES research was reoriented to fighting America’s enemies and 

provided valuable assistance in the following general defense and war activities.

Assistance to Farm Families in Producing Feed for Freedom

After the Pearl Harbor attack, President Roosevelt appointed the War Production 

Board (WPB) to coordinate procurement programs for the armed forces and to allocate materials between civilian and military needs. The WPB provided assistance to 

farm families, fostered cooperation with livestock owners in production campaigns, 

and helped resolve many farm labor problems. The California Station, along with 

Region 5,3

 worked closely with the WPB’s “Food for Freedom” program. Russell 

W. Beeson from Region 5 was assigned to this task, but represented the station as 

well. The contributions of CFRES focused on assisting the Agricultural Adjustment 

Administration (AAA) in its efforts to meet livestock and meat production goals 

during the war years by improving range utilization. The station also conducted 

studies on ways to increase forage production on mountain meadows through 

reseeding trials, and to increase livestock production through better understanding 

of forage competition between deer and cattle in northeastern California. In the 

latter case, the California station reestablished bitterbrush on burned-over range to 

make more forage available for livestock production (USDA FS 1945). Although 

during the war years CFRES publications were limited, August Hormay and J.R. 

Bentley managed to publish several short research articles on standards for judging 

the degree of forage utilization on California annual-type ranges and the distribution, forage value, enemies, growth pattern, reproduction, and methods of estimating grazing use of bitterbrush (Aitro 1977). The AAA and the Soil Conservation 

Service (SCS) reported that these CFRES-related publications were of material 

value in getting ranchers to see the advantages of moderate grazing on annual-type 

ranges in California (USDA FS 1945). By mid-1943, CFRES shifted away from this 

war work back to its normal domestic range research program, which is discussed 

in a later section.

Locating and Servicing New Defense Industrial Plants

One underestimated benefit provided by the California Station during the first 

months of World War II was the technical advice it gave to the defense industry 

about controlling erosion during the construction of important industrial plants. For 

3

 For a description of Region 5’s war effort, see Godfrey 2005.

CFRES-related 

publications were 

of material value in 

getting ranchers to 

see the advantages of 

moderate grazing on 

annual-type ranges in 

California.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

instance, the station supplied 10,000 shrubs and reseeded trees for erosion control 

for the huge new magnesium plant built near Palo Alto by the Permanente Metals 

Corporation. During World War II, this magnesium plant turned out 1 million 

pounds of the chemicals used as the flammable agent in America’s military incendiary bombs4

 (USDA FS 1945). 

Providing Strategic and Critical Raw Materials

The California Station staff made numerous major contributions to providing 

strategic and critical raw materials during the war by working closely with the 

lumber branches of the WPB and the Office of Price Administration (OPA). One 

major aim of the CFRES wartime program was to conduct fact-finding surveys for 

these war agencies that controlled the Nation’s lumber production. Requirements, 

production, and supplies (RPS) of forest products, a war-connected program, was 

carried out by the station and financed for the most part by the WPB during World 

War II. The CFRES met this goal in several ways. First, CFRES staff gathered data 

on supply and demand for all types of timber and on any shortages in California 

that might be developing. For instance, each quarter, CFRES provided the WPB and 

OPA with a comprehensive appraisal of the factors affecting lumber production for 

both the pine and redwood regions. These appraisals included a report of production to date, a forecast of expected production, an analysis of manpower problems, 

and an examination of equipment, weather, and other difficulties. The fall reports 

were expanded to include a summary of log inventories available for winter milling. 

Tabulated lumber production statistics included shipments, orders, and production 

for the lumber industry by pine and redwood regions, along with indices of labor 

and transportation trends. Finally, the station kept the WPA and the OPA informed 

on a number of other war-related statistics, such as California’s fuel situation, in 

terms of demand for coal, oil, and fuel wood for farms and cities, especially for 

winter use. These inventories, surveys, statistical calculations, and similar data 

gathering became a routine contribution of CFRES to the war effort (USDA FS 

1943).

One key element of CFRES’ information mission additionally involved reporting critical special situations. For instance, in the early part of the war, there was an 

extraordinary demand for heavy beams, posts, and pilings for the many new harbor 

facilities needed by the military. To meet research data needs regarding piling

4

 The Permanente magnesium plant was dismantled in 1947.

The CFRES wartime 

program was to 

conduct fact-finding 

surveys for these 

war agencies that 

controlled the Nation’s 

lumber production.
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demands, in 1942, the Challenge Experimental Forest (CEF) on the Plumas 

National Forest was designated for experimentation in this research area. At CEF, 

CFRES surveyed and established sample plots in the CEF’s second-growth pine 

in order to initiate piling research as quickly as possible. The station also studied 

piling production methods, costs, wastes, and relationship to second-growth stands, 

and reported the results to the AAA. The station also reported on the production, 

consumption, and supply of wood piling in California, and consulted with the 

Maritime Commission on marine piling preservation. In 1943, a CEF timber sale 

provided 35,000 linear feet of piling for the war effort5 (USDA FS 1945). Later that 

year, the CFRES wood products division summarized its findings in a publication 

designed to inform landowners about the methods of selling piling stumpage in 

order to encourage such sales (USDA FS 1945). Another special report appraised 

California’s wooden agricultural container situation. Because of war-caused wood 

shortages, sawmills, box factories, trade associations, and consumers of fresh fruits 

and vegetables demanded information on shook (a set of components ready for 

assembly into a box, cask, or crate) production. The CFRES provided this supplyand-demand information to them and to all concerned federal and state agencies, 

such as the state Agricultural War Board. The station also produced for the WPB a 

singular report describing the number, kind, location, holding capacity, and present 

conditions of all California dry-kiln facilities6 (USDA FS 1945).

Throughout the war years, CFRES carried out those consultant and research 

services to these and other war agencies, and most local, regional, and district 

offices of the various war agencies concerned with California lumber production 

knew to ask the station for factual information. For instance, the WPA continually 

sought CFRES advice on various timber and lumber operators’ equipment needs, 

on plant expansion requirements, and on probable production of individual operations. Or, for example, the War Manpower Commission (WMC) relied on CFRES 

to analyze its bimonthly reports of current and anticipated employment in selected

5

 With the exception of the Blacks Mountain Experiment Forest (BMEF), all other experimental forests were essentially shut down during World War II. However, BMEF contributed to the war effort by continuing to test methods of controlling insect losses through 

proper selective logging practices. Improved cutting practices helped to provide more 

timber from BMEF plots, and as a byproduct of this research, BMEF seasonally provided 

10 million board feet of Douglas-fir (see “Scientific and Common Names” section) for 

veneer and made several million board feet of ponderosa pine available for the war (USDA 

FS 1945).

6

 After World War II, the FPL gave priority to kiln-drying research to provide properly 

cured lumber for new home construction, which the National Housing Authority predicted 

would reach nearly 3 million by the end of 1947 (Steen 1998).

The WPA continually 

sought CFRES advice 

on various timber and 

lumber operators’ 

equipment needs [and] 

on plant expansion 

requirements.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

California lumbering and logging operations. Finally, OPA consulted with the 

station on food rationing problems in the lumber industry and repeatedly sought 

advice on the effect of the various lumber, log, and stumpage price ceilings. Other 

agencies even used CFRES economic data and periodic reports as evidence in legal 

cases submitted by labor and management (USDA FS 1943).

Finding Substitutes for Unobtainable Imported Raw 

Materials

With the Japanese invasion of Indochina in 1940–1941, the United States was cut 

off from natural rubber supplies, and a substitute source was needed immediately. 

In the battle to find substitutes for imported raw materials such as rubber, attention 

was immediately drawn to the guayule plant as a substitute for the imported raw 

natural rubber. With the outbreak of war, the Forest Service began an emergency 

Guayule Rubber Project (fig. 67) without delay, and in February 1942, Region 5 was 

delegated to oversee the exploration of cultivating and processing of the guayule 

Figure 67—Work on the 

Guayule Rubber Project 

was but one Calfornia 

Forest and Range Experiment Station contribution 

to the World War II 

effort. U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Region
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plant through grinding, washing, and flotation (Godfrey 2005). Acting Station 

Director Talbot believed that CFRES’ genetics division and its highly trained specialists were eminently qualified to contribute to the Guayule Rubber Project. So 

in April 1942, Talbot heavily lobbied Clarence Forsling, head of the Forest Service 

Branch of Research (BR), to assign the California Station to the project (USDA 

FS 1945). In September 1942, Talbot transferred A.E. Wieslander and three “flood 

control men” to the Guayule Rubber Project and CFRES began conducting limited 

research. The CFRES participation included determining the suitability of various 

farming areas for guayule production, supplying basic climatological and water 

cycle soils data, and compiling a statewide map showing locations of potential 

guayule plantation sites. (USDA FS 1945). Meanwhile, CFRES explored other rubber substitute sources. For instance, CFRES, in cooperation with the University of 

California and Stanford, studied Indian hemp as a rubber and fiber source. Preliminary studies indicated that 100 to 200 pounds of rubber could be produced per acre 

from this common weed, and 500 to 1,000 pounds of fiber could be expected from 

this cannabis plant. Additionally, the station began researching varieties of rabbitbrush as a possible rubber source. But by April 1943, CFRES scientists determined 

from extraction tests that rabbitbrush did not constitute a feasible rubber source for 

the present emergency (USDA FS 1945). 

In the meantime, the CFRES genetics division focused one of its wartime investigations on the genus Garrya as a practical source of an alkaloid, garryine, to 

be used as a substitute for quinine in the treatment of intermittent fevers such as 

malaria. Scientists, such as Nicholas T. Mirov (fig. 68), worked closely with the 

University of California Medical School and College of Pharmacy in this Garrya

bush study. As late as April 1943, testing showed sufficient promise to continue the 

project, but within months, problems surfaced. By October 1943, CFRES dropped 

the project from its wartime research program when John Hopkins Medical School 

discovered that six of the Garrya species being tested had no alkaloid similar to 

quinine. Meanwhile, Mirov worked on several other war projects, such as obtaining rotenone,7

 a toxic crystalline substance used at the time as an insecticide, from 

new sources. To meet the critical shortage and urgent need for this material, Mirov 

tried to extract it from the seeds of native species of Amorpha fruticosa, or desert 

false indigo. Initial tests of this shrub yielded rotenone, but other species, such as 

A. californica did not. By October 1943, studies of Amorpha gave little promise of 

positive results, and the project was terminated (USDA FS 1945).

7

 Rotenone was used for the control of insects on leafy vegetables and fruits, and for 

the control of vermin on humans and livestock. It was later used to poison “trash” fish 

populations.

CFRES explored other 

rubber substitute 

sources.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 68—Nicholas T. Mirov, prominent Calfornia Forest and Range 

Experiment Station scientist and the first plant physiologist appointed 

by the U.S. Forest Service.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

By late 1942, another essential raw material needed in the war was cork. 

Therefore, CFRES worked closely with the FPL in investigating possible sources 

of Douglas-fir and white fir bark as cork substitutes. The CFRES reported on the 

major producers of these species in California, and the station contacted various 

cork industry leaders to determine cork requirements. In cooperation with Region 

5, CFRES also initiated plans for experimental cork-oak planting in California 

with the ultimate objective of providing for a postwar planting program of some 

100,000 acres of cork oak. Station participation involved seed collection, experimental planting, genetics research, determining characteristics of suitable planting 

sites, and the use of station nurseries at Devil Canyon, Placerville, and Berkeley. 

Research included methods of identifying superior cork-producing strains, seed 

storage and treatment, vegetative propagation, site selection, and the exploration 

of site requirements. From existing records and other sources, CFRES also compiled specific locations of approximately 2,000 cork oak trees old enough to be 
244

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potential sources of acorns. By December 1942, acorn collection was organized 

and acorns were being gathered throughout the state, and by March 1943, propagation work was underway for the 1943–1944 planting season both at the Placerville 

and Devil Canyon nurseries. Direct seeding experiments also took place on the 

Cleveland and Los Padres National Forests, and Region 5 planned to plant 60,000 

cork oak seedlings at Placerville and 40,000 at Devils Canyon during the winter of 

1943–1944. However, by 1944, the impending end of the war prompted the decision 

that although this project was a good war risk when needed for national defense, its 

value in peacetime was questionable when harvesting costs and time were considered. Simply put, it took too much station effort in comparison to other needed work 

and the project was dropped8 (Loveridge and Dutton 1946, USDA FS 1945).

Locating, Acquiring, Servicing, and Assisting New 

Military Establishments in Defense Operations

Because of fears that a Japanese air attack on California’s coastal military and 

industrial installations was imminent,9 disguising them to blend in with their surroundings was vital. Therefore, CFRES, in cooperation with the University of California and Stanford University, initiated camouflage research pertaining to the use 

of natural grasses, shrubs, and vines for overhead cover. The CFRES also worked 

with the Western Defense Command (WDC) to develop camouflage techniques 

for nearby permanent military facilities. They included the Oakland bomber base 

and the California State Guard encampment at Berkeley, as well as other strategic 

military facilities in California, such as Hunter Liggett Military Reservation within 

the Los Padres National Forest, and the Fort Rosecrans Coast Artillery Corps at 

Point Loma near San Diego. In response to United States Army Corps of Engineers’ 

requests for trees, shrubs, and other plants for windbreak and camouflage purposes, 

CFRES turned over 11,775 plants to the Army from the station’s Berkeley native 

8

 By January 1944, CFRES established 10 small test plots and three larger plantations in 

selected locations throughout the state to test suitability of site, kind of stock, and various treatments. But because of labor shortages and transportation restrictions, it was not 

possible to use all of the nursery stock grown to date for experiments. With the cooperation 

of the University of California, CFRES’ primary cooperator, 75,000 of the seedlings were 

distributed to landowners.

9

 With the declaration of war in December 1941, the City of San Francisco anticipated a 

Japanese aircraft attack. Spooked by a “sighting” of a formation of enemy aircraft 100 

miles off the coast approaching the Golden Gate Bridge, civil defense sirens sounded and 

the city went dark, searchlight beams prodded the clear sky overhead, and sailors, soldiers, 

and marines rushed to their battle stations (Godfrey 2005).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

plant nursery for use at Camp Knight and elsewhere.10 In addition, 43,535 plants 

from the Devil Canyon nursery, including both potted and bare root stock of some 

90 species, were sent to other installations. The largest request for stock came from 

Camp Haan Army Service Depot,11 but requests from the Victorville Army Flying 

School and Fort Rosecrans were fulfilled as well. The station also assisted with 

camouflage planting and dust control at Mills Airfield, formerly San Francisco 

Municipal Airport, which had been militarized. As a result of CFRES’ early camouflage recommendations in 1942, installations along the Pacific Coast were more 

effectively hidden from the enemy (USDA FS 1945). Throughout the war, CFRES 

continued this type of camouflage research mission. In April 1943, in cooperation 

with Region 5 and other USDA agencies, CFRES prepared a list of plants available 

in California nurseries for camouflage purposes and made recommendations as to 

their use in hiding gun placements, covering soil scars, and in dust control through 

the establishment of windbreaks and adequate ground cover. Additionally, the 

Devils Canyon nursery was given the mission of raising 25,000 trees and shrubs 

for future camouflage planting at military establishments (USDA FS 1945). 

Besides providing data on suitable native plants and planting techniques, 

CFRES staff assisted with instruction at Army camouflage training camps, and 

more importantly, at the request of Region 5 Office of Civil Defense (OCD), they 

organized lectures on camouflage planning at the University of California Extension Division. Herbert A. Jensen gave these lectures, the purpose of which was to 

train architects, engineers, and landscape designers for OCD’s industrial camouflage program and to explain air-photograph interpretation. The lectures were so 

successful that by late 1942 the California Station and SDEF were giving similar 

training courses to WDC military and naval intelligence groups as well (USDA FS 

1945).

10 Camp John T. Knight was the name of the cantonment area of what became the Oakland 

Army Base, but was part of the overall San Francisco Port of Embarcation. This name was 

officially used from 1942 until it was fully incorporated into the Oakland Army Base in 

1946.

11 In January 1941, Camp Haan started out as a coastal artillery antiaircraft replacement training center adjacent to March Army Air Field. However, in March 1942, it was 

reorganized as an Army Service depot, and in late 1942, it became a prisoner of war camp 

housing Italian and then German prisoners of war. Later in the war, it became a debarkation 

hospital receiving wounded from the Pacific theater of operation. At its peak, Camp Haan 

had a population of 80,000 people. It closed in August 1946.

CFRES prepared a list 

of plants available in 

California nurseries for 

camouflage purposes.
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Making the Home Front Strong and Other Civilian 

Defense Activities

Finally, CFRES worked with Region 5’s OCD in the development of a coordinated 

fire protection plan that included fire prevention, presuppression, and fire suppression action for the 250-square-mile East Bay Hills area of Contra Costa and 

Alameda Counties. This area contained highly inflammable forest, brush, and 

grass cover, and constituted a serious threat to war industries and municipalities 

located therein. In late June 1942, Charles C. Buck and C.A. Abell worked closely 

with the WDC. The WDC anticipated a Japanese aerial incendiary attack on the 

area for several reasons. The East Bay Hills area was traversed by major railroad 

and highway routes and by all of the electric power and communication trunk lines 

serving the East Bay area. The area also contained numerous antiaircraft batteries 

as well as other military installations. In the end, CFRES research resulted in a 

small publication used by the military that recommended fire prevention, detection, 

and dispatching techniques for 15 agencies involved in protecting war industries 

from aerial incendiary attack or saboteur-caused fires. By October 1942, Region 5’s 

OCD East Bay San Francisco Hills coordinated fire protection plan was completed, 

and extensive hazard reduction and fireline construction was underway. Firefighting tools for 1,000 men were purchased or borrowed, and a dispatch action plan 

was agreed upon. Furthermore, California station staff took OCD training courses, 

and were placed on active civilian defense assignments. Station staff also trained in 

firefighting techniques and became classified for use in the event of fire emergency 

(Aitro 1977, USDA FS 1945). 

One highly confidential project conducted by CFRES at this time involved fire 

warfare research. Early in the war years, Region 5 and CFRES, in cooperation 

with the United States Army Air Force and the Chemical Warfare Service, began 

research on incendiary bombing experiments at March Army Air Field, near 

Riverside, California. However, by October of 1942, work on the possible use of 

forest fires as a potential offensive-defensive tactical weapon was shifted to the 

Eastern Defense Command, where it was tested by the Army as a military weapon 

in repelling enemy invasion along the east coast (USDA FS 1945).

Domestic Research Program, 1941–1945

The impact of war conditions, reflected in the heavy reduction in funds and 

manpower, meant a redirection of effort and curtailment of numerous projects in 

CFRES’ long-range domestic research program. Acting Station Director M.W. 

Talbot attempted to protect major past research investments as far as possible by 

continuing the most vital work, or keeping such projects at the minimum maintenance level (USDA FS 1943).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Forest Management

In the area of forest management, CFRES continued to conduct limited domestic 

research in three important areas from 1941 to 1945. The first research area was 

silvics. During the early part of the war, most of the genetics projects were carried 

on at a maintenance level, with almost three-fourths of the division effort being 

devoted to such wartime assignments as the analysis of native plants for rubber, 

quinine, rotenone, tannin, and fiber; the analysis of plants for camouflage use by 

infrared photography, as well as other camouflage assignments; research with cork 

oak; or teaching war geography to army personnel. However, by 1943, the genetics division was able to continue some of its pioneering work on hybridization. 

By repeated crossings of different species they produced diverse individual seed 

and pollen-parent trees. In short, several of these pine hybrids were “new trees” 

and apparently superior ones under testing conditions. Researchers believed that 

extensive use of these superior tree types would be required for the reforestation 

of California’s brush fields and burned-over, or denuded lands, so the further these 

experiments could be pushed along during wartime, the better off they would be 

in the postwar period. By the end of the war, Francis Righter, chief of the genetics 

division, also hoped to produce a reference handbook that depicted the growth, 

hardiness, silvicultural values, and other characteristics of the institute’s pines12

(USDA FS 1943). 

At the beginning of 1944, Palmer Stockwell replaced his colleague Francis 

Righter as genetics division chief. While Stockwell continued various wartime 

assignments started by Righter, Stockwell was also able to redirect more and more 

of his staff effort back to genetic problems, especially hybridization. By March 

1945, the tree-breeding program began to pick up loose ends of earlier experiments 

that had lapsed during the war, to write up accumulated data and findings, and to 

restore balance to the program by advancing those phases of work on pollination 

that had fallen behind, but on which successful breeding depended. Stockwell 

looked forward to the postwar era, which he and his staff hoped would include 

intensified systematic testing of pines to determine which pairs of species would 

hybridize, and hybrid character (USDA FS 1944).

12 In 1947, Francis Righter co-authored an article entitled “Hybrid Forest Trees” with 

Palmer Stockwell for the USDA Yearbook of Agriculture 1943–1947 (Stockwell and Righter 

1947), which discussed research progress and use of hybrids produced at the Institute of 

Forest Genetics. A year later, CFRES produced Tree Breeding at the Institute of Forest 

Genetics (USDA FS 1948b).

The tree-breeding 

program began to pick 

up loose ends of earlier 

experiments that had 

lapsed during the war.
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The second area of domestic California forest management research conducted 

at CFRES during the war involved aspects of pine region research at Blacks Mountain Experimental Forest (BMEF).13 At BMEF, CFRES’ chief of pine management, 

Duncan Dunning, continued to accumulate information on the management and 

silvicultural practices needed to insure adequate wood crops from ponderosa pine 

lands at low cost. The BMEF logging office and research operations were carried 

on successfully by men ineligible for military duty because of age and physical 

condition and a few women. Experimental cutting methods, or sustained yield 

logging, continued to demonstrate that light salvage or sanitation cutting was no 

more expensive than heavier cutting. Furthermore, Duncan and the CFRES staff 

believed that by making a series of variable cuts properly timed and placed, instead 

of a single progressive heavy cut, it was possible to harvest highly susceptible trees 

prior to bark beetle attack, accomplish natural restocking, release advance growth, 

prevent brush invasion, and provide logs of certain quality grades as needed. During the war, Dunning concentrated CFRES forest management resources on this 

effort, which left little time for other domestic projects, or for maintaining the 

station’s long-term projects. For instance, a lack of funds and technical personnel made it necessary to defer 5-year measurements due on the 1939 series of the 

Methods of Cutting (MOC) study at BMEF. Nonetheless, Dunning stressed getting 

the station’s forest research findings into application, and he spent some effort on 

forecasting statewide forest growth and demands in the post-World War II era. As 

the war approached its end, interest in better management of both private and public 

forest land intensified. This interest accelerated when some realized that there 

would be a postwartime shortage of lumber for civilian use, and that after the war, 

few undeveloped logging areas remained available to California’s many sawmills. 

Meanwhile, this abnormal wartime market resulted in stimulating cutting of red 

and white fir, and the station began to field requests for assistance in developing 

marking rules for these species. The division’s plans in the postwar period were to 

continue ponderosa pine cutting at BMEF, to conduct logging and insect control 

experiments, to prepare revised growth estimates for California as a section of the 

Forest Resource Survey, and to analyze accumulated records as a basis for revision 

of marking and cutting practices for postwar forestry programs (USDA FS 1943, 

1944).

13 Unfortunately by 1943, other projects were closed down completely, including the station’s entire redwood program following Hubert Person’s transfer to the Pacific Northwest 

Station on a special war job.

Dunning stressed 

getting the station’s 

forest research 

findings into 

application.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Forest fire protection was the third component of the CFRES domestic forest 

management research program. During World War II, fire research at the station 

nearly came to a halt because most of the limited staff was assigned to projects of 

military interest (Wilson and Davis 1988). Nonetheless, throughout the war, the 

CFRES fire research division, under the leadership of Charles C. Buck, continued 

to devote available personnel and research effort to the field of fire-danger rating 

systems and large-fire behavior. Laboratory and wind tunnel studies of fuel characteristics, along with scale-model fires, added new information on the effects of 

different fuel combinations on fire spread. For the first time, fuel temperature was 

recognized to be one of the more important factors affecting both ease of ignition 

of forest fuels, and the rate of spread of surface fires. Wind velocity, temperature, 

and fuel moisture were also studied. By the beginning of 1944, new findings from 

these studies were blended with the results of past work to provide the basis for a 

complete revision of California’s fire-danger rating system for its national forests 

and for areas protected by the state. The new system combined the effects of wind 

velocity, indicator-stick moisture content, seasonal development of herbs and 

shrubs, relative humidity, temperature, and slope into a single index of potential 

fire spread rate. This forest protection management tool required less field time and 

promised to add considerable significance to Region 5’s fire-danger measurements. 

In the field of large-fire behavior, CFRES worked closely with Region 5, to whom it 

gave considerable assistance in scouting fires, in predicting probable changes in fire 

danger, and in helping plan suppression strategy. The value of these observations 

to CFRES staff in interpretation of laboratory research data and close collaboration 

with Region 5 on “actual” versus “theoretical” fires was immeasurable. Finally, 

CFRES gained considerable knowledge by participating in and developing the 

coordinated fire protection plan for Region 5’s OCD East Bay San Francisco Hills 

project14 (USDA FS 1943).

Despite these gains, in 1944, the fire research division was forced to retrench 

even more. With its staff reduced to two men (Buck and Abell), the fire division 

shifted primary emphasis from established projects that contributed to the basic 

long-term domestic research program to extension and training activities and to 

assistance to Region 5 in solving immediately pressing fire problems. The station 

and Region 5 felt that more could be contributed toward better fire control practice 

14 Lessons learned about organizing a giant task force of fire control agencies, fire research, 

federal civil defense, and private industry from the East Bay Hills project would be applied 

in the post-World War II years to projects such as FIRESTOP, which will be discussed in 

the next chapter.

During World War II, 

fire research at the 

station nearly came to 

a halt because most of 

the limited staff was 

assigned to projects of 

military interest.
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by this emphasis rather than by attempting to carry on the station’s regular research 

program. The Shasta Experimental Fire Forest (SEFF) was therefore closed as an 

active research center, and fire behavior research was limited to laboratory studies 

of fire ignition and spread conducted by CPS personnel at San Dimas. Thereafter, 

the station concentrated on intensive application of established fire-danger-rating 

procedures to the administration and supervision of fire-control activities. Besides 

fire behavior studies, other key projects suspended included analysis of fire report 

data used to establish objectives for regionwide application in fire-control practice 

and research on effective use of manpower and equipment resources in suppressing 

large fires, on regional and local detection problems and lookout efficiency, on the 

use of herbicides in maintaining firebreaks and rights-of-way, on use of water and 

chemicals in fire suppression, and on the relationship of weather elements to fires 

(USDA FS 1944).

Because of the need for increased wartime meat production, domestic range 

research at CFRES did not stand still during the war. The purpose of range research in this period was to obtain the greatest production of meat, hides, wool, 

and other products from both livestock and game animals, without impairing future 

production or damaging the range. Information was needed on numerous phases of 

practical management, including proper intensity and season of grazing, methods 

of artificial reseeding, brush removal, erosion control, water spreading, and similar 

practices for a large variety of forage types in California. Range investigations 

centered on the annual-type ranges in the foothills of the San Joaquin Valley at the 

San Joaquin Experimental Range (SJER) and on perennial-type summer ranges 

in the mountains of northeastern California at the Burgess Springs Experimental 

Range (BSER) (USDA FS 1944).

During the war years, Jay R. Bentley was the project leader at SJER (USDA FS 

1943, 1944). He oversaw the continuance of domestic research at SJER, although 

necessarily on a reduced level, which added to the store of facts needed for the 

“blueprints” of many postwar range development programs. At the beginning of 

World War II, CFRES published SJER current findings on range research in a 

major collection of papers edited by C.B. Hutchinson and E.I. Kotok, entitled The 

San Joaquin Experimental Range (1942). Major contributors to the publication 

included M.W. Talbot, J.W. Nelson, and noted University of California grazing 

expert Arthur W. Sampson. The San Joaquin Experimental Range described the 

facilities, soils, climate, and vegetation, and the range organization and management at SJER itself, and then covered studies and experiments in the SJER program. Then the publication covered the subject of annual type forage, discussed its 

Because of the need 

for increased wartime 

meat production, 

domestic range 

research at CFRES did 

not stand still during 

the war.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

characteristic growth and behavior, and reported on experiments dealing with grazing for maximum yield, maintenance, and improvement. Next, it turned to a discussion of a variety of research projects that investigated artificial reseeding, rainfall 

runoff and erosion, and the chemical composition of important range plants. Finally, 

to a lesser extent, it addressed wildlife relations at SJER (Aitro 1977). Significant 

new findings continued to emerge from the cooperative experiments reported on 

in The San Joaquin Experimental Range. For instance, significant projects under 

Bentley’s leadership included the study of artificial reseeding of several promising 

forage species and of grazing intensity in foothill ranges, which demonstrated that 

moderate grazing of annual-type range was better than lighter or heavier grazing. 

At the same time, August Hormay, project leader for mountain range investigations 

at the BSER investigated the grazing value of cutover pine timberland for cattle in 

the mountain ranges, along with utilization of browse and artificial reseeding of 

bitterbrush (USDA FS 1943, 1944). 

Although progress was made in grazing research, during the first 2 years of 

the war, the CFRES division of forest influences was all but shut down, except for 

maintaining the records at the SDEF, which was done by conscientious objectors 

from a Civilian Public Service (CPS) camp located at Glendora. Furthermore, the 

planting stock of the Devil Canyon nursery had been disposed of in filling orders 

from various military posts. Even the station’s Berkeley plant nursery stock, comprising several thousand potted shrubs, was distributed to military centers in the 

San Francisco Bay area. Further curtailment in the division of forest influences 

came in 1943 when the Devil Canyon Branch Station was closed for the duration 

of the war. The CFRES also turned over its Kings River Branch Station at Trimmer, 

California, to the Sierra National Forest under a cooperative agreement whereby 

the forest staff continued to collect certain minimum hydrologic data in return for 

the use of CFRES buildings (USDA FS 1943). The year 1944 proved even more 

devastating to the program. Installations on the Big Creek watersheds at the Kings 

River Branch and those at North Fork and Bass Lake work centers continued to be 

operated on a maintenance basis with the collection of statistics from the Sierra 

Forest and the North Fork CPS camp. However, no further records were kept at the 

Teakettle Creek watersheds at the Kings River Branch, or at the Berkeley installations. The loss of personnel who joined the military or transferred to high-priority 

war projects continued, thrusting an increasing burden on the remaining staff. As 

with other station divisions, this situation retarded the analysis of data, caused the 

suspension of important phases of research, and reduced several projects to a maintenance basis. C.J. Kraebel, as chief of the division, kept the influences division 

During the first 2 years 

of the war, the CFRES 

division of forest 

influences was all but 

shut down.
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

afloat by centering the division’s work largely at San Dimas and by cooperating 

with the fire research division and Region 5 in a fire damage appraisal study15

(USDA FS 1944).

Forest products fared little better. With its one staff member, Hereford Garland, 

devoting practically all of his time to wartime requirements and supply surveys 

such as stumpage and log prices in California by species, the regular division of 

products program remained suspended throughout the war. Garland hoped, however, that the establishment of a full-fledged forest products utilization unit of three 

or four technicians after World War II would mean that he could begin a program 

of needed wood studies. Of special interest to him was the problem of efficient 

utilization of second-growth pine stands, and demand for California softwoods, 

such as white and red fir that had been accentuated by the wartime demands for all 

kinds of forest products. A study of waste wood in California was also needed as 

part of the Forest Service’s reappraisal of America’s timber situation in the postwar period. There was also a complete suspension of any forest economics work 

because of a lack of funds and the full-time assignment of Edward C. Crafts to 

wood requirements and supplies work. For the time being, the problem of how to 

make forestry pay in financial terms was set aside. The Forest Resources Survey 

was virtually closed down, and its three-member staff was reassigned to war jobs. 

George F. Burks continued full-time on timber supply surveys, studies, and reports 

for the WPB, WMC, and OPA, while Herbert A. Jensen spent almost all of his time 

at the University of California teaching aerial photograph interpretation to military 

students. A.E. Wieslander, on the other hand, divided most of his time between the 

Guayule Emergency Rubber Project and postwar planning (Aitro 1977; USDA FS 

1943, 1944).

Naturally, because most of the station’s domestic research program was suspended or reduced owing to the war, cooperative work with other agencies was 

limited as well except as outlined above with Region 5 and the University of 

California’s departments and divisions. Cooperation with other federal, state, 

and community agencies continued to the degree permitted by conditions. Cooperative studies with the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine (BEPQ) 

continued because they were vital to the solution of several forest management 

problems, especially at BMEF. However, the station found it necessary to suspend

15 This cooperative project aimed at developing a uniform system for appraising damages 

from fire on the four southern California watershed forests. The immediate purpose of this 

project was to establish a sound basis upon which to determine the damages that would 

result from fire in a given drainage. Later this data would be used to establish justifiable 

levels of protection for areas primarily valuable as watersheds, and to determine the best 

distribution of available protection resources among local administrative units.

The regular division 

of products program 

remained suspended 

throughout the war.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

any cooperative work with the Fish and Wildlife Service until after the war. One 

essential cooperative work project with a federal agency involved the Civilian 

Public Service. The CPS gave substantial assistance to the station’s domestic 

research programs at SDEF, IFG, SJER, and the Kings River and Feather River 

Branch Stations. The excellent and valuable service rendered by these conscientious 

objectors made possible the maintenance of several important research projects at 

these facilities, which would have otherwise been more seriously curtailed or closed 

entirely during World War II (USDA FS 1943, 1944).

General Integrated Inspection Report (1944–1946) and 

the End of the War

Meanwhile, CFRES underwent its first thorough and systematic Washington office 

(WO) inspection—a General Integrating Inspection (GII) conducted by Assistant 

Chief E.W. Loveridge and Chief of the Grazing Division, W.L. Dutton. The GII 

began in the summer of 1944 with a followup completed in December 1946.16 The 

Loveridge-Dutton GII covered not just the CFRES research program, but also the 

station’s interaction with Region 5.

In general, the Loveridge-Dutton GII found that the integration between the station and Region 5 was “outstanding” as far as planning went. The GII stated: “The 

research program is, or was prior to retrenchment, a very impressive one.” However, the station was subjected to “considerable criticism” by the GII because many 

felt that the station should have done more to publicize the excellent results of past 

CFRES studies and findings of scientists such as Duncan Dunning and others,17 

and to see that his silvicultural research findings were implemented in Region 5. 

16 The GII constituted the primary instrument for program control by the WO over each 

region and station and was a long-range planning tool. Ideally, the GII was carefully 

planned to supply the WO with the type of information necessary for an overall appraisal 

of progress at a region or station. Upon arrival, inspectors contacted the regional forester 

or station director and worked out a schedule to cover the area desired by the inspectors. At 

the conclusion of the inspection, a full report covering all aspects surveyed, plus recommendations for necessary changes in program or action emphasis, was submitted to the 

WO. However, prior to completion of the GII report, the regional forester or station director 

was given a chance to review the findings and submit a rebuttal on controversial points. 

If possible, a conference was held between the inspectors and region/station officials, at 

which time, final recommendations were reviewed and corrective action agreed upon. 

Thereafter, the chief forester signed off on the inspection, which was bound and placed in 

an inspection report library for both current and historical reference (Godfrey 2005).

17 Loveridge and Dutton went on to say, “A most urgent need in this connection is to obtain 

in published form the excellent results of the years of research by Dunning. Failure to carry 

through this top-priority project at an early date would, in our judgment, be very serious” 

(Loveridge and Dutton 1946: R-6).
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Loveridge and Dutton emphasized this point by declaring, “If we consider integration as carrying through to the point where Administration aggressively adopts or 

seriously accepts trial Research findings, then we believe there is room for a lot 

of improvement in R-5. In timber, range, and fire we are convinced that the quality of management and administration could be stepped up substantially by more 

aggressive use of principles developed by Research...[However,] we share with 

earlier inspectors full appreciation of the fine quality of research work done to 

date.” [Emphasis in the original.] Loveridge and Dutton advocated that the station 

put forward more news releases about its research and its overall programs to the 

general public. They realized, however, that the more fundamental problem at the 

California Station was a lack of leadership under Acting Director Murrell Talbot. 

To overcome this disadvantage, they advised that the WO appoint a director without 

further delay (Loveridge and Dutton 1946). 

Concerning the status of the “skeletonized” research program, the LoveridgeDutton GII was kinder. First, they acknowledged the serious financial handicap 

under which the station had operated during the war years, asserting: “In view of 

the importance of Research to conservation in this Region every reasonable and 

permissible step should and will be taken both locally and by the Chief’s Office to 

strengthen the Station’s financial base,” and continued “Under these circumstances 

it is remarkable that the morale of the Station force has been held as high as it 

seemingly is.” Loveridge and Dutton promised that on their return to Washington 

they would see what possibly could be done to have appropriations increased as 

soon as possible. They also suggested that Region 5 help out the station financially 

to the extent it seemed justifiable to do. In particular, the Loveridge-Dutton GII 

suggested that Region 5 help to finance physical improvements at BMEF because 

station studies conducted there touched several important phases of Region 5’s 

timber management work. The GII report stated “certainly something should be 

done about the ‘Rag Row’—the tent, trailer and shack settlement back in the woods 

occupied, during our visit, by three technicians and their families plus four loggers 

and their families with five children, and only one toilet and one shower to serve 

them”18 (Loveridge and Dutton 1946). 

Although they were impressed by the first results of the sanitation-salvage 

cuttings at BMEF and reduction in losses from the western pine beetle—Loveridge 

and Dutton expressed the hope that Region 5 would extend the technique over much

18 Two years later, conditions at BMEF had not changed. The Blacks Mountain logging 

camp was still a makeshift affair because of the problem of finding financing for capital 

improvements, such as cottages to house crewmen and their families (Loveridge and 

Dutton 1946).

Concerning the status 

of the “skeletonized” 

research program, the 

Loveridge-Dutton GII 

was kinder.
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of the region before the next pine beetle cycle again reached a highly destructive 

stage (Loveridge and Dutton 1946)—Loveridge and Dutton lamented the fact that 

just when interest in redwood conservation was running high following years of 

destructive logging, research work at the Yurok Experimental Forest was discontinued because of a lack of funds. They asserted that “a very urgent need still exists 

for research in this type and it is regretted that funds and personnel deficiencies so 

far have caused the Station to be unable to do much on this.” They also supported 

establishing an additional experimental forest under the station, a proposed “Middle 

Fork” Stanislaus Experimental Forest (Loveridge and Dutton 1946). The inspectors 

also offered their insights on regeneration studies. They believed that additional 

planting research was urgently needed, and felt that the value of such research 

was strikingly illustrated by the results obtained by the station in cooperation 

with Region 5 on experimental plots at Feather River, by the work in the Shasta 

brush fields, and by the “fascinating” studies at the Institute of Forest Genetics 

(Loveridge and Dutton 1946).

In the area of range management, the Loveridge-Dutton GII commented that 

Region 5 had profited from the experiment studies carried on by CFRES, but that 

Region 5 needed to more fully utilize the station’s range management findings. 

Furthermore, the Loveridge-Dutton GII stated that aside from preliminary investigation with bitterbrush at BMEF, and nursery and range tests for adaptability at 

SJER, both the station and Region 5 had not gone far enough with reseeding work 

(Loveridge and Dutton 1946). Water management did not escape the purview of the 

Loveridge-Dutton GII either. The investigators expected that the station could find 

more opportunities than it had to volunteer to participate in this field (Loveridge 

and Dutton 1946). Finally, on the subject of fire research,19 Loveridge and Dutton 

praised the station’s accomplishments, articulating that the projects underway at 

San Dimas were “very impressive” and that the “program has been and apparently 

continues to be very capably handled considering the small amount of R. [research] 

funds available. Research and Administration have worked together with unusual 

closeness over the years with the result that fire research findings are usually put 

into effect promptly” (Loveridge and Dutton 1946: FC-3). 

19 Their only criticism of the fire research program was that Region 5 rangers, supervisors, 

and other field men in California, both federal and state, seemed to make little use of the 

fire-danger rating or meter system. Region 5 and the station corrected this over the next 

2 years (Loveridge and Dutton 1946). Pertaining to this last item, Loveridge and Dutton 

noted that with critical changes in California state forestry and increased closeness of 

relations between Region 5 and the State Forester’s Office, the state of California was 

making use of the station’s fire research findings, especially the fire-danger rating system 

(Loveridge and Dutton 1946).

Additional planting 

research was urgently 

needed.
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If anything, the Loveridge-Dutton GII did stimulate one quick result. In 

February 1945, Stephen B. Wyckoff was appointed as the third director of the 

California Forest and Range Experiment Station at Berkeley—a position he would 

hold for almost a decade. Stephen Wyckoff was not a stranger to the directorship, 

or to California. Wyckoff was a graduate of the University of California and had 

served as Director of the Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station 

in Portland, Oregon, since 1938. With the surrender of Japan and the close of the 

war, postwar challenges for the California station fell upon the shoulders of Director Wyckoff, who was recognized as an outstanding conservationist, particularly 

in the West. He believed the station’s mission was to develop, through research, the 

techniques of use and management to give California’s 87 million acres of wildland 

permanent value (Wyckoff 1949).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Chapter 6: 1946–1962, Golden State of Research

In 1943, Lyle Ford Watts replaced Earle Clapp as Chief of the Forest Service and 

served from the last turbulent years of the war until 1952. Watts soon selected 

Edward I. Kotok, first director of the California Forest and Range Experiment 

Station (CFRES), to be his assistant chief for research.1 Kotok’s immediate challenge was helping the Forest Service meet the Nation’s forestry needs during the 

chaotic postwar years. California, perhaps more than any other state, exemplified 

the unsettled state of affairs in the Nation after World War II. The migration to the 

Golden State after the war transformed California. From 1940 to 1945, the state’s 

population increased from 6.9 million to 9.2 million, but only a decade later, the 

state had grown to more than 13 million people. Expanding economic opportunity 

matched California’s growth in population. A postwar boom in manufacturing followed the war years, and the state’s salubrious climate, available space, established 

factories, and science-oriented universities all combined to broaden the economy 

even further. The state’s farm economy kept pace with manufacturing, and California continued to be the West’s leading farm state. Southern California—and in 

particular cities like Los Angeles and San Diego—became the favored destination 

for the vast majority of the people moving to the state, although secondary cities 

elsewhere in the state, such as Oakland, Stockton, and Fresno, grew as well. 

California’s burgeoning economic and population growth led to three interrelated 

consequences—increased suburbanization, transportation needs, and recreation 

needs (Godfrey 2005). 

Explosive growth in manufacturing, farming, and population brought about 

sharply rising pressure on California’s natural resources. For instance, increasing 

demands for agricultural lands and expansion of industry, as well as the larger population, focused attention on the availability of water supplies. In many instances, 

industrial plants were being located in agricultural areas where they competed with 

farmers for groundwater. Many communities grew so fast that by 1948 domestic 

water supplies were no longer adequate, especially in dry years. Thus, there arose a 

great need for expanded research pertaining to the influence of vegetative cover on 

water yield and soil stability. The increasing population and the need for water ultimately led to one of the most controversial questions faced by the Forest Service 

1

 Clarence Forsling, who held that post, moved to the Department of the Interior in 1944 

to be Director of the newly established Grazing Service. Forsling served as Director of the 

Grazing Service from 1944 to 1946; and then became a member of the program staff of the 

Secretary of the Interior from 1946 to 1953, when he retired.
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in California: Should the millions of acres of land covered by brush, which was primarily useful as watershed, be removed and converted to rangeland? The nature of 

the problem begged for a well-rounded program of study involving range, fire, and 

watershed research. Increased pressure on California’s timber resources came at the 

same time. Lessening timber reserves in other parts of the country, coupled with 

increasing local demands, raised California’s lumber production to the highest point 

in its history. By species, the heaviest production was in ponderosa pine, Douglasfir, and redwood (See “Scientific and Common Names” section). Such demands, 

met primarily at this time from old-growth timber resources, pointed sharply to 

the need to develop and apply intensive forest management methods, to convert 

old-growth stands to managed growing forests, and to attain regeneration on forest 

lands of good site quality. Additionally, many realized that California’s commercial 

forests contained more merchantable Douglas-fir than any other species. However, 

much of it was old, large, and contained decay. The conversion of these stands to 

managed growing forests would be a difficult and challenging problem. But many 

felt that these stands, if wisely handled, could become a permanent forest area of 

great productivity, contributing materially to the state’s annual timber production 

(USDA FS 1948a, 1949).

Finally, the growing economy and increased pressure on California’s natural 

resources—which other parts of the Nation felt to a lesser degree—affected all 

aspects of forestry research. The CFRES and Region 5 were fully aware of these 

new problems, and after World War II gave immediate attention to their resolution. 

While practically every part of the California station’s long-time research program 

supplied useful information and answers, recently appointed Station Director 

Stephen B. Wyckoff 2 (fig. 69) had to come to terms with difficult decisions on how 

best to use the station’s limited postwar resources to accomplish the greatest good 

(USDA FS CFRES 1948a). 

Stephen B. Wyckoff and Postwar Station 

Financial Problems

During the station’s great period of expansion in the early 1930s, the California 

station had operated continuously with the help of emergency programs such as 

the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration 

2

 Stephen B. Wyckoff joined the USDA in 1919 when he was named as an assistant plant 

pathologist in the Bureau of Plant Industry and was put in charge of the blister rust control 

work in western pine regions. In 1936, he transferred to the Forest Service and was 

appointed director of the Northern Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station 

in Missoula, Montana. Two years later, he was named as Director of the Pacific Northwest 

Forest and Range Experiment Station in Portland, Oregon (Journal of Forestry 1945).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

(WPA), to name a few. Depression-era funding of this kind supported a considerable number of subprofessional workers in offices and the field and paid salaries 

for technical staff supervising emergency workers. The labor and materials derived 

from these programs essentially maintained the station’s experimental forest system. However, World War II forced the station to curtail many experimental forest 

activities. Fortunately, during the war years, the station was able to depend on the 

Civilian Public Service’s (CPS) conscientious objector camps to continue work on 

two experimental forests, the San Dimas Experimental Forest (SDEF), and the San 

Joaquin Experimental Range (SJER). 

But the year 1946 brought several changes in the scope and direction of the 

CFRES. Some of these changes aided the station’s program by strengthening research in a few divisions, but others hampered research programs. For instance, 

early in the year, the forest economics division was formally reorganized under 

A.E. Wieslander to include the work of the Forest Resources Survey or FRS.3

This merging of related activities into one administrative division brought greater 

strength and more effective assignment of staff members at CFRES, and prevented

3

 As noted in previous chapters, the McSweeney-McNary Forest Research Act of 1928 

authorized the FRS, but in California it had been shut down during World War II because 

its three-member staff was redirected to war jobs.

Figure 69—Stephen B. Wyckoff, third director 

of the Calfornia Forest and Range Experiment 

Station (1945–1954). He addressed the postwar 

financial challenges and oversaw the station's 

move from Hilgard Hall to Mulford Hall on the 

Berkeley campus to be closer to the School of 

Forestry. U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
260

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duplication of efforts. In 1946, forest management, range, and influences research 

were also strengthened as additional funds became available after the war. However, owing to increased costs of travel and steady rise in cost of all supplies, 

materials, and equipment after the war, these research funds no longer went as far 

as in the prewar years (USDA FS 1946). In fact, after the war ended, Director 

Wyckoff scrambled to keep CFRES financially afloat.

Another change was the termination of the CPS program. This reordering 

raised a serious financial policy question: How to continue the station’s research 

program and maintain the experimental forests? Director Wyckoff appeared to have 

three choices: to close down these experimental centers, to use much of the time of 

the station’s highly skilled technical workers for low-grade maintenance work, or to 

curtail several station activities until funding opportunities presented themselves 

(USDA FS 1946). Wyckoff chose the last solution. During the next year, he slowed 

down station activities by bringing past projects to a close and seeking publication 

of project results. For example, the fire research division completed all fieldwork, 

analysis, and interpretation of data for a fire damage appraisal study on four southern California national forests. The range research division completed two major 

field projects at SJER and the Burgess Springs Experimental Range (BSER) that 

had been underway for a number of years. While the forest influences division 

made progress in analysis and interpretation of a large volume of data and manuscripts based on its work, the division of flood control surveys4

 also completed a 

backlog of unfinished surveys in southern California. Finally, the 1947 field season 

marked the end of 11 consecutive years of experimental logging on the Blacks 

Mountain Experimental Forest (BMEF). As suggested by the 1946 LoveridgeDutton General Integrating Inspection, work was then begun on the compilation 

of the Blacks Mountain data for publication. Thanks to those remedial actions, the 

station sustained itself during the difficult financial years following the war (USDA 

FS 1947). During 1948, Director Wyckoff continued on this prudent course of completing some projects, making satisfactory headway on others, and not embarking 

on any new research programs. In doing so, he kept the station going against a 

4

 Following the disastrous 1938 floods in southern California, the station created a Division 

of Flood Control Surveys in 1940–1941. This division worked jointly with the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics (BAE) on flood control 

investigations. Its mission was to determine flood causes and prospective flood damages 

in watersheds, and to recommend a definite remedial program for execution on mountain 

and valley lands in southern California. Among some of its initial projects were the Santa 

Maria, Santa Ynez, and Santa Ana River Surveys. However, their work was suspended 

once World War II broke out (USDA FS 1941a).

Director Wyckoff 

continued on this 

prudent course of 

completing some 

projects, making 

satisfactory headway 

on others, and not 

embarking on any new 

research programs.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

background of a fast-growing economy, rapidly increasing population, and new 

demands on the state’s timber, water, and land resources. Wyckoff staved off a 

financial crisis and soon turned to increasing cooperative funding from federal, 

state, and private institutions to rescue the station (USDA FS 1947).

New Headquarters and Station Reappraisal

While confronting the station’s financial future, Director Wyckoff also grappled 

with space problems on the University of California campus. Following the war, 

there was an educational boom throughout the California education system, including Berkeley’s College of Agriculture and its School of Forestry. In 1939, under 

the leadership of noted professor Walter Mulford, the school’s original Division of 

Forestry grew into a full-fledged Department of Forestry. A School of Forestry was 

established in 1946, with Mulford as its first dean, 5 and it offered a Master of Forestry degree. Until 1939, enrollment at the Division of Forestry had been modest, 

but with the development of the Department of Forestry, and then the establishment 

of the School of Forestry, enrollment soared and the number of bachelor and master 

degrees awarded increased dramatically. In 1947, a new forestry sciences building 

was constructed on campus and dedicated in Mulford’s honor. Because of the close 

ties between the School of Forestry and CFRES, the station moved from its former 

headquarters at Hilgard Hall to the new forestry science building. For the next 11 

years, CFRES comfortably occupied part of Mulford Hall. These years at Mulford 

Hall nurtured rapport and cooperative relations with university administrators, 

forestry faculty, and CFRES researchers. A side benefit of CFRES’s location on 

the Berkeley campus was the ability of station staff to increase their formal education. This action was in line with post-World War II Forest Service policy, which 

encouraged researchers to return to graduate school for advanced training. Between 

1947 and 1950, nine station staff enrolled in advanced university degree programs. 

This educational opportunity, and the informal contacts with faculty members on 

various phases of official work, combined with the active cooperation between the 

station and the university, made the relationship a fruitful one (Aitro 1977, Steen 

1998, USDA FS 1949a).

In the interim, congressional requests also made demands on the time and 

resources of Director Wyckoff and station staff. In 1949, the Senate Committee on 

Appropriations requested that the Forest Service provide it with a complete analysis 

5

 Walter Mulford retired in 1947 knowing that since 1914, when he first taught at Berkeley, 

professional forestry had advanced remarkably. The School of Forestry made many significant contributions to forestry research during Mulford’s tenure through faculty members 

Joseph Kittredge, Arthur W. Sampson, and F.S. Baker.

A side benefit of 

CFRES’s location on 

the Berkeley campus 

was the ability of 

station staff to increase 

their formal education. 
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of its research program by January 1950 (USDA FS 1950). The Senate Committee 

was uncertain about the Forest Service research program—how it was organized, 

plans for the future, and the place of state and local agencies in bearing some of the 

costs of needed research. To meet these congressional concerns, Assistant Chief 

for Research Edward Kotok requested that each Forest Service experiment station 

director reappraise its research program and report back on four specific inquiries: 

How did the station meet its federal responsibility for research, how did the station 

select research problems, how did the station carry out research, and finally, what 

additional field facilities were needed by each station to undertake its principal 

lines of research? (Harper 1978, USDA FS 1950).

In July 1949, Wyckoff complied with Kotok’s request.6 In his reappraisal of 

the California station, Wyckoff described how the station could provide sufficient 

large-scale forest research to meet the state’s needs. Besides describing how the 

station operated under a cooperative agreement with the University of California 

that dated back to October 1926, Wyckoff explained its cooperative relations 

and frequent close contacts with the USDA and other federal agencies, with the 

California State Department of Natural Resources through its Division of Forestry, 

and with other universities, research foundations, industrial and agricultural 

associations, private industrial concerns, and even governments of several foreign 

countries. These cooperative relationships gave breadth to the station’s programs. In 

describing how the station selected research problems, Wyckoff noted that during 

its history, several national comprehensive reviews of forestry, such as the Copeland Report (1933), the Western Range Survey (1936), and the Joint Congressional 

Committee Report (1941), had kept the California station properly oriented. However, Wyckoff also pointed out that the station’s research programs were constantly 

adjusting to new developments through frequent contacts with Region 5 administration, as well as with land management organizations, industrial agencies, scientific 

bodies, and education institutions. Cooperation and guidance came in varying 

degrees from these groups. The University of California and its various divisions 

6

 In 1951, CFRES wrote an extension to their 1949 report under the same title “Reappraisal 

of Research Program of the California Forest and Range Experiment Station” (USDA 

FS 1951c). In the extended report, Station Director Wyckoff was concerned mainly with 

cooperative aspects of the program, especially pertaining to two questions: utilizing 

cooperative contributions from state and local sources for operating the field research 

program, and prospects prevailing in California for recommended legislation to facilitate 

such cooperative contributions from state and local sources (USDA FS 1951c). Information 

from CFRES and other stations were incorporated into Cooperation in Forest and Range 

Management Research, which Assistant Chief of Research V.L. Harper sent to Congressman Jamie Lloyd Whitten, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Agricultural Appropriation. 

This formed the basis of the 1956 Whitten amendment to the Granger-Thye Act of 1950, 

authorizing the Forest Service to collect funds from partners for performing work that is 

the responsibility of the partner (USDA FS 1951b).

Cooperative relationships gave breadth to 

the station’s programs. 
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

were concerned with services fundamental to forestry, providing advice regarding 

soil technology, plant nutrition, animal husbandry, and botany; timber owners and 

lumber industry representatives from groups such as the California Redwood Association (CRA), the Western Pine Association, and the California Forest Protection 

Association (CFPA) maintained close relations with the station through their agents, 

conferences, and field visits to branch stations. Ultimately, though, problems that 

were selected for station study were mainly practical, applied, or operational in 

nature and were devised to meet urgent requirements of national forests and other 

land management agencies. According to Wyckoff, expediencies of various kinds 

necessarily entered into choice of research problems, particularly the availability of 

funds and specialist personnel for a research project. Director Wyckoff described 

the station’s available resources, which included the headquarters office at Berkeley, 

the convenient campus laboratory facilities, facilities secured elsewhere through 

cooperation with other research organizations, and the station’s field facilities consisting of three research centers,7

 experimental forests and ranges, and numerous 

small study areas located primarily on national forest land outside of the experimental forests and ranges. Meanwhile, over the next 5 years, Wyckoff sought two 

additions to the station’s field facilities operations. One was the addition of approximately 8,800 acres to the Stanislaus Experimental Forest (SEF) for forest 

management research and for possible future use in range and watershed management research. The other was the reactivation of the Yurok Redwood Experimental 

Forest, which was ideally located in the redwood region for the study of this species 

(USDA FS 1949b). 

Assistant Chief of Research Kotok incorporated many of the California station’s 

ideas into The Forest Research Program and Summary (Harper 1978, USDA FS 

1950), which he placed before Congress along with a request for increased Forest 

Service research appropriations. In this request, the Forest Service sought support 

for a five-year research plan for “orderly development” of much-needed facilities 

and for additional funds for timber, range, and water resources research. In hindsight, Kotok’s request before Congress was modest. But congressional leaders

7

 The concept of establishing Forest Service research centers began in California under Station Director Edward Kotok with three research centers maintained with some year-round 

personnel. They were the San Dimas Experimental Station, the Institute of Forest Genetics, 

and the San Joaquin Experimental Range (Harper 1978, Storey 1975). The concept spread 

to the rest of the Nation after World War II, especially in the Southwestern and Southern 

Stations. The policy of conducting research from regional headquarters alleviated the 

problem of wasting funds and time traveling to field projects from a central station headquarters. Furthermore, the research centers benefited researcher’s families, who frequently 

complained that husbands and fathers spent too much time away from their homes in travel 

(Harper 1978).

Expediencies of various 

kinds necessarily 

entered into choice of 

research problems, 

particularly the 

availability of funds and 

specialist personnel for 

a research project.
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Courtesy of the Forest History 

Society, Durham, NC 

Figure 70—Verne L. Harper, (back row, second from 

right), Division Chief of Forest Management Research 

(1937–1944) and Deputy Chief of Research (1950–1965).

quickly rejected it, largely because they lacked confidence in Kotok’s research 

leadership. To some, his answers and manner in congressional hearings seemed 

too “academic,” “glib,” and “unsatisfactory,” with one congressman stating that 

there was “little justification to increase funding for a program hampered by weak 

leadership.” Kotok, who was inspired by Gifford Pinchot to join the Forest Service 

and whose experience in forest research dated back to 1911, was simply not attuned 

to the congressional culture that was trying to make postwar economic readjustments. When Congress rejected his appropriation request, Edward Kotok decided to 

retire as research chief. Verne L. Harper succeeded him (Steen 1998). For the next 

15 years, Harper (fig. 70) guided and shaped Forest Service research, putting him 

second in longevity and influence to the redoubtable Earle Clapp. 

National Forestry Research: The Verne L. Harper Era

Verne Lester Harper’s Forest Service career spanned nearly 40 years. He earned 

his B.S. and M.S. in forestry from the University of California in 1926–1927, at 

the very same time the CFRES was established on campus. After graduation, 

Harper joined the Forest Service and was detailed to Florida to conduct naval stores 

research, eventually serving as forest management division chief (1935–1936) at the 

Southern Forest Experiment Station in New Orleans. In 1937, the Forest Service 

promoted Harper to Division Chief of Forest Management Research in Washington, 

D.C., a position he held until 1944. During that time, Harper earned his Ph.D. in 

forest economics from Duke University. At the conclusion of World War II, Harper 

moved to Philadelphia to head the Northeastern Forest Experiment Station. He 

stayed in Philadelphia until 1950, when he became Deputy Chief of Research upon 

Edward Kotok’s retirement (Clepper 1971).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

“Les” Harper was an innovator in regional research planning and management. 

As Deputy Chief of Research, Harper went well beyond Clapp’s broad vision of 

long-range planning at the national level expressed in Clapp’s A National Program 

of Forest Research (1926) by bringing planning down to a regional basis, and then 

to a project and study level. Starting in 1951, Harper aggressively pushed for increased quality of research in the Forest Service by separating the two principal 

stages of research planning requiring standardized written problem analyses, 

and study plans based on guidelines from the Washington office (WO). Earlier 

approaches made no distinction between these sequential steps, and often provided no guidelines or requirements that problem analyses and study plans even be 

written.8 In addition to these planning innovations, throughout the 1950s and early 

1960s, Harper sought to fulfill five other research objectives. First, he personally 

took control of research finances, closely coordinating requests for increases in 

research funding with key congressional appropriation committees. Second, he 

established greater confidence in the Forest Service research program with members of Congress, the Budget Bureau, and the Agriculture Department personnel 

involved in department research policies, coordination, and budget preparations. 

Third, Harper stimulated forestry schools and agricultural experiment stations to 

do more research on forestry problems. Fourth, he improved the Forest Service 

program by putting emphasis on the advanced training of research personnel, 

increasing the fundamental content of the program, and providing more adequate 

laboratory and scientific equipment. Along these lines, Harper changed the research 

job classification system through the “man-on-the-job” classification system.9 And 

fifth, Harper improved the effectiveness of the research program through stronger 

coordination and inspection methods, an improved publication system, and better

8

 To paraphrase Harper’s words, the purpose of problem analysis was to clarify the technical aspects of a given problem and to identify the main questions that would later become 

subjects for individual studies. For each designated study, a plan would be drawn that 

involved a set of principles to be observed, such as a clear statement of the object of the 

study, a valid design that would permit data analyses leading to results with a calculated 

degree of confidence, and other items. Eventually, this policy was formally adopted with 

the publication of Guide for Forest Service Research Scientists (1965) (Harper 1978).

9

 This concept held that a position and the man should grow over the years, depending on 

the capabilities of the incumbent. A panel of his peers evaluated the research scientist in 

regard to his research endeavor to establish the appropriate grade level for his position. 

This system gave technical personnel who wanted to remain in research positions attractive 

career ladders “as tall” as those for research administrators. Prior to this, research scientist 

pay, like all other employees of the federal government, fell under Civil Service Commission (CSC) appointment system that was tied to classification standards prepared by the 

CSC. Harper emphasized the importance of upgrading the number of researchers with 

advanced training through the initial recruitment process, or by encouraging employees 

without much training to return to school (Harper 1978, Storey 1975).

Harper aggressively 

pushed for increased 

quality of research in 

the Forest Service.
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station management. For instance, during the 1950s and early 1960s, Harper 

instituted a multiple-purpose reporting system designed for obtaining information 

annually from stations by line projects—date of establishment, research progress, 

number of personnel assigned, publications planned and completed, costs of the 

project, and the like. He also overhauled and revised the research inspection system 

in 1960, introducing the General Research Inspection (GRI), a new type of WO 

inspection of field research. Harper also revamped the Forest Service publishing 

policies. The Forest Service grouped research publications into three types: General 

Technical Reports (GTR), Research Papers (RP), and Research Notes (RN). They 

also encouraged the Society of American Foresters (SAF) to publish a new journal 

devoted to scientific articles in forestry called Forest Science, and supported publishing Forest Service research findings in other scientific journals. Finally, station 

management evolved by the early 1960s into station support services, headed by an 

assistant director at the station. Support services soon included information services 

(library, editor,10 visual aids, publication production, and information dissemination), biometrics systems (statistical analysis methods, computer programming, 

data processing, computing, biometric research), facilities engineering (planning 

and design of research structures and facilities, plant engineering, instrumentation), 

and operation (administrative services, budget and finance, personnel management) 

(Harper 1978).

California Station’s 25th Anniversary

Meanwhile, 1951 marked the 25th anniversary of CFRES, and the foreword to the 

station’s annual report summarized the status of the station’s program as “productive.” In timber and range resource management, CFRES had over the past 25 years 

developed promising management systems. For forest management, there was a 

system called Unit Area Control (UAC) that recognized the natural units of forest 

stands and applied management methods that each unit demanded in order to insure full production of timber growth. In range management, research aimed to 

reconcile the elements of practical livestock management with the growth pattern 

of forage. The station also conducted research in methods to secure greater productivity from California’s brushlands, primarily those in the coastal ranges and in 

the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. The station’s research showed still other ways by 

which California’s natural resources could be managed for the greatest good. The

10 Clyde Walker was the station’s first full-time professional editor. Walker came to the 

station in 1946 and served in that position until at least the late 1960s. He often recognized 

findings suitable for publication that investigators themselves had not realized should be 

put in print (Duffield 1979, USDA FS 1946).
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CFRES investigators believed that by applying the laws of genetics to forest crops, 

strains of trees resistant to disease and insects could be developed, and more 

vigorous, better formed trees could be grown. In addition to these achievements, the 

station’s Forest Utilization Service (FUS) (see below for history) sought to develop 

methods of wood manufacturing and uses for species that heretofore had been of 

little or no value (USDA FS 1951a). 

In April of the same year as its anniversary, CFRES held a 4-day conference 

with Region 5 and the station’s many cooperating agencies to discuss the station’s 

objectives, past results, current research, and future plans. Fieldwork at the station’s 

five active experimental forests (Blacks Mountain, Feather River,11 San Dimas, 

Shasta, and Stanislaus), two operative experimental ranges (San Joaquin, Burgess 

Springs), and the Institute of Forest Genetics (IFG)12 was included in the discussion 

as well. Reminiscent of the District/Region 5 Investigative Committee of the late 

1920s and early 1930s, this event eventually became known as the “annual research 

program meeting,” and took place each year thereafter (USDA FS 1951d, 1951f). At 

the end of the meeting, Director Wyckoff and station staff knew that much research 

still needed to done, but on the station’s quarter-century anniversary, they confidently believed they could provide the answers demanded by a policy of intensive 

management of California’s wildlands.

Forest Service Research Reorganized

With Dwight D. Eisenhower’s election to the presidency in 1952, America began 

an era of economic prosperity. Businessmen were installed in government at every 

level as the federal government proposed closer “partnership” with local public 

and private enterprises. In January 1953, during a general reorganization of the 

Agriculture Department under Ezra Taft Benson, the new Secretary of Agriculture, important changes came to forestry research and to the CFRES. For instance,

11 However, the Feather River Experimental Forest, which as early as 1911 had a research 

program emphasizing planting and nursery problems, was deactivated in 1952 and turned 

over to the Plumas National Forest (Fowells 1983, USDA FS 1958b).

12 The postwar years brought a large number of visitors to the institute from overseas, 

in many cases because of funding provided by various United States recovery programs 

(Austin et al. 1974, Duffield 1979). With an awakening interest in forest genetics and tree 

improvement in the United States, in 1951, the station encouraged domestic visitors to the 

Institute of Forest Genetics with a guide that helped them find their way to, and understand, the various collections and field experiments at the facility. The guide gave a general 

account of the objectives, history, and accomplishments of the IFG. This educational 

pamphlet was the first to highlight a specific station-related facility independent of the 

Berkeley headquarters (Austin et al. 1974, Duffield 1979, USDA FS 1951e). One frequent 

visitor was James G. Eddy, whose habit it was to sign the visitor’s register as “Founder” 

(Duffield 1979).
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ongoing insect research programs conducted by the Bureau of Entomology and 

Plant Quarantine and forest disease research programs directed by the Bureau of 

Plant Industry, Soils, and Agricultural Engineering were transferred to the Forest 

Service to modernize and make Forest Service research more efficient and responsive to the needs of clientele. The addition of these divisions to the Forest Service 

research program confirmed a research relationship that had existed for a very long 

time. By year’s end, technicians from the former Berkeley Forest Insect Laboratory 

staffed the new CFRES forest insect research division. By 1956, the reorganization was completed, and the station tackled the state’s serious insect problems that 

resulted in the loss of hundreds of millions of board-feet of timber each year. At the 

same time, technicians from the Division of Pathology in San Francisco staffed the 

new CFRES forest disease research division. By 1956, this organizational change 

was completed as well. The eight-person forest disease division continued their 

work of detecting and appraisal surveying of California’s forest diseases, including 

blister rust control studies. Both new divisions worked in close cooperation with 

other CFRES divisions in a coordinated program of forest research (Harper 1978; 

USDA FS 1953, 1954a, 1956). In exchange for transferring the insect and disease 

research units to the Forest Service, the Agriculture Secretary initially agreed to 

transfer all Forest Service range research to the Agricultural Research Service 

(ARS),13 but eventually turned over only a very small part of the total program. 

Two of California station’s range technicians were transferred to the ARS in 1953 

under this arrangement, but their studies were expected to continue under that 

agency in close cooperation with CFRES (USDA FS 1953). Following the reorganization, in the latter part of the 1950s, Harper gradually added four additional fields 

to the Forest Service’s general research program: forest engineering, forest products 

marketing, fish and wildlife habitat, and forest recreation. Studies in each of these 

fields had been conducted in one form or another in connection with past Forest 

Service projects. Formally adding them to the Forest Service research program on 

a organized basis at this time gave them identity, planning emphasis, and budget 

support from the WO. The addition of these four research fields, along with forest 

diseases and insects, doubled the Forest Service’s research program, which already 

included the fields of forest management, range management, forest products, forest 

influences, forest fire, and forest economics (Harper 1978).

13 Motivation for this transfer came from western stockmen who were openly critical of the 

Forest Service range research program, which they believed was slanted in favor of Forest 

Service policy to reduce range stocking on national forests (Harper 1978).
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Challenge of Intensive Management: George M. 

Jemison Faces New Forestry Needs

In the interim, Station Director Stephen Wyckoff retired in 1954 for health reasons, 

and George M. Jemison,14 a non-Californian, replaced him, becoming the station’s 

fourth director (fig. 71). Although George Jemison served only 3 years at CFRES, 

during his tenure he had a considerable impact on the institution. 

First, Jemison tackled one of the station’s major problems—cooperative funding. Through his efforts, the station developed ever stronger cooperative relations 

with various organizations such as the California Board of Forestry (CBF), and was 

able to sustain and improve its cooperative work with the state of California in 

several other areas. For instance, in 1954, CBF and the Water Resources Board held 

their first joint meeting to discuss management of watersheds for improved water 

yield and better control of floods, which CFRES representatives attended. This 

meeting came as result of damaging southern California floods, which followed 

severe 1953 year-end fires. This combination of events, among others, pointed out 

how California’s expanding economy depended on forest land for water. Thereafter, 

several groups invited the station to discuss ways to improve the water yield of 

California’s watersheds. In conjunction with research needs in this area, in 1955 

Director Jemison opened up the long-idle Teakettle Creek Experiment Station 

located along the north fork of the Kings River. Jemison also arranged for the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory (CSSL), which in that year had been transferred to the 

Forest Service from the Army Corps of Engineers, to conduct snowpack research 

in conjunction with this research need. By 1956, Jemison had set up a snowpack 

research section in CFRES’s division of watershed management and seven technical 

workers were on the job (Jemison 1978; USDA FS 1954a, 1955a, 1956). 

14 George Meredith Jemison earned his B.S. in forestry from the University of Idaho in 

1931, an M.S. from Yale in 1936, and a Ph.D. from Duke University in 1942. During those 

years, he worked for the Forest Service at the Northern Rocky Mountain Forest and Range 

Experiment Station as a junior forester assigned to fire danger measurement studies under 

noted fire researcher Harry T. Gisborne. In 1937, he was transferred to the Appalachian 

Forest Experiment Station (the name was changed to Southeastern Forest Experiment 

Station in 1947), Asheville, North Carolina, where he engaged in forest fire management 

research. For 2 years (1938–39), he was assigned to the New England Forest Emergency 

Project dealing with the aftermath of the 1938 hurricane, which damaged forests in seven 

New England states. After a short time working as a civilian on military projects, such as 

the development of napalm, he returned to the Forest Service to work at the Appalachian 

Station. In 1950, Jemison was made Director of the Northern Rocky Mountain Station, 

where he had started his forestry career, a post he filled until his assignment to CFRES 

(Clepper 1971, Harper 1978, Jemison 1978, USDA FS 1955b).
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Figure 71—George M. Jemison, 

fourth director of the California Forest and Range Experiment Station, 

1954–1957. He conducted the early 

environmental research years for 

the Forest Service and later became 

deputy chief of research (1965–1969). U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Strongly supported by state organizations, the station under Jemison’s direction 

also succeeded in funding major fire research studies. During 1955, for the first 

time, a research project on prevention of human-caused fires, Operation FIRESTOP, was begun. With the help of the University of California, a fire research 

laboratory was established and partially equipped at SDEF to aid in the study of 

some of the more baffling aspects of forest fire behavior.15 Additionally, redwood 

and true fir research as an active program returned to the forefront of the station’s 

research program thanks in part to cooperation with local lumber companies. By 

1956, a timber management and utilization research program at the Yurok Redwood 

Experimental Forest was in full swing, and in the same year, the Swain Mountain 

Experimental Forest (SMEF) was opened to investigate true fir utilization (USDA 

FS 1954a, 1955a, 1956). Finally, in September 1956, Jemison set up a new research 

center at Susanville to knit together the new forest investigations in redwoods and 

true firs in northeastern California with the existing pine silviculture program at 

BMEF, and to bring new range investigations conducted at SMEF in line with work 

15 Although forest fire protection research was boosted by these cooperative arrangements, 

in 1956, the station had a net loss in cooperative funds because a 7-year cooperative project 

with the Department of Defense related to atomic warfare was closed out.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

at the Burgess Springs Experimental Range and at the Harvey Valley Experimental 

Range.16 The Susanville Research Center encompassed about 10 million acres in 

10 counties in the northeast corner of the state with August L. Hormay as research 

center leader. As the station’s fourth research center, the Susanville facility brought 

together the technical skills and information from nine research divisions of the 

station on various problems as needed. At this time, wildlands in this part of the 

state were used principally for timber, livestock, and wildlife production. However, 

recreation and water values were growing in importance each day because of the 

rapidly rising population in the state (Gordon 1982, USDA FS 1959b).

By 1957, one outstanding trend in California forestry was the challenge of 

intensive management.17 By this date, generalized forestry knowledge from the 

Forest Service was becoming less helpful to land managers, who more and more 

sought specific information from the California station to meet their everyday 

regional problems. For instance, in northwestern California, the spectacular growth 

of Douglas-fir logging stimulated great interest in future timber crops of the species, and redwood management continued to receive considerable public attention. 

East of the Sierra Nevada, range and livestock managers were speedily adopting 

the Harvey Valley grazing system for bunchgrass ranges (discussed below). On 

the west side of the Sierra, the genetically improved hybrid pines from the IFG at 

Placerville drew greater attention as demand for planting stock ran ever higher. 

And, in southern California, more intensive management of wildlands was on the 

march in terms of watershed management, and the study of prefire planning had 

begun with the start of a large cooperative project called Operation FUELBREAK. 

Furthermore, outside of California, the station began its first efforts to start a viable 

research program in Hawaii under the name “Institute of Tropical Islands Forestry.” 

Intensive management was the trend everywhere, as land managers and research 

workers applied it to ever-changing problems facing California forestry (USDA FS 

1956, 1957a).

While Director George Jemison confronted these new forestry needs and challenges, one unpleasant aspect of his tenure as director came when Deputy Chief of 

Research Harper gave him the difficult task of diplomatically, but firmly, separating

16 In 1951, the Harvey Valley Experimental Range or Allotment, an area of 32,352 acres, 

was set aside on the Lassen National Forest. Construction and installation of the necessary 

livestock management facilities (five units) were begun that year, with the last unit fenced 

and used for the first time in 1954 (USDA FS 1954b).

17 By 1957, one outstanding trend in California forestry was the challenge of intensive 

management, or the utilization of all modern methods to realize the greatest gain for a 

given forest product.

Generalized forestry 

knowledge from the 

Forest Service was 

becoming less helpful 

to land managers, who 

more and more sought 

specific information 

from the California 

station to meet their 

everyday regional 

problems.
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from the station staff those individuals who were not performing to Harper’s high 

standards to make room for new research team recruits. Jemison’s effort resulted in 

several retirements and transfers of personnel. At the same time, Jemison recruited 

several scientists from other agencies or other units of the Forest Service as 

replacements to strengthen his staff and shifted the program to meet future needs. 

Although Jemison honestly insisted that he was not a “hired gun” directed to “clear 

out the hangers-on” at the station, nonetheless, it was considered a painful time, and 

was so remembered in the station’s history. When he moved on in 1957 to become 

the first associate deputy chief of research for the Forest Service,18 a new position 

created by Verne Harper, many station personnel were not disappointed to see him 

leave (Jemison 1978, USDA FS 1956).

Crafts and McKennan General Integrated Inspection 

Report (1957)

With George Jemison’s departure for Washington, California native son R. Keith 

Arnold was named as Station Director, a position he held until 1963 (fig. 72). In his 

words, Arnold’s selection was a matter of him being in the right place at the right 

time, and being the only Californian on staff with a Ph.D. Arnold recalled in an 

oral history that he did not feel he was qualified for the position. Apparently, 

however, he had caught the attention of the Chief of the Forest Service, Richard 

E. McArdle,19 who later recommended him for this advancement (Steen 1994). 

Furthermore, Arnold had considerable experience in California forestry research. 

Under Station Director Wyckoff, Keith Arnold served as the station’s fire research 

officer, and headed Operation FIRESTOP. In 1954, Arnold left the Forest Service

18 When asked what he considered to be the biggest challenge he faced as station director, 

Jemison replied that it was to sustain the support that the Pacific Southwest Research 

Station depended on from the California State Board of Forestry and others for their 

assistance in watershed management studies at the San Dimas Experimental Forest, the 

Soil-Vegetation Survey, and fire research in southern California. Part of the problem he 

felt was at least in part the untimeliness in publishing research results—especially at San 

Dimas and in the fire-weather area. There were also problems in maintaining support 

for the range management program as well because in 1953, the Forest Service had lost 

research responsibility for range fertilization and reseeding, two of the more popular and 

saleable range research programs (PSW 1990k).

19 Richard Edward McArdle was the first Forest Service chief to hold a Ph.D. (University of 

Michigan, 1930), and to have been a researcher. He joined the Forest Service in 1924, and 

eventually became director of the Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station 

(1935–1938), director of the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station (1938–1944), and then 

Assistant Chief of the Forest Service in charge of state and private cooperative programs 

from 1944 to 1952, prior to being appointed chief. McArdle was the eighth chief of the 

Forest Service and served from 1952 until 1962 (Clepper 1971).

Jemison honestly 

insisted that he was 

not a “hired gun” 

directed to “clear out 

the hangers-on” at the 

station.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

to join the forestry faculty of the University of California, but returned to the Forest Service in 1955 as chief of the CFRES division of fire research prior to his 

appointment as Station Director 2 years later.20 During this early period of his 

career, Arnold also worked on the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, which 

sought to determine the effects of nuclear weapons on forests (Clepper 1971, Steen 

1994). 

Director Arnold, the station’s fifth director, was only in the directorship for a 

few months when in September–October, a General Integrating Inspection (GII) 

was made by assistant chief Edward C. Crafts and general inspector Russell B. 

McKennan. Crafts and McKennan acknowledged that Arnold was new on the job 

and still in the process of getting himself accepted by his own staff. Nonetheless, 

they appraised the state of research in California with a critical eye. They commended the station’s work for being held in high esteem by other conservation leaders in the state and in particular for Operation FIRESTOP (discussed below) and the

20 Richard Keith Arnold was born in 1913 in Long Beach, California, and received his B.S. 

in forestry from the University of California in 1937. He went on to Yale to earn his Master 

of Forestry degree in 1938 and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan (Clepper 1971). 

Interestingly, during cooperative work projects with the university, the line between teaching at Berkeley and working at the California Station was often blurred (Steen 1994).

Figure 72—R. Keith Arnold, innovative California native who as Director 

of the Pacific Southwest Forest and 

Range Experiment Station, 1957–1963, 

broke away from traditional ways. Later 

Arnold became deputy chief of research 

(1969–1973). US Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
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prompt application of its findings. They also applauded the station for deciding in 

the field with the inspectors that the station should move forward cooperatively 

and progressively in a test of applied watershed management designed to increase 

water yields by brush conversion and other measures. Additionally, they wanted 

Director Arnold to realize the necessity of breaking away from the traditional ways 

of doing things. He needed to understand that the long-range Forest Service objectives in California were undergoing a period of transition as an accompaniment to 

the economic and social changes underway in the state and in Region 5. The Forest 

Service in California faced strong leadership competition in conservation, and in 

Craft and McKennan’s opinion, had either lost or was in danger of losing leadership 

in certain fields. For example, in recreation area development, California’s Division 

of Beaches and Parks had outstripped the Forest Service. In addition, California’s 

Department of Water Resources was seen as more aggressive and active with respect to overall water problems than the Forest Service. Furthermore, fire suppression leadership in the Los Angeles metropolitan area now seemed to rest with Los 

Angeles County and the state. Moreover, because the station was dependent on 

sources other than the federal government for a substantial portion of its funds 

(close to 15 percent),21 inspectors Crafts and McKennan gained the impression that 

some station personnel looked more to the state for program direction and research 

funds than to the WO. Meanwhile, relations with other public agencies, such as the 

University of California, posed a number of problems. Difficulties centered mostly 

on university space needs and problems over SJER’s research program focus (Crafts 

and McKennan 1957). 

On the other hand, the inspectors heard enough dissent between the regional 

and station personnel involving various lines of research to conclude that purposeful, corrective action was needed.22 Professional differences were normal and 

healthy, but some of those found by Crafts and McKennan in 1957 had resulted in 

personal feeling. There was also a problem between the station and Region 5 

administration regarding research programming. The inspectors soon realized that 

the development of research programs and their modification from time to time was

21 In 1958, the station had at its disposal about $969,000 of Forest Service research funds, 

$64,000 of funds from the regional office, and $346,000 from other sources, two-thirds of 

which was from the state of California, including the University of California. For the station as a whole, forest research funds exceeded cooperative funds by about 21⁄2 to 1, which 

was not unreasonable (Crofts and McKennan 1957).

22 For example, on the subject of grazing research, some in the regional office felt that the 

station should develop usable guides in allotment analysis. In timber research, differences 

of viewpoints appeared in the amount of emphasis that the station devoted to regeneration 

research, growth studies, and yield tables, and on the direction of genetics research. Conversely, station staff felt that Region 5 personnel were not taking advantage of and using to 

the fullest practical extent results of disease research.

The Forest Service in 

California faced strong 

leadership competition 

in conservation.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

on a somewhat hit-or-miss basis, done largely by each station division chief in their 

respective field, and frequently without much formal consultation or discussion, 

especially with the regional office. Additionally, there was no real program conference between the station and the region, or any formalized program meeting in 

which the region presented its views as to desirable adjustments to the station’s 

program to meet current or foreseeable needs. The annual CFRES meeting with 

the region and other cooperators was largely a reporting of accomplishments of 

the past year, and the telling of research plans for the future, which CFRES staff 

had already decided upon prior to the meeting. The “Annual Program of Work” 

required by the WO and prepared by the station appeared to be “only paperwork” as 

far as use of it by the station was concerned. Given the above circumstances, Crafts 

and McKennan expected Director Arnold to address these and other administrative, leadership, and research program problems. They wanted Arnold to establish 

a fully coordinated relationship and research program with the Regional Forester 

and to extend this relationship and research program between the station and region 

downward through the ranks. A greater day-by-day exchange was sought between 

research and regional staff. Futhermore, Region 5 had to fully accept CFRES as an 

arm of the Forest Service, and the station had to fully accept its responsibility as a 

member of the Forest Service team (Crafts and McKennan 1957).

Pacific Southwest (PSW) Forest and

Range Experiment Station

During Keith Arnold’s 6 years as station director, three important administrative 

changes occurred. The first substantive change Arnold made concerned the station’s 

poor administrative record. When Arnold became director, there were nine division 

chiefs—one each for forest management, genetics, range, watershed, fire, insects, 

disease, economics, and products. Two-thirds of them were top scientists, but most 

were not cut out to be administrators. They were only interested in their own area 

of expertise, and not concerned with the station as a whole. Frankly put, even a top 

scientist such as Duncan Dunning admitted he did not like administrative tasks.23

So Arnold decided to change to four assistant directors, one for application and 

planning, and the other three to handle the administration of several related areas.24

23 Sometimes, top scientists at the station, such as Nicholas Mirov, gave the deliberate 

appearance of being totally inept in administrative matters in order to relieve themselves of 

the task of getting their paperwork in order (Duffield 1979).

24 Initial assistant directors were Donald W. Lynch (Timber Management, Insects and 

Disease Research), Earl G. Dunford (Watershed Management, and Range and Wildlife 

Habitat Research), Harry W. Camp (Forest Products Utilization and Marketing, Economics, 

and Recreation Research), and Carl C. Wilson (Forest Fire and Engineering Research).
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Although at first many on his staff were unconvinced of the idea’s viability, after 2 

years of planning and personnel negotiations, the reorganization effort gained support, and in turn several stations and the WO eventually went in the same direction 

(Steen 1994). Station Director Arnold believed that this reorganization was one of 

the most significant achievements of his administration (PSW 1990e).

Following this administrative reorganization, Arnold then broadened the 

station’s program by developing a full research program for Hawaii, which Arnold 

felt was another memorable achievement as station director (PSW 1990e). As noted 

earlier, George Jemison had gotten the idea of a Hawaii research program started 

by making preliminary contacts in Hawaii, but in November 1957, Arnold assigned 

Robert E. Nelson full time to the Territory of Hawaii. Nelson’s mission was supported by Charles A. Connaughton, Regional Forester for California, and conceived 

as a long-term one—lasting for a minimum of 5 years. Before Nelson’s assignment, CFRES work in Hawaii had focused either almost exclusively on protecting 

watershed resources through planting programs, or limited cooperative forest fire 

protection under the Clarke-McNary Act. But after World War II, when the sugar 

cane and pineapple industries moved off the islands, the islands of Maui, Hawaii, 

and Kauai all began to experience severe economic problems. Timber production 

was seen as a possible solution (Nelson 1989, Steen 1994). Then on April 15, 1959, 

the station’s administrative boundary was formally extended to include Hawaii, 

which had just become the Nation’s 50th state. As a consequence of the Pacific 

island research program, Keith Arnold decided to change the name of the California 

Forest and Range Experiment Station to the Pacific Southwest (PSW) Forest and 

Range Experiment Station (Aitro 1977, Steen 1994), to reflect Hawaiian studies 

and later research elsewhere in the Pacific.25 Despite the name change, the station’s 

research on problems affecting the management of forest, watershed, and rangelands in California remained unchanged (USDA FS 1959a).

Finally, Arnold handled the administrative problem of moving the PSW Research Station off the campus of the University of California. Shortly after Arnold 

became director, it was obvious to him that after some 30 years, the growth of 

University of California was forcing the station to move from its limited Berkeley 

campus quarters in the Forestry Building (PSW 1990e). By 1959, the PSW Research 

Station was the single largest nonuniversity user of university space, and as space 

got tighter on campus, university officials eventually did ask the Forest Service to 

25 According to Arnold, program increases for “California” were difficult to get through 

Congress, so changing the title to “Pacific Southwest” helped in that regard. Doing so also 

recognized Hawaii as the station’s new responsibility (PSW 1990e).

The idea of a Hawaii 

research program 

started by [George 

Jamison] making 

preliminary contacts

in Hawaii.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

move out of Mulford Hall. Arnold deemed a location near the campus of utmost 

importance because many PSW Research Station employees were working on 

advanced degrees, either on a part-time basis or while on leave. Arnold also feared 

that station staff would lose important direct cooperative contacts with the School 

of Forestry and other scientists if the station were not near the university. He also 

realized the need to bring together some of the station’s off-campus units into one 

location as well. In the end, he convinced the General Services Administration 

(GSA) to rent a new headquarters site for the PSW Research Station at 1960 Addison Street, only a few blocks from its original modest 1926 home on the Berkeley 

campus in Hilgard Hall, making it easier for young staff members to continue their 

education (Aitro 1977, Steen 1994). For the first time since the early 1930s, all 

Berkeley personnel were gathered under one roof. The station occupied the first 

and third floors of the Stead Building on Addison Street (fig. 73). The first floor of 

the Stead Building was equipped with 10 laboratories for specialized research in 

plant biochemistry, plant physiology, forest pathology, forest entomology, and soils. 

There was also a small electronics laboratory for the development of specialized 

instruments needed in watershed management and forest fire research. The director and research division administrative offices occupied the building’s third floor. 

Although the station had moved off campus, Arnold continued to maintain and 

strengthen its cooperative relationship with the university26 (USDA FS 1959a, 

circa 1960). 

By 1959, the PSW Research Station had a corps of more than 100 research 

scientists who knew California intimately and had acquired their scientific skills 

in the country’s finest universities. In addition to its Berkeley headquarters, station research activities were spread out over its many experimental forests and field 

laboratories that had been developed over a period of more than 30 years and supported by funds or technical aid from major cooperators, including federal agencies, 

state agencies, educational institutions, industrial organizations, and endowed foundations. As funds permitted, the station installed instruments, research equipment, 

and service buildings and started experimental work at these field laboratories. 

Some of them operated year-round, and others were only open on a seasonal basis. 

The PSW Research Station’s experimental forest and range system provided the 

26 At this time, the station had a memorandum of agreement with the university covering 

the use of experimental areas, library, etc., but cooperation in these respects was only 

slightly closer with the University of California than it was with a number of other institutions. Therefore, the station removed from its publications the credit line used in the past 

about maintaining the station at Berkeley, California, in cooperation with the University 

(Harper 1959).

The PSW Research 

Station had a corps of 

more than 100 research 

scientists who knew 

California intimately 

and had acquired 

their scientific skills 

in the country’s finest 

universities.
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Figure 73—Stead Building—First 

Pacific Southwest Research Station 

home off Berkeley campus with 

nearby National Guard during 

“People's Park” protests, 1969.

framework for many elements needed to insure a continuous research program at 

the California station. In addition to the station’s six experimental forests (Blacks 

Mountain, Yurok, Swain Mountain, Challenge, Stanislaus, and San Dimas), there 

were four experimental ranges (Burgess Springs, Harvey Valley, San Joaquin, and 

Teakettle Creek), three insect laboratories (Hat Creek, Miami, and Orleans), a fire 

laboratory (Pilgrim Creek),27 two experimental watershed research areas (Sagehen 

and Big Creek), and the Institute of Forest Genetics. By the late 1950s, the PSW 

Research Station had also acquired, in close cooperation with the California Department of Fish and Game, three game-browse areas (Flukey Spring, Doyle, and 

Buttermilk) to seek ways to seed browse species on deteriorated big-game ranges, 

and the CSSL. The PSW Research Station also had access to several non-Forest 

Service institutions for research. They included the Richmond Fire Laboratory on 

the grounds of the University of California, Richmond; the Forest Tree Physiology 

Laboratory on the campus of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena; 

and the Tuolumne Meadows Forest Insect Laboratory in Yosemite National Park. 

The location, forest type, area, and research programs for all of the above facilities 

were clearly described in A Guide to Field Laboratories of the California Forest 

and Range Experiment Station as a supplement to the station’s 1958 annual report 

(USDA FS 1958a, 1958b, 1959b).

27 Formerly known as the Shasta Experimental Fire Forest (SEFF). Rosanne Hunt
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Applied and Fundamental Cooperative Research Efforts

After 1959, cooperation in wildland research with state and local governments, 

universities, and industries became the key element in the PSW Research Station’s 

program. In 1958, California became the first state to prepare a complete “Wildland 

Research Plan,” which sought new scientific knowledge to help solve the state’s 

current and future forest management problems. At that time, the University of 

California formed a Wildland Research Center, and the CBF recognized it by 

appointing an advisory forest research committee. The PSW Research Station 

played a key role in this cooperative effort, and focused on applied cooperative 

research results. It directed its efforts and research toward the California Wildland 

Research Plan’s goal of increasing the productivity of California’s natural resources 

while finding solutions to high-priority problems. This cooperation between various 

agencies made forestry research funds go farther in California and obtained results 

more quickly.28 Although the California or PSW Station had, since its inception in 

1926, worked closely with the state of California, even more cooperative programs 

emerged at this time between the institutions. Cooperative wildland research 

programs involved working closely with California’s Division of Forestry on fire 

research, the state’s Department of Water Resources regarding watershed research, 

and California’s Department of Fish and Game pertaining to deer ranges. Simultaneously, the station continued its close cooperative relationship with the University 

of California,29 conducting collaborative work through the university’s new Wildland Research Center and the Water Research Center. By necessity, this joint work 

involved the university’s School of Forestry, the Departments of Irrigation, Plant 

Pathology, and Botany, along with the engineering schools in Berkeley, Davis, and 

Los Angeles, and computer groups in Berkeley and Los Angeles—not to mention 

individual scientists. Station cooperation in wildland research also extended beyond 

the state of California and the university system. Throughout the 1950s, the PSW 

28 Cooperative research was the “name of the game,” and this trend was reflected elsewhere 

in the Nation. For instance, by this time, more than a third of the Southern and Southeastern Experiment Station budgets came from state and private sources (Steen 1998).

29 In 1956, just before Keith Arnold became the station director, cooperative research was 

given a big boost when Congress passed the Whitten amendment to the Granger-Thye Act, 

giving the Forest Service authorization to advance funds to cooperators to stimulate and 

facilitate cooperative work where it was deemed advisable. As a result, many institutions, 

particularly forestry schools, became interested in cooperative research. Such cooperation 

was advantageous to both the Forest Service and the institutions. The Forest Service gained 

the use of laboratories, if needed, for research and the guidance of professors, and universities were able to broaden their graduate programs (Storey 1975).

Cooperative research 

was the “name of the 

game,” and this trend 

was reflected elsewhere 

in the Nation.
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Research Station developed a close mutual relationship with local governments—

especially Los Angeles County in the field of forest firefighting research—and a 

stepped-up association with forest industries to resolve various forest management 

and industry problems (USDA FS 1958a, 1958c, 1960).

Advances in applied research were gratifying, but basic, or fundamental, research was seen as the key to future progress at the station.30 With the advent of the 

nuclear age, it had become more than apparent that the relation between science and 

the federal government was of national importance. In 1960, President Eisenhower 

underscored this point when he appointed his Committee for Planning National 

Goals, which emphasized the need to stimulate basic scientific research. On a 

national level, Lester Harper, and his deputy George Jemison redesigned the Forest 

Service’s research program to look beyond current applied research that had already 

been incorporated into daily management activities through improved timber harvest techniques, reforestation, range quality, fire suppression, and treatments for 

insect and disease infestations. Instead, Harper and Jemison saw a future need 

for fundamental research31 at station and university levels to meet the increased 

demands on the Nation’s forests and increased public concern about management 

quality. Much more knowledge was needed if the forests of the future were to be 

healthy and able to supply a projected twofold increase in forest resource demand 

by the year 2000 (USDA FS 1960a). Toward this goal, in the early 1960s, they 

asked Congress for a “three-fold expansion of Forest Service research in the coming decade to include a hefty building program to house the increased projects and 

personnel” (Steen 1998). 

Meanwhile, Arnold pushed to increase the PSW Research Station’s basic research disciplines, particularly in plant physiology, plant biochemistry, biometrics, 

mechanics of combustion, snow hydrology, forest biology, and forest microclimate 

studies. The station’s 1960 annual report predicted that more than half of the techniques of wildland management that would be in use a decade later would be 

entirely new and would grow out of current basic research (USDA FS 1960a). As 

the California station entered into the decade of the 1960s, the covers of its annual 

reports symbolically reflected basic research principles—depicting a bespectacled 

scientist with pencil and pad peering into a microscope, alongside applied research

30 In the early 1960s, the distinguishing characteristic of applied research was that it was 

done for a purpose, while basic research was done without concern as to the usefulness of 

the results. The difference was in objectives, not methodology (Davis 1963).

31 In 1960, the Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) expanded its facilities following its 

golden anniversary, and began a new era of research that called for a reduction of “applied” 

military work, which the FPL had conducted since World War II, and an increase in “basic” 

research that would solve the Nation’s and the world’s wood products problems. To replace 

the military work, the FPL increased commercial cooperative funds (Godfrey 1990).

With the advent of 

the nuclear age, it 

had become more 

than apparent that 

the relation between 

science and the federal 

government was of 

national importance.
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icons such as forestry equipment harvesting trees. Station annual report text continued to defend applied research goals of protecting and using current resources 

and increasing efficient production, but they also leaned toward expanding forest 

land capacity in the long run through progress in the basic forestry-related sciences 

(USDA FS 1961, 1962).

Changes Yet in the Offing

Meanwhile, Harper and Jemison carried on with their plans for Forest Service 

research reorganization. First, in 1961, the man-on-the-job classification system, 

which was used as a pilot in the Forest Service after 1957, was formally adopted for 

grading positions of research scientists (Harper 1978). In addition to this change, 

Harper and Jemison wasted no time in exploiting the “opportunity this innovation 

provided by reorganizing the Forest Service research structure from one made up of 

a number of research centers32 to a system where the basic unit was a research project [research work unit or RWU], headed by a leader, who was himself a research 

scientist participating personally in the research doing.” Next, in the same year, 

they established pioneer research units (PRUs). The purpose of these units was to 

develop new knowledge as a basis for future advances, rather than solving immediate problems through applied research. Each PRU was built around a scientist of 

outstanding competence in an area of interest to the Forest Service.33 Finally, during this period, Harper and Jemison, long-time proponents of cooperative research 

relations, played prominent roles in the passage of the McIntire-Stennis Cooperative 

Forestry Research Act on October 10, 1962. This act gave Forest Service forestry 

research a boost, by giving states, through their educational institutions, a stronger 

role in coordination with the Forest Service research program. The McIntireStennis34 Act recognized that the magnitude of the forestry research effort needed 

in the future would require all available resources, and dramatically change forestry 

research (Storey 1975).

32 In the decade to come, this renovation would affect the PSW Research Station dramatically because its organization was structured around its research center system.

33 Although the concept of PRUs appeared sound, implementation was difficult. Problems 

occurred when the pioneering scientist moved on or retired, leaving the Forest Service with 

perhaps a laboratory and people built around that scientist (Steen 1994).

34 Senator John Stennis from Mississippi initially gained his interest in Forest Service 

research after a visit to California and the Institute of Forest Genetics. He had brought back 

with him a specimen of bristlecone pine that he wished to use in a lesson before a Sunday 

school class he taught. Senator Stennis, a key member of the Senate appropriations committee, contacted Lester Harper wishing to know more about the piece of wood that had 

been alive during biblical times. From the experience, Stennis became a staunch supporter 

of Forest Service research (Steen 1998).
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Postwar California Station Applied Research

The following sections consider the applied and basic research aspects of the 

California Station during the administrations of Stephen B. Wyckoff (1945–1954), 

George M. Jemison (1954–1957), and R. Keith Arnold (1957–1963). For most of the 

post-World War II era, the California station research program was divided more or 

less into the following functional divisions: forest management, genetics, economics, forest products, range, water, fire, insect, disease, wildlife, and recreation. 

Forest Management Research

Forest management research in California dealt with a variety of forested lands. For 

instance, in 1952, there were 16 million acres of commercial forest land, 8.8 million 

acres of old-growth timber, 4.1 million acres of cutover lands, 1.4 million acres of 

second-growth timber, and 2.1 million acres of once-forested brushlands. In the 

postwar era, CFRES research in the forestry problems of these areas was directed 

first toward converting the old-growth forests into fully productive managed 

stands, second to improving the quantity and quality of timber growth on cutover 

land and second-growth areas, and third to replacing brush with timber stands. To 

accomplish these three goals, California station forest management research was 

organized into three fields: silviculture, regeneration, and mensuration (USDA FS 

1952b).

Silviculture— 

Since the California station began in 1926, the goal of silviculture studies had been 

to develop new forestry procedures designed to keep forest land continuously and 

adequately stocked with desirable timber species. These procedures could be applied in the management of both old and young forests. However, prior to World 

War II, analysis of records indicated that previous methods of management were not 

providing adequate restocking of pine. A new approach was necessary that would 

take into account the conditions required for optimum growth of these trees and 

make positive provision for their new growth. Fortunately, just such an approach 

was developed at the California station, requiring that cutting be fitted to the natural grouping of trees within a forest type, rather than to generalized rules for the 

type as a whole, as had been the accepted practice in the prewar years. The procedure was named unit area control (UAC),35 and was believed to hold the most promise for sustained-yield management of California’s forests. Duncan Dunning, chief 

35 The basic concept of unit area control was detailed control of stocking on small forest 

areas. It provided a basis for classifying stand conditions, which gave the forester a tool for 

subdividing the forest into natural unit areas small and homogenous enough for uniform 

silvicultural treatments (USDA FS1951a).
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of the forest management division, developed this new approach just prior to his 

retirement from the station staff in 1951. Dunning’s UAC concept was a product 

of 30 years of research by him in the ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests 

of the Sierra Nevada. By 1951, large-scale trials of UAC were underway at the 

Stanislaus Experimental Forest and the BMEF. Furthermore, by this date, CFRES 

staff was holding training sessions with Region 5 foresters on six of California’s 

national forests (Hughes and Dunning 1948; USDA FS 1951a, 1952a, 1952b). After 

being tested operationally during the 1950s, UAC became widely accepted throughout the forestry research community. During testing, William E. Hallin and Russell 

K. LeBaron published the station’s major findings on the new system in various 

research notes and miscellaneous papers, and in 1959, Hallin summarized the 

years of research on UAC at BMEF in The Application of Unit Area Control in the 

Management of Ponderosa-Jeffrey Pine at Blacks Mountain Experimental Forest

(USDA Technical Bulletin 1191) (Aitro 1977, USDA FS1959a). With research on 

UAC complete, early 1960s station research at SEF turned to investigating regeneration and growth after harvest cutting, and direct seeding and planting methods, 

such as drill seeding and pruning. Studies at BMEF also began to focus on regeneration and growth of pine stands after harvest cutting, and improvement of pine 

stands by thinning and pruning, while also investigating methods of reducing tree 

mortality caused by bark beetles and prescribed burning (USDA FS 1958b, 1959a, 

1961).

In the meantime, by 1952, the rapid acceleration in the rate of timber harvesting in California concerned Director Wyckoff and many staff members. Cutting 

of saw timber in California had increased from 2.3 billion board feet in 1945 to 

5 billion board feet in 1951. In response, in 1952 the forest management division 

began a critical review of its program (USDA FS 1952a), and the next year changed 

directions to concentrate more of its research to studying three timber types besides 

pines: old-growth stands of redwood and associated species, red and white fir in the 

higher elevations, and young-growth ponderosa pine on high-quality sites. These 

silvicultural investigations were somewhat similar to the UAC investigations at 

BMEF and SEF (USDA FS 1959a).

The CFRES began studying California’s redwood-Douglas-fir region in the 

mid-1950s, largely because of the spectacular growth of logging in this region 

after World War II, which naturally stimulated research interest. To foresters and 

redwood timber owners, redwood presented a special challenge. The species had 

several unusual characteristics, such as great size, special qualities of the wood, 

and high growth potential. Redwood also presented many difficult logging and 

utilization problems, such as large amounts of defective material and tremendous 

quantities of highly flammable, decay-resistant logging slash. Prior to World War II, 

The rapid acceleration 

in the rate of timber 

harvesting in California 

concerned Director 

Wyckoff and many staff 

members.
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redwood forests had never really been the subject of sustained, systematic research 

at the station, although in the late 1930s Hubert Person had attempted some redwood region silvicultural investigations. Person’s studies provided helpful information, but his investigations were limited in scope and were short-term projects. 

Responding to the need for more research in this area, in 1955 Station Director 

George Jemison decided to initiate comprehensive research into the forest management problems of the redwood region. A year later, CFRES, in cooperation with the 

Simpson Redwood Company, a nationally powerful firm, started a 7-year timber 

management and utilization research program at the Yurok Redwood Experimental Forest (YREF). The new project at YREF centered on High Prairie Creek in 

Del Norte County, which included about 900 acres in the station’s YREF, and an 

adjoining 1,000 acres owned by the Simpson Company. The first research project 

there involved managing the conversion of the 20- to 30-year supply of old-growth 

redwood therein into younger managed stands. The first year was spent making 

plans, laying out study areas, surveying roads, and appraising 18 million board 

feet of timber to be logged in the first series of cuttings. Thereafter, they evaluated 

natural regeneration and subsequent growth, logging costs for different intensities 

of cutting, methods of logging, and growth of residual stands. The RedwoodSimpson cooperative study also investigated ways to maintain soil productivity, to 

minimize erosion and undesirable streamflow changes, to get maximum utilization 

of saw timber and wood residue, and to abate the logging slash fire hazard. Loggers 

began felling the first clearcut units in September 1958. In 1960, a second series of 

harvest cutting studies began, and scheduled experimental timber harvesting and 

regeneration studies continued thereafter (USDA FS 1955a, 1956a, 1957a, 1958a, 

1958b, 1960, 1961). 

Scientist Douglass F. Roy led the redwood research studies, first summarizing 

forest management research activities and problems that managers of timberland 

could expect in the region, then describing where, when, and how to plant redwoods to obtain good results. Roy also provided detailed information on the most 

important research needs in the redwood region: site classification and yield tables, 

information on the results of various cutting methods, tree vigor classification for 

redwood, knowledge regarding regeneration, and ways to improve and fully utilize 

material harvested from young-growth redwood stands. At the same time, Richard 

H. May added to Roy’s research.36 In 1957, Richard May reviewed the available 

36 In the early 1960s, Douglass F. Roy turned to publishing research results on Douglas-fir 

seed production and regeneration issues (PSW 1985o). 
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data on coast redwood, such as its area, volume, ownership, rate of growth, and 

rate of cut, and forecasted the future outlook for redwood (May 1957). Four years 

earlier, he had detailed the history of the redwood industry in six California counties from 1842 to 1935 (Aitro 1977, May 1953b). While Roy and May toiled away at 

their research, snarling chainsaws kept cutting the old-growth redwoods (fig. 74) at 

such a pace that in the early 1960s conservationist groups such as the Sierra Club 

and the Save-the-Redwoods League became sufficiently alarmed to seek federal 

and state action to save them (Schrepfer 1983). 

Elsewhere in California, vigorous logging had begun on lands containing red 

and white firs. In response, the station began true-fir research during the mid1950s, when Director Jemison opened up SMEF (an area primarily timbered with 

red and white fir) to exploratory cutting studies. In 1956, the station’s division 

of forest management prepared a working plan for experimental harvesting and 

regeneration operations at SMEF based on even-age management, with the major 

kind of harvest being clearcutting.37 To prevent the look of a completely systematic 

pattern in the cut, the station varied selected sites by differences in age of the trees, 

changes in topography, and location of roads. However, cutting experiments in red 

fir at SMEF were delayed in 1957 because of a failure of a subsequent timber sale. 

The experiments were not resumed, however, partly because station staff—unlike 

their counterparts in the 1930s—felt that actual logging by CFRES personnel 

seriously detracted from the time available for research by the station’s technical 

staff (USDA FS 1956a, 1957a, 1958b,1960). While waiting for an adequate timber 

sale, the station staff passed their time by recording and evaluating seedfall, natural 

regeneration, and windthrow in true firs (USDA FS 1961).

Meanwhile, as the remaining mature timber in California decreased and the 

trend toward more intensive forest management increased, a demand for knowledge 

about young-growth timber materialized. To work on this problem, in 1957, the 

station assigned personnel to plan forest management studies at the Challenge

37 After World War II, Region 5’s timber management had gradually turned to clearcutting 

over selective cutting, and by 1955, clearcutting as a logging practice had taken root in the 

California region. However, when preservationists, such as the Sierra Club members, happened upon these early clearcut patches in the midst of California’s national forests, they 

were disturbed at the “destruction.” They had difficulty distinguishing the new clearcutting 

method from the razing of the forests in the previous century, which had helped to spawn 

the organization (Godfrey 2005).

As the remaining 

mature timber in 

California decreased 

and the trend toward 

more intensive 

forest management 

increased, a demand 

for knowledge about 

young-growth timber 

materialized.
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Figure 74—Old-growth California redwood stands were investigated by Redwood Sciences 

Laboratory scientists in the 1970s.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Experimental Forest (CEF)38 (fig. 75), which represented the mixed-conifer younggrowth that covered millions of acres along the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada 

at elevations of 2,000 to 4,000 feet. Their task was to answer several particular 

questions. What are the most suitable ages for harvesting young growth? How can 

a forester pick the best trees for future cuts? What is the most economical, positive 

method to combat undesirable hardwoods and brush? These were but a few of the 

problems for which answers were needed for future forest management of these 

timber regions (USDA FS 1957a). 

With these problems in mind, in 1958, the station began a program of silvicultural management studies at CEF in cooperation with the Soper-Wheeler Company 

to get information on the effects of type of harvest cut, slash disposal, seedbed 

preparation, and hardwood control on the regeneration of young-growth timber. 

The station’s research program also investigated costs and effects of timber stand 

38 Although the CEF was formally designated in 1942 to meet research data needs regarding piling demands during World War II, ultimately it was selected for experimentation in 

silvicultural management of the second-growth forests at lower elevations on the west slope 

of the Sierra Nevada. However, the California station was not in a position financially to 

activate the experimental forest until 1957 (USDA FS 1942b, 1957b).
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improvement (TSI), optimum rotation age, grade recovery from different-sized 

trees and logs, volume tables for the area, logging and manufacturing costs, and 

ways to increase stocking. Research was begun in 1958 with the removal of shelterwood followed by slash disposal, but in 1960 timber harvesting and regeneration 

studies were suspended at CEF until an advisory board could provide the necessary 

time for a more thorough inventory of the research problems there. By 1961, this 

issue was worked out and work continued at CEF (USDA FS 1958a, 1958b, 1960, 

1961).

Regeneration— 

By the end of World War II, studies of natural seeding, artificial seeding, and planting had isolated the chief obstacles to forest regeneration and had shown ways of 

getting around a few of these barriers, but not the critical ones. In the early 1950s, 

California station staff, such as Harry A. Fowells, Douglass F. Roy, and Gilbert 

H. Schubert, continued to explore new means of regeneration. Occasionally they 

published research notes summarizing station findings, such as Recent Direct 

Seeding Trials in the Pine Region (Fowells and Schubert 1951) or Here’s How—A 

Guide to Tree Planting in the California Pine Region” (Corson and Fowells 1952). 

Subsequently, during 1953, the California State Board of Forestry recognized the 

Figure 75—Scientist working on Challenge Experimental Forest soil fertility study.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
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difficulties of forest regeneration in California and appointed a special committee 

to study tree planting and artificial and natural seeding problems. The station was 

represented on that committee, and a large amount of the station’s forest management research was directed toward the problem of ensuring the establishment of conifer seedlings (Aitro 1977; USDA FS 1951a, 1952b, 1953). For the remainder of the 

1950s, Douglass Roy studied and assessed California’s pine cone crops, along with 

means of increasing production through fertilization while Schubert and Edward 

C. Stone concentrated their attention on ponderosa pine planting and pine seedling 

root generation (Aitro 1977; USDA FS 1955a, 1961). Despite their work, reliable 

methods of forest regeneration eluded the California station and other forestry researchers. In fact, in 1957, the California region had the lowest planting success of 

any region. Only 35 percent of past planting had resulted in acceptable plantations 

in contrast to a national average of 76 percent (Crafts and McKennan 1957). With 

increasing frequency, forest regeneration studies reached the point where investigators realized that they needed a better understanding of the basic physiological 

processes and requirements of trees as living organisms in order to regenerate and 

grow timber crops more effectively. Therefore, in 1957, under the directorship of 

Keith Arnold, the station turned to basic research in forest tree physiology. Under a 

cooperative agreement with California Institute of Technology, fundamental experiments on physiology of conifer seedlings began for the purpose of improving artificial and natural forest regeneration. Experimental results were just beginning to 

emerge by 1960 through studies of tree growth habits at the Earhart Plant Research 

Laboratory’s controlled environment in cooperation with the biology department. 

Here, scientists learned more about the life processes of trees and their requirements for nutrients, water, light, and heat (USDA FS 1958a, 1958b, 1959a, 1960). 

In the meantime, Director Arnold made preparations for a center for studies of the 

management of planted stands and naturally established young forests at Redding, 

California39 (USDA FS 1961).

Mensuration— 

Providing foresters with the tools for determining growth and yield of timber stands 

was the object of mensuration work. Prior to World War II, basic aids—volume and 

yield tables for most of California’s important species, as well as sampling methods—had been fairly well worked out. However, as other species, such as Douglasfir and redwoods, became commercially important, new tables, or modifications of 

39 The Redding Silviculture Laboratory was established in 1964 and carried on the heritage 

of silviculture research that was begun by scientists at the station’s Berkeley headquarters 

dating back to the 1930s. The laboratory is co-located with the Shasta-Trinity National 

Forest Supervisor’s Office in the heart of the northern California forest industry, about 

160 miles north of Sacramento and 100 miles south of the Oregon border.
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existing ones, were necessary.40 Also required were basic studies on growth and 

mortality in stands of these trees. Despite the need, the station had to defer most 

scheduled mensuration work after the war because of limited budgets and the need 

to strengthen silvicultural studies. Mensuration research would not be picked up 

again seriously until the early 1960s (USDA FS 1946, 1947, 1948a, 1949a, 1951a, 

1952b). Significant mensuration research did not occur at the PSW Research Station 

until 1961, when Lewis R. Grosenbaugh was selected to start the Forest Service’s 

first pioneering research unit in mensuration.41

Forest Genetics Research

After World War II, Palmer Stockwell continued as chief of the station’s division of 

forest genetics. Stockwell headed genetics until 1950, when he passed away from 

cancer. Upon his death, Francis “Pete” Righter replaced him, a position Righter 

held until 1960. During the decade of the 1950s, important scientists in the division 

included not only “Pete” Righter, but “Nick” Mirov, John W. Duffield, and later 

Robert Z. Callaham, who many years later became director of the PSW Research 

Station (1976–1983). Each individual influenced genetic research at the station 

and approached problems in different ways. For instance, Mirov was a compulsive 

publisher, who often started a paper at the same time he conceived a study, whereas 

Righter experienced great difficulty in getting the words on paper, despite the great 

amount of data that resulted from his work (see for instance, Righter 1954. Despite 

these and other personality differences, the researchers worked cooperatively 

(Austin et al. 1974, Duffield 1979, USDA FS 1946).

Major activities and accomplishments at the Institute of Forest Genetics in the 

prewar era concentrated on mass production of hybrids for large-scale testing. Their 

work searched for better pines by attempting new crosses among the best timberproducing species in line with new knowledge of phylogeny. But soon, it became 

40 For instance, in 1950, A.A. Hassel and others devised board-foot and volume tables for 

second-growth redwoods and for some California hardwoods (Aitro 1977).

41 Grosenbaugh joined the Forest Service after graduating with a Master of Forestry 

degree from Yale (1936). Prior to World War II, Grosenbaugh had timber management 

assignments on the Ouachita and Ozark National Forests, but after the war, he returned to 

the Southern Region of the Forest Service and in 1946 transferred to the Southern Forest 

Experiment Station in New Orleans. There he served as silviculturist, mensurationist, and 

finally from 1951 to 1960 as chief of the forest management research division. Once at the 

PSW Research Station, Grosenbaugh’s research led to innovative developments in forest mensuration, inventory design, and statistical sampling, including the formulation 

of 3P sampling (“probability proportional to prediction”) promulgated in PSW Research 

Paper 13: STX-Fortran 4 Program—For Estimates of Tree Populations from 3P Sample—

Tree Measurements (Grosenbaugh 1967). In 1968, the unit moved to Atlanta, where 

Grosenbaugh retired in 1974.
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increasingly apparent that radically new methods of mass hybridization would be 

necessary to produce the volume of hybrid seeds wanted at a lower cost. Therefore, 

in 1947–1948, the genetics division turned to emphasizing experimental crossings 

rather than mass production crosses, with particular attention to southern pines. 

By 1951, 70 different hybrid pines had been produced as a result of the station’s 

research in experimental crossings. These crossings caused striking alterations 

in such properties as diameter and height, growth, root development, stem taper, 

length of foliage, and resistance to drought, frost, disease, and insects. Progress 

was greatest in four groups of pines: white pines, western yellow pines, southern 

pines, and lodgepole-jack pine groups. Field tests for several of these hybrids were 

conducted in 1951, and a branch arboretum, intended principally to grow pines 

that did not thrive at the Eddy Arboretum at the IFG, was established in 1956 at an 

altitude of 7,000 feet near Wrights Lake in the Georgetown District of the Eldorado 

National Forest. By 1957, the possibility of increasing timber production by planting 

genetically improved trees had been demonstrated by these new hybrids. Test stock 

planted on national forests and other land was doing well. Although it would take 

time to check hybrid performance to maturity, commercial demand for planting 

stock ran high, and the search for new pine hybrid combinations continued. By 

1957, past research efforts reduced viable hybrid combinations to 66. Despite 

this large number, only three crosses—knobcone-Monterey, Coulter-Jeffrey, 

and Jeffrey-ponderosa—exhibited real potential and were ready for mass testing. 

Nonetheless, in that year, the Crafts-McKennan GII recommended that IFG reduce 

the proportion of its research effort devoted to hybrid breeding and turn to more 

basic research. At the time of the inspection, IFG’s research program was about 50 

percent hybrid breeding reconnaissance, 45 percent in “facilitating” studies, which 

included physiologic, taxonomic, cytological, and biochemical research, and five 

percent in mass production of hybrid seed. In 1961, IFG turned the majority of its 

forest genetics research efforts toward these fundamental science subjects (Crafts 

and McKennan 1957; Duffield 1979; USDA FS 1946, 1947, 1948a, 1949a, 1951a, 

1956, 1957a, 1959a, 1961). 

Actually, the broadening of the station’s genetics research program from 

applied to fundamental research began much earlier, starting perhaps as early as 

1952. As stated in an earlier chapter, during the previous 10 years, the station had 

devoted most of its efforts to developing and testing a well-defined applied breeding 

procedure. Primarily, the station had crossed different species of pines, tested the 

promising hybrids, and then conducted selective breeding tests among the hybrids 

and their progeny. This work continued throughout the decade of the 1950s and 

early 1960s, while at the same time experience with this simple pattern of applied 

Experimental 

crossings caused 

striking alterations 

in such properties 

as diameter and 

height, growth, root 

development, stem 

taper, length of foliage, 

and resistance to 

drought, frost, disease, 

and insects.
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research had demonstrated the need for more comprehensive, fundamental studies 

to make the pine tree improvement program more effective. Consequently, new 

studies were undertaken that emphasized specific objectives that would contribute 

to fundamental knowledge. One such fundamental research project was the study 

of oleoresin chemistry of the genus Pinus, which was undertaken by Nicholas 

T. Mirov. The results of Mirov’s biochemical studies of pines in the late 1950s 

established that the chemical analysis of oleoresin was a means of distinguishing 

between pine species. This accomplishment won Mirov impressive recognition in 

the form of large grants from the Rockefeller Foundation. These grants enabled him 

to complete the overall study (Mirov 1961). Mirov’s report discussed the general 

considerations of composition of 94 species of the genus, and included suggestions 

for further work (Aitro 1977; Duffield 1979; USDA FS 1952a, 1953, 1954a, 1955a, 

1958a). 

Parallel with this study, in 1955, Mirov began another important basic research 

project, a 5-year study of flowering in pines, with a substantial grant from Resources for the Future, Inc. The practical objective of genetics research was to 

improve pines. But progress toward this objective was conditioned in part by better 

understanding of the reproductive characteristics of pines. Therefore, the objective 

of Mirov’s investigation was to develop knowledge on how to readily control flower 

production, a goal of inestimable value in forest genetics research and tree breeding. Understanding the physiology and anatomy of pine flowering was basic to the 

development of methods for improving seed production and tree breeding. Key 

physiology questions involved the biology of flowering and reproduction in pines. 

Key anatomy questions included: When do flowers (conelets and catkins) begin to 

form in pines, and what are the patterns of growth as the flowers develop? To do 

the research, the station reorganized and equipped the laboratory in Berkeley for 

Mirov so that he could study the anatomy, biochemistry, and physiology of flowering. Unfortunately, the station came too late to this field of study, as other research 

agencies had already begun substantial work on inducement of flowering in pines. 

Not wishing to duplicate research being done elsewhere, the station decided, in 

cooperation with the University of California, to concentrate on studies of pine 

pollen physiology instead. The station picked this research topic because tree breeders were particularly concerned with regular and abundant flower production. The 

station’s basic studies of pollen physiology gradually built up knowledge needed to 

increase the storage life of pollen, improve seed set, and overcome forms of incompatibility (USDA FS 1955a, 1956, 1957a, 1958a, 1959a, 1960, 1961).

The practical objective 

of genetics research 

was to improve pines.
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Despite the need to redirect its research on the biology of flowering and reproduction in pines, by 1962 the achievements made at the Placerville facility had 

made it a focal point for some 500 scientists and students from 65 countries. In 

recognition of the IFG’s achievements, on November 7, Verne L. Harper, Deputy 

Chief of Research for the Forest Service, gave the IFG’s personnel the USDA Distinguished Service Award. The citation read: “For pioneering the science of forest 

genetics and the production of pine hybrids leading to international recognition as 

a center for genetic improvement of the pines of the world.” Les Harper also paid 

tribute to James G. Eddy, the Seattle lumberman who initiated the first tree breeding work in America at Placerville in 1925 (Miller 1963).

Forest Products Utilization Research

Forest Utilization Service or FUS originated in the last days of World War II, when 

the Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) at Madison, Wisconsin, the WO division of 

wood products, and Assistant Chief of Research Edward Kotok agreed that a twoman FUS unit should be established at each experiment station. Their duties were 

to act as service agents of the FPL. Congress liked the idea and immediately funded 

the concept, which was in accord with Earle Clapp’s philosophy from the 1920s that 

all Forest Service research requiring fundamental studies of a laboratory nature be 

conducted in Madison, leaving for the regional stations the field experimentation of 

a local or regional nature. Thereafter, FUS units disseminated FPL research findings to forest industries in their respective regions while identifying regional problems of the timber industries and funneling them to the FPL for needed research 

(Harper 1978).

In California, the high level of activity in the forest products industries after the 

war, together with increased interest in more intensive utilization, brought numerous inquiries to the station’s FUS. In response, the California station FUS worked 

hard to stretch the timber supply by searching out the wood-using problems of the 

region, by referring specific problems to the FPL or other agencies for research, 

and by bringing the results to local industries, wood users, and timber growers. 

One objective was to improve sawing by using a new saw filing system developed 

by the FPL called “duo-kerf.” This FPL development used less power than methods 

previously employed. The California station’s FUS also taught interested clientele 

new nailing techniques that reduced wood splitting, and showed them how to better 

season lumber through dry kiln demonstrations and field construction. Another 

objective of the station’s FUS was to bring heretofore little-used trees into production, and to find new uses for other species. Forest industries looked for these 

technological improvements so they could make better use of neglected species, 
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wood residues for fiber plants, and the smaller timber of second-growth forests. 

For instance, the station’s FUS determined and published the properties of the 

California red fir so that architects and builders might use it more extensively. 

Similar studies were made for Douglas-fir from the coastal range forests, where, 

by 1952, extensive cutting had begun. A third objective of the station’s FUS was to 

find uses for logging and milling “leftovers,” which were being wasted. Working 

with the FPL, the station’s FUS explored a wide variety of uses for wood fiber. 

Fiber containers soon replaced the sawed wood box—the previous standard agricultural packaging container for field crops and for citrus. Alcohol could also be made 

from sawdust and wood chips for industrial use. Other products included fiberboards, pulp from hardwoods, panels from smaller sizes of lumber, and new plastic 

materials. These were just some of the new utilization methods investigated by the 

California station’s FUS that would eventually bring new industries to the state and 

increase employment in its forest industries (USDA FS 1952b, 1953, 1954a).

In the meantime, following World War II, there was concern that the timber 

supply in the United States was diminishing and that too much was wasted during 

production. In 1952, the Forest Service undertook what it referred to as a “timber 

resource review” or TRR. The TRR was devised to bring together the best available 

information on the timber resources of the country and the current and prospective 

timber requirements as a basis for reevaluating forestry needs and planning a forestry program for the future. Most of the information on forest area, ownership, 

timber volumes, growth, and drain on resources was obtained from FRS findings 

at the several forest experiment stations in the country. A preliminary report was 

issued in 1955, 42 and the final report in 1958 entitled Timber Resources for America’s Future (Steen 1998; USDA FS 1953, 1958d). 

These reports set forth the national timber situation and outlook in considerable 

detail. Viewed against the national picture, California’s 360 billion board feet of 

saw timber represented a sizeable resource. The preliminary TRR indicated that the 

state had 18 percent of the national supply, and that veneer, poles, piling, and other 

products were being produced at record levels. Even the state’s small pulp, paper, 

and hardboard industries were greatly increasing. For the remainder of the 1950s, 

the timber industry in California underwent major changes, trending toward consolidation of ownership and showing more and more interest in complete utilization 

in the woods and in mills. 

42 Although this 715-page report toned down the gloom over a timber famine, it did 

indicate that nationwide there was a significant problem in timber supply and demand. 

However, the TRR assumption that demand could be met did not take into full account timber losses from many variables, such as fire, insects, disease, and weather, which affected 

the demand-supply equation (Godfrey 2005).

Viewed against the 

national picture, 

California’s 360 billion 

board feet of saw 

timber represented a 

sizeable resource.
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California FUS research paralleled these developments, demonstrating how 

to make better use of harvested timber, how to get better growth from existing 

forests, how to utilize species heretofore neglected, and how to put idle land to 

work. For instance, in 1960, when a national economic recession began to affect 

the forest products industry, the PSW Research Station responded by emphasizing that although forest research could not prevent recessions, research results 

could increase production and marketing efficiency and hence mean the difference between profit and loss when the economic situation was critical. In a highly 

competitive market, where buyers insisted on better manufactured stock, station 

research in a variety of areas, such as improving the lumber product by better 

drying methods, or improving the grading of various species, could make a difference with the consumer. To this end, in 1961, the station would create a new forest 

utilization, marketing, and economics research division (USDA FS 1955a, 1956, 

1960).

Forest Economics Research

As noted earlier, the forest economics division was reorganized just after World 

War II to include the work of the Forest Resource Survey or FRS. The FRS was a 

part of the nationwide study by the Forest Service to determine the location and 

extent of the Nation’s forest land, the volume and condition of standing timber, the 

rate of growth, the rate of cutting, and the effect of losses from fire, insects, and 

disease. When the FRS was assigned to forest economics, the division was busy 

conducting cooperative work with the California Division of Forestry on various 

assignments, most importantly vegetation-soil surveys, which used aerial techniques to map the kind and distribution of soils and associated vegetation on some 

25 million acres of privately owned range, brush, and timber lands in the state.43

The merging of the FRS into the economics division brought about greater strength, 

more effective assignment of staff members,44 and prevention of duplication. These 

two separate but closely related inventories of California resources made up the 

station’s postwar forest economics research program from the late 1940s to the early 

1960s.

43 In 1947, Herbert A. Jensen, who trained architects, engineers, and landscape designers for the Office of Civil Defense’s industrial camouflage program during World War 

II, developed and presented a classification system designed to take advantage of aerial 

photography while incorporating ground mapping techniques to segregate and delineate 

species composition (Aitro 1977).

44 Harold L. Baker and Adon Poli conducted the early work on the FRS from 1951 to 

1955. However, it was George F. Burks and R.C. Wilson who, in 1939, demonstrated that 

photogrammetric methods could be used to make accurate vegetation maps (Aitro 1977).
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On July 1, 1946, with the reorganization completed, the long-awaited California 

FRS began with the inventory phase. The procedure for carrying out the first inventory was to map the different kinds of vegetation on aerial photographs, determine 

the area of each kind, and then measure enough sample plots on the ground to 

obtain the needed information within specified limits of accuracy. By the end of 

1952, the fieldwork on the first inventory phase of the state’s 42.5 million acres of 

commercial and noncommercial forest land neared completion. A year later, the 

FRS staff began to compile and analyze the data and publish results. One popular 

pamphlet from this project, A Century of Lumber Production in California and 

Nevada (May 1953a), provided the public with detailed information on the development of this very important industry. Of particular interest was the rapid expansion 

of production that occurred just after World War II. Lumber production in California had doubled, reaching a total of nearly 5 billion board feet by 1951 (USDA FS 

1946, 1949a, 1951a, 1952a, 1953, 1954). Thereafter, FRS staff began to assemble 

statewide statistics, and in particular for the national Timber Resource Review. The 

vegetation-soil surveys on forest, watershed, and rangelands of California, conducted in cooperation with the state of California, aided this national forest work 

(USDA FS 1953). In 1951, fieldwork on the vegetation-soil survey, which the station 

had been conducting since 1947, was brought to a halt in mid-year by the decision of 

the state legislature to postpone any further mapping. Two years later, it was reactivated by the state legislature under a cooperative agreement between the station, the 

California Department of Natural Resources, and the University of California, with 

the station responsible for the general coordination of the project along with the 

mapping program. The soil-vegetation data were particularly useful to Region 5 in 

assisting national forest managers in various projects, including converting brushland to other types of vegetation, road construction projects, and watershed and 

range management. As the survey continued and new area maps became available, 

people found more uses for this soil-vegetation information. Furthermore, pressure 

built up in California for more intensive use and management of western wildlands, 

and interest in soil-vegetation surveys grew as knowledge of soils and vegetation 

distribution, characteristics, and relationships helped guide land management for 

production of timber, forage, and water (USDA FS 1952, 1953, 1954a, 1956, 1957a, 

1958a).

Meanwhile, in 1955, the station published and distributed Forest Statistics for 

California (USDA FS 1955c), the first FRS report for California. Forest Statistics 

for California greatly stimulated interest in California’s timber resources. Because 

forest inventories soon become dated as a result of timber cutting, fire, insect and 

disease losses, land clearing, and timber growth, the station, in collaboration with 

Interest in soilvegetation surveys 

grew as knowledge of 

soils and vegetation 

distribution, 

characteristics, and 

relationships helped 

guide land management 

for production of 

timber, forage, and 

water.
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Region 5, planned a timber “reinventory” for the state beginning in 1957, before the 

ink was dry on Forest Statistics for California.45 The second California FRS called 

for the full use of aerial photo techniques to estimate forest land areas by kind of 

land use, forest type, and size of timber. This was thought to be a more economical survey approach because it reduced the number of field plots that needed to be 

measured. But in 1960, because of a national economic recession, the second FRS 

was integrated with Region 5’s timber management inventories as a cost-saving 

measure. Several additional cost-saving changes soon followed. The next year, the 

economics division was combined with the station’s FUS into a new division named 

“forest utilization, marketing, and economics research.” Meanwhile, to increase 

efficiency in Forest Service tabulating and recordkeeping, the station acquired 

“modern tabulating equipment,” becoming the only station in the West to fully 

utilize this new data processing equipment. Before long, the use of computer punch 

cards reduced time and costs over hand tabulating data on area, volume, growth, 

and other types of FRS information. With the increasing size and complexity of 

the Forest Service forestry program nationwide, more and more of the recordkeeping, fiscal control, and tabulating work was handled by these “modern” business 

machines (USDA FS 1955a, 1956, 1957a, 1959a, 1960, 1961).

Range Management Research

In the postwar years, demands for range forage in California rose along with the 

pressure for more timber from the state’s wildlands. In fact, by 1955, California had 

3.6 million cattle and calves, the most for the past quarter century, and 77 percent 

more than in 1930. This high inventory put the state in ninth place nationally, but 

first among the 11 Western States. The effect of these trends on California’s rangeland was to increase the livestock grazing load considerably—an increase of significance considering the gradual reduction of rangeland because of other uses, the 

encroachment of brush on some areas, and the increasing numbers of game animals 

within the state (USDA FS 1955a). 

Working with Region 5, CFRES realized that range research should focus on 

developing information on how the state’s 37 million acres of range could be intensively managed for the livestock industry and the general public’s benefit. Therefore, the station’s range research program was subdivided into four main lines of 

study: mountain range management in northeastern California, foothill range management in the San Joaquin basin, range fertilization, and brushland management. 

From after the war to the early 1960s, CFRES made rapid advancements in range 

45 A policy was later established that mandated that this process be repeated every 

10 years.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

research in each of these areas. After the retirement of veteran range management 

specialist Murrell Talbot in 1955, station range management research was strengthened by additions of new staff and by organizational changes. For instance, in 1956, 

the station added a range conservationist position to the SJER. Furthermore, in that 

year, the establishment of the Susanville Research Center improved opportunities 

for more effective range research by bringing technical workers closer to field 

problems (Talbot 1954; USDA FS 1952b, 1956).

At first, mountain-land range management was studied mainly at the BSER on 

the Lassen National Forest. The BSER was typical of the summer cattle ranges in 

the region, with perennial-plant vegetation, but after World War II, grazing capacity 

in the area had dropped to about half of what the land was capable of sustaining. In 

1950, A.L. Hormay completed his “rest-rotation grazing” system at BSER, which 

involved periodic resting of the range from grazing, showing the way to arrest 

range deterioration and make the land fully productive once again (Talbot 1954, 

USDA FS 1952b). A year later, Hormay’s rest-rotation grazing system was tested 

and demonstrated on the Harvey Valley Experimental Range (HVER), a 32,000-

acre national forest range allotment set aside on the Lassen National Forest for this 

purpose. The Harvey Valley system project, begun in 1952, was to be a 15-year 

study of the growth requirements of bunchgrass plants and the grazing habits of 

cattle. Its effectiveness was measured in terms of herbage production and weight 

gains of cattle. The test also included studies of artificial seeding of range grasses 

and sagebrush control by chemical sprays. Throughout the remainder of the 1950s 

and early 1960s, the station carried out this research at HVER in cooperation with 

the Lassen National Forest and the Agricultural Research Service. In part, HVER 

research answered local opposition to Region 5’s livestock reduction program in 

northern California46 (USDA FS 1954b, 1959b).

Foothill-range management took place at the SJER in Madera County in cooperation with the University of California. It was less controversial than the research 

to the north. By 1948, CFRES completed research that showed how local cattlemen 

could use the natural annual-plant range vegetation efficiently while maintaining 

both good livestock production and satisfactory range conditions. The next logical 

phase of SJER work aimed to improve forage production through certain cultural 

practices, such as using commercial fertilizers to build up foothill range production (USDA FS 1952b). J.R. Bentley pioneered much of the investigations in this 

research area, including the stimulation of indigenous clovers through application 

46 Following World War II, Region 5 tried to establish an intensive range management 

program to reduce numbers of livestock in this California region, an approach that caused a 

range war to flare up on the Modoc National Forest (Godfrey 2005).
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of sulfur-bearing fertilizers. Bentley found that the application of sulfur improved 

the annual plant forage on sandy loam soils of granite origin in the Sierra Nevada 

foothills. In conjunction with this work, the station, in cooperation with the University of California, the Soil Conservation Service (SCS), and ranchers, made rapid 

advances in field testing a whole complex of other fertilizers. These tests demonstrated the practicability of commercial fertilizer use and reversed pre-World War 

II opinion that range fertilization by and large was too costly to be practical (Talbot 

1954). By 1957, range fertilization paid off with multiple benefits. Thanks to the 

tests that ran several years at SJER, livestock ranchers in the Sierra Nevada foothills produced more grass, more grazing, and more meat at less cost through sulfur 

and other types of rangeland fertilization (USDA FS 1957a). Even when several 

years of drought hit this region in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the advantages 

of fertilization with sulfur or sulfur-plus-nitrogen were clearly evident at SJER. 

Fertilized vegetation started growth earlier on foothill ranges than on other areas, 

and green-season grazing began more than three weeks earlier. This earlier growth 

was of prime importance in the management of foothill ranges for two reasons: it 

enabled the rancher to discontinue use of expensive range supplements, and it gave 

cattle a good start on weight gain after the costly wintering period (USDA FS 1961).

In addition to addressing the fertilizer question, the CFRES range division 

tackled California’s difficult brushland management problem, which was a veritable contradiction, with too many shrubs in some areas, and too few in others. 

Brushland-improvement studies started in 1949. Working closely with Region 5, 

California’s Division of Forestry, and University of California, CFRES’s range division seriously took on the problem of getting rid of undesirable shrubs and trees. 

Brush conversion of selected areas to grassland was sought for three reasons: more 

grazing for livestock, better habitat for game, and more firebreaks for firefighters. 

It involved brush removal on selected areas, reseeding of cleared brushlands, and 

control of sprouts. Although this cooperative research effort gathered data that 

would guide future expenditures, in the postwar years, it failed to answer a number of vexing questions, such as the high cost of controlling reinvasions of brush 

sprouts as well as several hydrologic and economic aspects of brush conversion and 

management. The CFRES was more successful in meeting the challenge of too few 

shrubs, or the restoration of browse by artificial methods on critical winter ranges 

to feed deer, antelope, cattle, and sheep. A.L. Hormay and other station staff worked 

on this cooperative project with California’s Department of Fish and Game, paying 

the greatest attention to ranges in northeastern California where bitterbrush and 

other palatable shrubs had been reduced or eliminated, and where natural regeneration was unlikely for several decades. Most of the work took place at the Flukey 

Even when several 

years of drought hit 

this region in the late 

1950s and early 1960s, 

the advantages of 

fertilization with sulfur 

or sulfur-plus-nitrogen 

were clearly evident at 

SJER.
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Spring, Doyle, and Buttermilk game-browse areas, which were representative of 

northeastern California’s winter cattle ranges. Besides browse restoration, the station investigated new reseeding and weed control techniques in both the mountain 

and foothill areas. This work fell to Donald R. Cornelius and Charles A. Graham, 

whose research established that successful reseeding could increase the forage yield 

and lengthen the grazing season. In the area of weed and brush control, throughout 

the 1950s, the station tested selective herbicides, such as 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T,47 which 

were used to improve California forest ranges. Cornelius, Graham, and Gilbert H. 

Schubert published the station experimental trial data, and Alva G. Neuns, H.R. 

Offord, and Timothy R. Plumb described the technical application of particular 

herbicides for killing brush (Aitro 1977; Talbot 1954; USDA FS 1952b, 1955a, 

1957a, 1958b, 1959a).

By the early 1960s, the station’s range division neared completion of many of 

SJER and HVER range production projects. At SJER, the station’s research program continued to study the effects of range fertilization on herbage production and 

livestock gains. The station also continued necessary research on range improvement by removal of brush and tree species, and on rotation and nonrotation grazing 

by seasons on both natural and fertilized annual type ranges. At HVER, Hormay’s 

rest-rotation range management was 10 years into the 15-year full-scale practical 

testing (USDA FS 1958b, 1959, 1961). But by 1962, the CFRES range division 

seemed ready to embark upon a new program of research management research 

designed to improve the use and management of foothill ranges regardless of ownership and location. New research involved three lines of management research—

native, fertilized, and converted ranges—plus supporting and cooperative studies. 

The station expected to produce basic information on the effect of grazing systems 

on range vegetation and cattle. Such information was needed for the development 

of grazing management practices that would sustain high-level production without 

affecting other land uses (USDA FS 1960b).

47 The herbicide 4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid, more commonly known as 2,4,5-T, is a 

widely used herbicide. For example, it is often used as a weed killer for home lawns. It is 

considered to be less readily biodegradable than the analogous herbicide 2,4-D. The herbicide 2,4-D was developed by a British team during World War II and first saw widespread 

production and use in the late 1940s. It was easy and inexpensive to manufacture, and 

killed many broadleaf plants while leaving grasses largely unaffected (although high doses 

of 2,4-D at crucial growth periods can harm grass crops such as maize or cereals). On the 

other hand, when these two agents are blended with picloram, they become Agent Orange, 

a herbicide blend used by the United States military in Vietnam between January 1965 and 

April 1970 as a defoliant.

New research 

involved three lines 

of management 

research—native, 

fertilized, and 

converted ranges—

plus supporting and 

cooperative studies.
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Forest and Range Influences and Watershed Management 

Research

Watershed management research at the end of World War II was called forest and 

range influences. Headed by Charles J. Kraebel, the division had a staff of five 

researchers who concentrated their work on continuing analysis of accumulated 

data from SDEF and the Teakettle Creek and Big Creek installations in the Kings 

River area. When the Glendora Civilian Public Service camp was closed after the 

war, the station suspended about 80 percent of SDEF fieldwork. Under the curtailed 

program, fieldwork was limited to the collection of data from two intermediate 

SDEF watersheds in the Big Dalton and San Dimas drainages, the large lysimeters, 

and the master climatic station at Tanbark Flat. Fortunately, in 1948, financial aid 

from the California Division of Forestry permitted technical staff to devote themselves full time to the analysis of data and the preparation of manuscripts for 

publication. In the meantime, while trying to maintain the continuity of hydrologic 

records at SDEF, the station resumed flood-control surveys throughout California, 

which they had started after the disastrous 1938 floods. At that time, a flood control 

survey division was created and CFRES researchers were detailed to conduct interagency flood control surveys authorized by the 1936 Omnibus Flood Control Act 

in cooperation with the SCS. At war’s end, the flood control survey division had a 

staff of 10 researchers under David Ilch, who directed the program, and they made 

immediate progress in completing the backlog of unfinished surveys throughout the 

state, and conducted new surveys. The station also briefly undertook an unscheduled project involving a general review of the water resources, developments, and 

plans for the Sacramento River Basin. Part of this project included working with 

the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory, maintained at that time under a cooperative 

agreement between the United States Weather Bureau and the United States Army 

Corps of Engineers (USDA FS 1946, 1947, 1948a).

In 1949, E.A. Colman replaced Kraebel48 as head of the forest and range influences division. From the beginning, Colman’s task was to broaden the division’s 

research objectives and scope. The new focus of research thereafter became improving water yield, which for a short time also included improving watersheds for 

48 Charles Kraebel, the station’s long-time watershed management expert, stayed on at the 

station but took a position that allowed him to work more closely with the national administration and foreign governments that required the services of a specialist in watershed 

management (USDA FS 1949a).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

flood control through the services of the flood control survey division.49 Several 

years of drought served as a reminder that California’s timber and rangelands must 

also be managed for yields of water. After 1951, the station’s concern became 

studying how wildland watersheds could be managed to generate clear, usable 

water with a minimum of flood runoff and soil erosion. Understanding how a 

watershed functioned was seen as basis for this kind of management. By this date, 

SDEF lysimeter records indicated basic differences in the amount of water used by 

several plant species. These data contributed to CFRES efforts to determine the 

best ground cover for eroding slopes in headwater areas of the Los Angeles River 

watershed. Methods of restoring plant cover and stabilizing the soil in watersheds 

damaged by past abuse were also under investigation by the station in other parts of 

California, such as the mountain meadows in the Sierra Nevada and the north coast 

range (USDA FS 1949a, 1951a).

Ostensibly, water yield studies were supposed to be conducted statewide, but 

in reality, CFRES continued to concentrate its watershed management research 

program on southern California. In the early to mid-1950s, water yield and erosion 

studies were extended into new stages, and ways were steadily found to improve 

rainfall measurements. Evaporation studies using SDEF’s batteries of lysimeters 

were extended to study grass, brush, and pines, and the growth of various other 

plants for cover improvement and soil stabilization. Meanwhile, limited research 

was conducted on wildfire and the effects it had on streamflow, as well as erosion 

and watershed damages caused by logging (USDA FS 1952a, 1953, 1954a, 1955a, 

1956). 

But water supplies for industrial, agricultural, and domestic use continued to be 

of concern for all of California as plans were being completed in 1953 for the state’s 

most ambitious water transport project, the California Water Plan (CWP) (USDA 

FS 1953). The CWP envisioned 376 new reservoirs and a vast network of aqueducts 

throughout the state to bring water from the northern half of the state to where it 

was most needed—southern California’s farms and municipalities. As part of the 

project, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) was created in 1957 to 

fund and operate this water and power development (Godfrey 2005). With this and 

other statewide watershed developments, it became ever more important for the 

49 In August 1952, flood control survey work by the station was largely discontinued, 

along with survey work in Oregon that had been conducted in cooperation with the Pacific 

Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. All station flood control survey records 

were then transferred to the Pacific Northwest Station. One staff member of this division 

remained at the California station to carry on the necessary work of reviewing reports for 

California watersheds. This action was part of a larger general reorganization within the 

Department of Agriculture (USDA FS 1952a).

Water supplies for 

industrial, agricultural, 

and domestic use 

continued to be of 

concern for all of 

California.
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Forest Service to study the winter snowpack of the Sierra Nevada, the Cascades, 

and the Northern Coast Range, which supplied 71 million acre-feet annually, the 

greatest part of each year’s waterflow in California streams. Although the brushwoodland-grass belt and the forest belt below the snowpack line contributed 

significant acre-feet of water, a 1954 station study of California’s major water-yield 

areas indicated that California’s snowpack zone (above 3,500 to 5,000 feet depending on geography) provided 51 percent of the state’s streamflow, and the alpine 

zone, mostly primitive areas withdrawn for recreation, generated 38 percent of the 

state’s water. This Forest Service streamflow study also showed the extent to which 

California’s expanding economy depended on forest land for its water. As important 

as the flood-control problems were, Californians could not overlook their everpresent water-supply problems. This realization alone probably persuaded CFRES 

to change the division of forest influences’ name to the watershed management 

division that year (USDA FS 1953, 1954a, 1955a).

In 1955, under Operation WET BLANKET, 50 the California station acted

upon this knowledge in two distinct ways. First, the long-idle Teakettle Creek 

Experimental Station, currently called the Teakettle Snow Laboratory, was reopened to study water production and control. More importantly, the station 

earnestly began snowpack research at the recently acquired Central Sierra Snow 

Laboratory or CSSL, 51 (USDA FS 1955a). Following the transfer, Station Director 

Jemison started a major cooperative study in snowpack management, matching 

federal funds with California Department of Water Resources money and relying 

on field cooperation from other agencies. The CWP, which had been presented to 

the people in 1956 and discussed widely that year, clearly underlined the need for 

50 In February 1955, E.A. Colman proposed Operation WET BLANKET. It sought to 

investigate all methods for controlling snow accumulation and melt and evaporative losses 

under various topographic and forest conditions, followed by pilot testing of promising 

methods on calibrated watersheds (Colman 1955).

51 In 1945, facing an expanding population at the end of World War II, with consequent 

increasing demand for hydroelectric power and irrigation water, the federal government 

initiated the Cooperative Snow Investigations research program with the general aim of 

solving hydrologic problems pertinent to mountain regions of the Western United States. 

Three outdoor laboratories were established, one being the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory. Following the disbanding of the snow investigations program, the Forest Service 

assumed sponsorship of CSSL (USDA FS 1986b). The CSSL included a 2,540-acre field 

headquarters at Castle Creek equipped for basic studies of meteorology, snow physics, and 

streamflow, and the 3,050-acre Onion Creek drainage nearby including four experimental 

watersheds equipped with stream-gauging stations and sediment traps. Tests conducted 

on these drainages were similar to the ones at Teakettle Creek and elsewhere, and were 

designed to make recommendations for management methods to increase water yield from 

the Sierra Nevada snowpack. Office-laboratory and staff residences were located at Castle 

Creek (USDA FS1958b).

A 1954 station 

study of California’s 

major water-yield 

areas indicated that 

California’s snowpack 

zone provided 51 

percent of the state’s 

streamflow, and 

the alpine zone, 

mostly primitive 

areas withdrawn for 

recreation, generated 

38 percent of the 

state’s water.

Californians could not 

overlook their everpresent water-supply 

problems.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

this study. To accommodate the CWP need, a new section in the division of water 

shed management research was created at CFRES. Seven technical workers were 

assigned to it and the study of snowpack data, which included studying the relations between forest vegetation and water quality, yield, and runoff timing from 

the snow-covered watersheds. Accordingly, the California station refurbished and 

expanded CSSL, (fig. 76) and mapped nearby American River watersheds, as well 

as four major watersheds along the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. While 

studying forest snow behavior, they also began collecting streamflow measurements. At the Teakettle Snow Laboratory in the Kings River basin, station staff 

also measured water yield in its watersheds. By the end of 1957, snow zone research 

was in full swing with 15 studies measuring snow accumulation and snowmelt 

underway in California. One interesting 1959 study conducted jointly with the 

Swain Mountain Experimental Forest indicated that the way forests were harvested 

influenced the amount and the timing of water yield. This study obviously suggested to timber managers seeking more water that they should plan their forest 

cutting patterns to reach this objective (Anderson 1958; USDA FS 1956, 1957a, 

1958a, 1959a). Henry W. Anderson was the prime researcher in snow management 

research at CFRES in the late 1950s and early 1960s, contributing many articles 

and publications on the subject. Lucille G. Richards, along with Raymond M. Rice 

and Allan J. West, made some contributions as well. By 1962, the station’s snow 

zone research entered its 6th year of research, and had clearly made significant 

progress in answering critical questions on how the snow zone should be managed 

to improve water yield. This set the stage for accomplishments several years later 

(Aitro 1977; USDA FS 1959a, 1961, 1986b). 

In the meantime, the CFRES watershed management division continued to 

seek greater water yields for southern California through intensive studies at SDEF. 

In spite of all the plans for importing water to southern California, 70 percent of the 

water used there still came from local watersheds. Since the SDEF was established 

in 1933, it had discovered many of the fundamentals of how these watersheds 

worked. The SDEF regional research had shown how to measure mountain rainfall 

accurately, that chaparral plants differed in rates of water use, and that soil depths 

and different kinds of cover influenced surface runoff and soil moisture. By the late 

1950s, the station could precisely estimate rainfall moisture losses, streamflow, and 

groundwater yields on entire southern California watersheds, thanks in part to the 

recent development of the nuclear soil moisture probe that sharpened station wateryield evaluations. However, since nearly half of the rainfall in southern California’s 

mountains was lost through evaporation and transpiration, station researchers 

turned to investigating chaparral defoliation to save water—otherwise known as 

The way forests were 

harvested influenced 

the amount and the 

timing of water yield.
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Figure 76—Central Sierra Snow Laboratory, 1977. 

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

brushland watershed management. In cooperation with California Division of 

Forestry and the Los Angeles County Fire Department, the station began using 

brush-killing chemicals to remove “water-wasting riparian vegetation” from parts 

of the Big Dalton and San Dimas drainages. From this pilot project, the station 

learned that water yield could be increased by intensive brushland watershed management, and with strong backing from Station Director Arnold, additional research 
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

was encouraged (Crafts and McKernan 1957; Sinclair et al. 1958; USDA FS 1957a, 

1958a, 1959a).

Then, at 12:30 p.m. on July 20, 1960, lightning struck the San Dimas Experimental Forest. The Johnstone Fire, as it became known, burned out of control for 

the next few days. Firefighting crews were able to save all but one of the buildings at Tanbark Flats. By the time the last ember burned out, 15,000 acres of the 

experimental forest lay in blackened ruin. The Johnstone Fire was a major scientific 

disaster, but within 48 hours after the fire was extinguished, station staff began to 

turn this setback to their advantage by converting this disaster into a far-reaching 

emergency research program. With the slate wiped clean, SDEF shifted its research 

program to relate prefire records and findings to the new situation. As a result, for 

the next few years, SDEF staff addressed postfire restoration measures, and moved 

to establish a strong research program aimed at developing practical methods of 

rehabilitation, erosion control, conflagration control, and water yield improvement 

at the facility. With the help of the California Division of Forestry and the Department of Water Resources and the Los Angeles County Fire Department and Flood 

Control District, SDEF became a pilot model for integrated land management in 

southern California. Contour basin terraces, concrete stream-channel checks, barley 

“wattles” on close contours, annual grasses, and perennial grasses were established 

separately and in combination on 25 small watersheds. Soon, SDEF was ready to 

begin experiments that compared its prefire data and postfire circumstances to 

learn about rehabilitation and natural recovery of mountain slopes denuded by fire 

(Robinson 1980; USDA FS 1960a, 1961).

Forest Fire Research

The Johnstone Fire certainly indicated that fire prevention remained a critical subject to southern Californians. Even so, during World War II, fire research at the 

station nearly came to a halt. Following the war, budgets were small, and the forest fire research division headed by Charles C. Buck included only four other 

researchers. Despite limited budgets and personnel, the division was tasked with 

the enormous responsibility of developing research findings to reduce forest fire 

damages and fire control costs in all of California. To meet this difficult task, in the 

late 1940s and early 1950s, the division’s research program was divided into three 

principal fields. The first was the study of fire behavior—the way fires start and 

spread. Research work included laboratory experiments in the physics and chemistry of wood combustion, field testing with small fires in different natural fuels and 

burning conditions, and field observation of large forest fires. Knowledge gained 

eventually led to the development of a fire-danger rating system for the California 
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region. The second field of research—which was really an extension of the first—

was fire control. Fire control research included finding ways to apply fire-behavior 

knowledge to prevent or control fires. The station studied the organization of large 

firefighting forces to find more effective methods of using resources when burning 

conditions were extreme. The station also experimented with chemical treatments 

to clear firebreaks and to reduce roadside fire hazards. The station tested wetting 

agents and other chemicals as improvements over water. Finally, the third subject 

of study pertained to the benefits and damages that result from fire, appraising 

damages following a fire, such as the possibility of erosion in critical watersheds52

(USDA FS 1946, 1952).

In the meantime, in the early 1950s, concern for America’s ability to withstand 

a nuclear war was growing.53 A publicized series of atomic weapons tests at the 

Nevada proving grounds vividly demonstrated the awesome power and incendiary 

capabilities of the weapon, and testing of the hydrogen bomb in the Pacific proved 

to have power many times that of the devices tested in Nevada.54 Then in 1953, a 

series of bad fires in California convinced key individuals at the station, the California Division of Forestry, and the Los Angeles County Fire Department55 that the 

time was ripe for a dramatic gesture to demonstrate that scientific research had the 

potential to advance fire defense against nuclear attack. They agreed that a program

52 In 1949, even with tight budgets, one major accomplishment in the field was the 

completion of a joint project between fire and watershed research groups that produced fire 

damage appraisal guides. They displayed the damage expected from fires of various sizes 

on most of the southern California watersheds, and were relied upon heavily and used often 

(Wilson and Davis 1988).

53 Interestingly, station staff, such as A. Broido and A.W. McMasters, in the early 1960s 

investigated and studied the effects of mass fires following nuclear attack on personnel in 

shelters, concluding that thermal and fire effects of thermonuclear detonations may, under 

the right circumstances, produce more casualties than any other effect of such detonations 

(Aitro 1977).

54 In response, many national and California fire associations voiced their concern about 

the incendiary potential of nuclear weapons, with one document stating: “Fire loosed by 

enemy action on critical cities and wildlands is the greatest threat to defense of the United 

States in modern war. Mass fire as a weapon was proven in World War II.... Fire services 

are not organized nor equipped to cope with enemy-set firestorms, although still charged 

with responsibility” (Chandler 1982: 2).

55 These fires included the Rattlesnake Fire on the Mendocino National Forest, which killed 

15 firefighters, and the Mount Baldy and Los Angeles County fires near Los Angeles, 

which burned 24,000 acres in full view of the national television audience watching the 

Rose Parade and Rose Bowl football game. Keith Arnold, along with Keith Klinger, Chief 

of the Los Angeles Fire Department, and Jim Mace, Deputy State Forester in charge of fire 

control for the California Division of Forestry, were the driving force behind Operation 

FIRESTOP. Arnold had just returned to the University of California after 3 years directing 

the Forest Service nuclear effects studies (Chandler 1982).

The station tested 

wetting agents and 

other chemicals as 

improvements over 

water.
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of basic and applied studies, both with high visibility and high potential for immediate payoff, should be initiated (Chandler 1982b). Thus, on July 1, 1954, a cooperative 1-year experiment dubbed Operation FIRESTOP was begun. FIRESTOP was 

a giant task force involving 11 federal, state, and local fire control agencies, fire 

researchers, federal civil defense officials, and a number of private companies.56

Its central idea was to explore the application of new technology to fire control 

problems, and to expand the boundaries of fire behavior study. FIRESTOP took 

place on the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base in San Diego County. The 

project concentrated on fire retardants, fuel studies, seasonal chaparral moisture, 

aerial firefighting (both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters), light-weight pipe for 

extended hose lays, wind machines for fire suppression, and backfiring chemicals. 

FIRESTOP became the launching pad for “innovative and revolutionary cooperative research in California.” Generally, it demonstrated that a task force effort in 

fire research paid huge dividends. It specifically showed that liquid fire retardants 

could be effective in stopping wildland fires, as well as demonstrating the potential 

of helicopters in firefighting, from transporting personnel to serving as small air 

tankers. FIRESTOP’s findings became the basis for many important future research 

efforts including HELITACK,57 and the Air Attack program and the use of chemical fire retardants.58 In its final phase, a 25-minute documentary motion picture, 

showing the cooperative contributions of industries and federal, state, and county 

agencies, as well as the publication of 12 technical reports, stimulated and encouraged interest in expanding fire research budgets in California through both federal 

appropriations and cooperative funds (Chandler 1982; USDA FS 1954a, 1955a;

56 To make fire research staff Clive M. Countryman and Charles C. Buck available for 

the project, it was necessary to suspend or severely curtail activity in other fire studies 

(Chandler 1982, Wilson and Davis 1988). Important researchers in fire management, fire 

prevention, fire behavior, fire meteorology, and fire chemistry at the station in the postwar 

period until 1962 included Craig C. Chandler, Wallace L. Fons, James L. Murphy, Arthur 

R. Pirsko, Mark J. Schroeder, and Carl C. Wilson (Aitro 1977).

57 HELITACK was a research and equipment development program aimed at making a fire 

tool of the helicopter, much like the pumper and bulldozer. Region 5 and California State 

Division of Forestry cooperated with the station on HELITACK, which was born in 1956. 

Prior to that date, the helicopter had been used by the Forest Service, but HELITACK goals 

were to develop and test firefighting accessories for the helicopter, such as the helitanker, a 

25-gallon pressurized tank from which water or chemicals could be expelled; a bulk-drop 

tank, a device to drop water or chemicals directly on a fire; and a hose-lay tray, a means to 

lay fire hose on the ground from a helicopter in flight (Wilson 1956, 1957).

58 The Air Attack program, which involved the use of air tankers (converted PBYs, TBMs, 

F7Fs, B-25s), and other aircraft, such as spray planes and helicopters, was a joint effort of 

most fire services in California, with an executive committee that guided all policies and 

programs of research and firefighting equipment development in California and involved 

the cooperative efforts of the agricultural aircraft industry, its pilots, its planes, and its 

research centers (Wilson 1957, 1958).

FIRESTOP 

demonstrated that a 

task force effort in fire 

research paid huge 

dividends.
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Wilson and Davis 1988). FIRESTOP was the forest fire research community’s first 

venture into “big science,” and it did for fire research what, in a larger and more 

sustained fashion, Smokey Bear did for fire prevention (Chandler 1982).

In the years following FIRESTOP, the appropriations for fire research rose 

around 30 percent each year, and thereafter even the National Science Foundation, 

created in 1950, became involved in fire science. With increased federal and state 

funds, the station evaluated older projects, such as fire-danger rating systems, and 

FIRESTOP-related projects such as forest fire retardants and tactical air support on 

forest fires. In 1957, the station also began a new project, Operation FUELBREAK, 

on the San Dimas Experimental Forest. As wildfires have no respect for property 

lines, the project was organized as a cooperative program with the California Division of Forestry and the Los Angeles County Fire Department, much like Operation 

FIRESTOP had been. Because only a few large fires caused most of the damage to 

southern California watersheds, Operation FUELBREAK sought ways to ease the 

firefighter’s task by treating vegetation on wide strips or blocks so as to establish 

plants of low fuel volume and reduce flammability (USDA FS 1957a, 1958a, 1959a). 

However, the lightning-caused Johnstone Fire that burned the majority of the SDEF 

forced the station to reorient its FUELBREAK project. The project’s staff joined 

watershed researchers in the effort to turn the disastrous fire to their advantage by 

developing a research program that pointed more specifically toward watershed 

management practices aimed at reducing fire and flood losses. The SDEF, as a 

model for integrated land management, continued its long-range approach to prevention and control of major conflagrations59 by developing and testing chemical 

control of brush after fires or other land-clearing activities, and by searching for 

fire-resistant plants and for watershed cover that would produce lower fuel volumes 

at maturity than typical chaparral (USDA FS 1960a, 1961).

The 1960 San Dimas Fire hurt the station’s fire research program, already 

hampered by inadequate fire research laboratory facilities. Besides the limited 

combustion and fire retardant work conducted at Berkeley, the station had some 

field studies at the Pilgrim Creek and the Richmond Fire Laboratories. These 

laboratories were a long way from Berkeley, and maintenance costs of the Pilgrim 

Creek Laboratory facilities on the Shasta National Forest were using up the station’s 

limited fire research budget. A central laboratory designed specifically for fire research was obviously needed. This need was apparent as early as 1956, when the 

59 In 1961, the station laid out 74 miles of new fuelbreaks at San Dimas to break brushfields 

into small units to help keep future fires small (Aitro 1977).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Inaja Fire on the Cleveland National Forest in San Diego County killed 11 firefighters. A groundswell of support for a central fire laboratory materialized after 

the Inaja Fire, especially after Congressman Clair Engle (D-California) conducted 

a congressional hearing after the Inaja Fire disaster that resulted in the document 

entitled Forest Fire Control in Southern California (U.S. Congress 1958). It emphasized the complexity of fire control in southern California and provided official 

justification for increases in fire research funds for the next decade, including the 

need for a new fire and watershed research center in southern California. Thereafter, the Forest Service and the state of California Wildland Research Planning 

Committee called for a major fire research facility for that part of the state and an 

additional annual expenditure of $500,000 by the federal government. However, 4 

years would pass before a bill made its way through Congress authorizing $900,000 

for a “Regional Forest Fire Research Laboratory at Riverside, California.” With 

money in hand, the Riverside Fire Laboratory (RFL) was built during 1962–1963 to 

the specifications developed by the station’s fire research staff, and officially dedicated on September 11, 1963. The three-building complex—administrative, technical, and laboratory—finally fulfilled the vision of early California fire control and 

fire research pioneers and proponents, such as the then-recently deceased S.B. 

Show. The Riverside facility included an instrument shop, electronics laboratory, 

staging area, forest meteorology facility, humidity chambers, forest fuels laboratory, 

communications room, fire behavior training laboratories, fallout shelter, mobile 

meteorological laboratory, chemistry laboratory, and fire environment chamber. 

The station was now equipped to meet the needs of southern California clients, but 

was also encouraged to work closely on national programs as well (Chandler 1982, 

Godfrey 2005, Wilson and Davis 1988b).

Forest Insect Research

By the time Stephen Wyckoff became director of CFRES in 1945, all periodic cooperative insect control investigations by the station and the Bureau of Entomology 

and Plant Quarantine had been unofficially dropped, and forest insect research was 

not pursued vigorously again by the station until at least 1955. Meanwhile, forest 

insect damage was on the rise in California, a situation that stimulated the formation of the California Forest Pest Control Council (CFPCC) to fight the endemic and 

epidemic states of insect activity, losses from insects, and determine costs and 

methods of protection in the state. The CFPCC reviewed pest problems and control 

programs in the state, and soon thereafter, CFRES began cooperating with this 

group. Together, they prepared a report on California forest insect conditions, tested 
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helicopters for bark beetle surveys, and studied the use of residual-type sprays60

that offered the most promising solution to killing bark beetles in infested trees and 

logs. By this time, research on these spray types for bark-beetle control had been in 

progress for 3 years and was directed toward exploring the toxicity of four insecticides—DDT, toxaphene, lindane,61 and isodrin—under varying conditions (fig. 77). 

At the same time, the station continued to explore the California Pine-Risk System 

begun at BMEF prior to World War II, which tested the ability of pines to resist 

attack by insects (Aitro 1977; USDA FS 1954a, 1955a). 

Meanwhile, in 1956, Station Director Jemison completed arrangements and 

staffing for a new division of forest insect research,62 which changed such research 

in California tremendously. During the research period following 1956, station 

scientists laboratory-tested and provided technical guidance for the use of residualtype sprays for Region 5 and the California State Division of Forestry and helped 

them conduct the first successful large-scale aerial operations63 against a forest 

insect, in this case the tussock moth.64 Field tests of residual sprays helped station 

entomologists better understand the application and dosage toxicity requirements 

of these sprays. At this time, the station also studied other insects that damaged 

particular species, such as the lodgepole needle-miner,65 which was responsible for 

60 Residual-type sprays are insecticides that form a lasting toxic deposit on the surface 

to which they are applied. Their ability to remain toxic to insects over a period is called 

residual life. An insect alighting upon or walking over a spray deposit during its residual 

life will pick up a lethal dose. When an insecticide with a long residual life is sprayed on 

the bark of an infested tree, it will kill beetles coming out. Sprayed on a healthy tree, it will 

kill insects attempting to attack through the bark (USDA FS 1955a).

61 In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency recently banned all agricultural uses of lindane, but the Food and Drug Administration still allows lindane to be 

used in pharmaceutical products for the treatment of head lice and scabies. California has 

banned all uses of lindane, and it is no longer manufactured in the United States. Its use is 

also restricted or banned in most of Europe and many developing countries.

62 The prominent published entomologist at the station at this time was still J.M. Miller, but 

rising scientists included V.A. Clements, Charles B. Eaton, Ralph C. Hall, F. Paul Keen, 

Richard H. Smith, Robert E. Stevens, George R. Struble, and Boyd E. Wickman. Notably 

during this period of the station’s history, Keen co-authored with Miller Biology and 

Control of the Western Pine Beetle (Miller and Keen 1960), a classic volume that reviewed 

the results of 50 years of research involving every phase of the bark beetle problem (Aitro 

1977). For an oral history on Ralph C. Hall and F. Paul Keen, see Keen and Hall 1977.

63 The motivation for the tussock moth control campaign was an infestation that had broken 

out in Tuolumne County, which damaged firs over a considerable area. At this time, crews 

sprayed DDT in oil solution from a converted B-18 bomber. 

64 The Douglas-fir tussock moth is an insect that causes damage by devouring the foliage 

of its hosts, white fir and Douglas-fir. Trees completely stripped of their needles by the 

caterpillars die; those partly defoliated suffer growth losses and may succumb to later 

attacks by bark beetles (USDA FS 1957a).

65 The lodgepole needle-miner is a native pest of California’s high mountain forests. Its 

caterpillars feed within and destroy lodgepole pine foliage. Some trees die from defoliation 

alone, others from attacks of the mountain pine beetle, which breeds in the weakened trees.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 77—Young scientist in field with speciman bag, 1980.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

killing numerous lodgepole pines in Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon National 

Parks. To control the needle-miner, station scientists worked closely with National 

Park Service (NPS) and University of California entomologists. Together, they 

studied the needle-miner’s biology and pathology at the Park Service’s Tuolumne 

Meadows Forest Insect laboratory, and experimented with helicopter spraying of 

malathion66 (USDA FS 1956a, 1957a, 1958a). For other regions of California, the 

station’s Hat Creek, Miami, and Orleans Forest Insect laboratories served as key 

research facilities. The Hat Creek Laboratory on the Lassen National Forest investigated the biology, behavior, and control of insects that attacked “east-side” forests. 

Bark beetles were their prime interest, and studies underway in 1958 included 

investigations on how tree mortality was caused by the western and the Jeffrey 

pine beetles, on how salvage logging influenced bark beetle populations, and on 

66 Malathion, 0,0-dimethyl-S-(1,2-dicarbethoxyethyl) dithiophosphate, an organophosphorus pesticide, is today widely used for both domestic and commercial agricultural purposes. 

It is considered to be one of the safest organophosphate insecticides, and has been used in 

large pest eradication programs in California, Florida, and Texas.
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how to improve surveys of beetle-caused damage. At the Miami Forest Insect 

Laboratory just south of Yosemite National Park, station personnel studied forest 

insect problems on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. The Miami Laboratory’s research program covered those insects that attacked mixed-conifer forests. 

In 1958, studies underway also included field and laboratory work on residual-type 

chemical sprays for bark beetle control. Finally, the Orleans Laboratory, located in 

the heart of the California Douglas-fir belt in Humboldt County, began field tests in 

1956 that emphasized work on the life histories and habits of Douglas-fir cone and 

seed insects. The Orleans Laboratory also served as a headquarters for forest insect 

survey activities in northwestern California (USDA FS 1958b).

Meanwhile, in 1959–1960, forest insect damage increased sharply in 

California. Information collected by station entomologists showed that the increase 

was general in timber-producing and recreation forests alike, and occurred everywhere in California except the northwest. In fact, 1959 was close to a record year 

for insect-caused losses in California’s forests, most likely owing to drought conditions. In terms of volume of timber killed, insect damage was most severe in commercial forests, particularly the mixed-conifer types, but the destruction wrought 

by insects caused much concern in many forested areas managed particularly for 

recreation, such as Yosemite National Park. The western pine beetle, California 

five-spined engraver, California flatheaded borer, lodgepole needle-miner, and 

several other insects all caused damage far above tolerable levels. The sheer number 

and complexity of the problems that needed to be solved made the station’s research 

effort a defensive action. Intensifying its efforts, the station turned decidedly 

from solutions such as different methods of harvesting timber,67 to focus research 

almost solely on a stepped-up program of finding better, cheaper, and more effective insecticides. Additionally, administrative changes within the Forest Service in 

1961 resulted in the transfer of pest surveys from all stations to the regional offices. 

Following this action, the California station concentrated its full research program 

entirely on finding effective chemical sprays and employing improved techniques 

for spraying standing infested trees at a lower cost per unit (fig. 78) (USDA FS 

1959a, 1960, 1961). 

Forest Disease Research

Much like forest insect research, cooperative disease control investigations between 

the California Station and the Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, and Agricultural 

67 Cultural practice solutions included timber harvesting methods such as “light cutting” or 

sanitation-salvage logging experiments. Research conducted at BMEF indicated that they 

clearly affected the pattern of insect-caused mortality.

The sheer number 

and complexity of the 

problems that needed 

to be solved made 

the station’s research 

effort a defensive 

action.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Engineering were suspended during World War II. Some research began again 

immediately after the war, and continued on a limited basis until 1954. During 

this period, the station concerned itself with three forest disease research subjects: 

estimating timber loss from cull and rot throughout the state,68 determining the 

deterioration rates for fire-killed timber, and investigating certain trees diseases, 

such as white pine blister rust, the chief disease threat to California’s sugar pine 

forests (USDA FS 1953, 1954a). However, true interest in forest disease research 

was not revived until 1956, when the station created its own forest disease research 

division. This step centralized responsibility for all forest disease research in 

Region 5 to the California Station; an action the Timber Resource Review pointed 

out would make the broadest possible use of a small roster of experienced personnel. In the same action, Region 5 transferred all development of blister rust control 

methods to CFRES69 (USDA FS 1955a, 1956a, 1957).

68 Station scientist James W. Kimmey conducted much of this research (Aitro 1977).

69 The University of California also gave substantial impetus to disease research at this 

time by appointing a forest pathologist to the faculty of the Department of Plant Pathology.

Figure 78—Helicopter spraying forests in early 1970s. 

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
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During the station’s first years of operation, station forest pathologists worked 

together in a coordinated research program. Their first objective was to conduct an 

extensive forest disease survey, an action that served three essential forest managerial needs. This program provided a statewide cooperative service for detecting and 

reporting all types of diseases; it provided case histories on the effectiveness of 

control methods for specific diseases; and it furnished accurate information about 

disease losses. Until this survey, accurate evaluation of forest disease importance 

had been unavailable because of the lack of information on the number, extent, and 

activity of destructive disease agents (USDA FS 1957a). The bad news was that the 

survey found immediate evidence of heavy losses from dwarf mistletoe in red fir 

and sugar pine in some areas, and considerable mortality of Jeffrey and ponderosa 

pine from needle disease in others. On the other hand, there was good news regarding white pine blister rust. Although the disease was building up on sugar pine in 

northern California, it had not found its way farther south than Dodge Ridge in the 

central Sierra. The second objective of the disease research program was control. 

Based on survey information, station pathologists directed the division’s research 

program toward control of dwarf mistletoe70 by chemical sprays, and controlling 

of white blister rust by eradicating Ribes, either by cheap manual methods or by 

herbicides and fungicides. The third objective of the program was fundamental factfinding studies. For instance, station pathologists investigated over-mature timber 

with heart-rotting fungi, which the station estimated accounted for the greatest 

losses in California’s forests.71 Heart rot research addressed the question of how fast 

wood was being lost to decay fungi, and how site and climate affected the rate of 

decay. Such information was important to forest managers, who used it to schedule 

cuttings in present merchantable stands so as to help them reduce future heart rot 

losses. At the same time, station scientists sought effective control of dwarf mistletoe by basic understanding of the biology of the host and parasite, and learning 

about the environmental factors that affected incidence and spread of the pest. Work 

on this project was conducted in close cooperation with the University of California 

Plant Pathology Department at Berkeley and the Botany Department at Davis. The 

station also endeavored to develop blister rust-resistant sugar pines through propagation and testing of individual clones and hybrids at IFG. All in all, by 1962,

70 In 1958, the station estimated that dwarf mistletoe reduced growth in California forests 

by an estimated 153 million board feet of sawtimber each year. At this time, all species of 

California’s pines, true firs, and Douglas-fir were attacked and or damaged or killed by 

dwarf mistletoes, which were widely distributed throughout the region.

71 According to the station annual report for 1955, 80 to 100 billion board feet of timber had 

become unusable because of this rot (USDA FS 1955a).

Accurate evaluation 

of forest disease 

importance had been 

unavailable because

of the lack of information on the number, 

extent, and activity of 

destructive disease 

agents.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

progress was made in two studies of top priority to forest managers—chemical control of white pine blister rust and dwarf mistletoe, and the investigation of growth 

responses to heart rots (USDA FS 1956a, 1957a, 1958a, 1960, 1961).

Wildlife Habitat Research

Although Earle Clapp’s A National Program of Forest Research (1926) stated that 

wildlife research should focus on the place of each species in the forest environment, followed by related research on life habits, it was not until 1953 that the Forest 

Service formally added wildlife habitat research to the agency’s broader research 

program. In keeping with the national program, the California station began its 

own wildlife habitat research program in 1956, when CFRES recognized that the 

ever-increasing pressure of California’s burgeoning population for recreational 

hunting had made efficient management of game refuges a top priority. The station 

also understood that a key problem to understanding forest range resources was 

California’s growing deer population. To meet these challenges, the station began 

new research on game-browse habitat in 1957 (USDA FS 1956a, 1957a), and within 

a year, created a division of range and wildlife habitat research. Wildlife habitat 

research was added to the range division’s mission because a rapidly expanding deer 

population was exerting heavy pressure on most California deer ranges, particularly 

wintering areas. The station, much like California Region 5,72 recognized that wild 

animals and fish were products of suitable habitat, and therefore, the station needed 

to coordinate any major activity like range management with wildlife habitat maintenance. By 1958, the station realized that a majority of the big-game ranges critical for winter survival of deer in California were badly run down. Because they 

produced below their forage potential, these ranges consequently could not maintain 

present high populations of deer, let alone the even higher populations needed for 

the foreseeable future. 

The solution was to develop practical methods for improving depleted ranges 

by seeding browsing plants. With that realization, the California station, in cooperation with the United States Department of Fish and Game, carried out field trials at 

three game-browse areas, the Flukey Spring Game-Browse Area in Modoc County, 

the Doyle Game-Browse Area in Lassen County, and the Buttermilk Game-Browse 

Area in Inyo County. At these three game-browse areas, the station sought ways to 

72 In 1958, Region 5 created a Division of Range and Wildlife Management. Its main objective was to systematically improve range forage to benefit domestic livestock and to create 

habitat for wildlife. By the end of the Eisenhower administration, domestic livestock use 

of national forest ranges in the state appeared in balance with forage supplies, with about 

125,000 head of cattle and 120,000 head of sheep grazing under permit (Godfrey 2005).

The station understood 

that a key problem to 

understanding forest 

range resources was 

California’s growing 

deer population. 
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seed browse species on deteriorated big-game ranges. Testing trials included depth 

and timing of planting, effect of competing vegetation on establishment and growth 

of browse species, and growth habits of bitterbrush strains from different seed 

sources. Another deer habitat study with a view toward integrated natural resource 

management was started in 1959 on an experimental area on the north fork of the 

Yuba River in the Tahoe National Forest. This area represented both winter deer 

ranges in the west-side conifer timber, and summer ranges at higher elevations. 

Studies at this location looked into the effects of logging and the conversion of 

brush to forest on deer habitat, as well as the effects of deer and deer forage plants 

on forest regeneration, growth, and mortality. In 1961, study plots to investigate the 

interrelationships of logging and deer were also established at SMEF for summer 

range, and on the Tahoe National Forest for winter range. Despite these research 

efforts, however, station personnel realized they were just touching the surface of 

how to manage wildlife habitat in the face of increasing deer numbers and demands 

of other uses for the same acres. More research would be required (Godfrey 2005; 

USDA FS 1958b, 1959a, 1960, 1961). 

Forest Recreation Research

As noted in earlier chapters, when the California station was founded, recreation 

research within the Forest Service structure was barely in its infancy, and only 

slowly emerged as a research field. Earle Clapp’s A National Program of Forest 

Research (1926) had provided a brief statement indicating that research could contribute to forest recreation through maintenance of the forest itself. Then, between 

1929 and 1937, E.P. Meinecke of the Bureau of Plant Industry wrote a series of 

publications regarding camp planning, camp construction, and campground policy 

for the Forest Service and California State Park managers. In 1939, Lincoln Ellison, 

from the Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, took up the lead. In 

his article, “Trends of Forest Recreation in the United States” (Ellison 1942), Ellison 

recommended research in campground deterioration, roadside vegetation ecology, 

and recreation economics, but the Forest Service did not act on his recommendations for more than a decade. Fortunately, in the mid-1940s, Verne Harper, then 

Director of the Northeast Forest Experiment Station, advocated a recreation program. In 1957, after Harper became Deputy Chief of Research, he created a division 
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of recreation research.73 Harper assigned Harry W. Camp and well-known wildlife 

biologist Frank C. Craighead to outline research projects and initiate programs in 

the field for the new division. However, in 1959, Craighead was reassigned, and 

Harry Camp became the first head of recreation research (Camp, n.d.).

In the spring of 1959, in line with the national forest program and the 

California Wildland Research Plan, the PSW Research Station developed plans 

for forest recreation research. The station’s recreation program was initially placed 

under the forest economics division headed by John R. McGuire (later Chief of the 

Forest Service). Early recreation researchers included Ernest M. Gould, Jr., Richard 

L. Bury, Arthur W. Magill, and Leslie F. Marcus. Because a reconnaissance of 

campgrounds and picnic areas suggested that ecological studies might help determine recreation site capacity, and help develop site maintenance and improvement 

practices, the station’s staff focused their initial research in those areas. The first 

priority was to develop means for measuring recreation use by defining, recording, 

and evaluating recreation unit use. Other projects investigated factors that affected 

campground carrying capacity. Additionally, researchers learned that poor seeding 

survival and reproduction, decreases in shrubby ground cover, soil compaction, and 

decreased amounts of forest litter affected campsite quality. In addition to studying 

these problems, particular attention was given to the recreation planning process. 

One outcome was the development of the notion of a “recreation complex.” This 

concept focused planners’ attention on the wide variety of recreation activities that 

Californians desired, on the need for flexibility to meet changing preferences, and 

on the importance of the quality of recreation experience. The station presented the 

“recreation complex”—or use of areas for a multiplicity of recreation activities—as 

a planning concept that could be applied at the individual site, the subregion, and 

the regional level. After 1962, the station’s recreation research program broadened 

rapidly as funds and facilities permitted (Aitro 1977; USDA FS 1959a, 1960, 1961).

73 In 1957, recreational management in Region 5 benefited from several events, including 

Operation Outdoors, a 5-year expansion and renovation plan for Forest Service recreation 

facilities. As a consequence, Region 5 hired several recreational professionals and landscape architects to help inventory lands suitable for outdoor recreation use and to prepare 

plans to meet the recreational demands of the future. At the same time, Region 5 requested 

research assistance in formulating management plans for the High Sierra Wilderness and 

in completing a national forest recreation survey. Region 5’s goal was to define optimum 

patterns of use without disturbing wilderness characteristics. In the same year, California 

also adopted a law calling for a statewide study to document what the state had in outdoor 

recreation resources, what they needed in the future, and to coordinate recreation development on a statewide basis (Camp, n.d.; Godfrey 2005).

The first priority was 

to develop means for 

measuring recreation 

use by defining, 

recording, and 

evaluating recreation 

unit use.
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Research in Hawaii

In the mid-1950s, Hawaii was experiencing a rapid growth in population, much 

like California. Consequently, demand for wood grew in the Hawaiian Islands. With 

a land area of more than 4 million acres, the islands had at that time about 2 million 

acres of potentially productive forest lands. For years, the Hawaii Board of Agriculture and Forestry had planted trees throughout the islands to maintain watersheds. Now, they recognized that greater production from their timberland might 

bolster island economies, but they had little information to guide any commercial 

development because the condition of timberlands, and the volume, quality, and 

growth rates of timber stands had never been inventoried. Until 1957, Forest Service contacts with Hawaii forestry officials were rare, but in that year, they asked 

the Forest Service for assistance, and provided funds to the California station to 

conduct the first forest survey of Hawaii. Station Director R. Keith Arnold then 

sent Robert E. Nelson to Hawaii to establish a branch office in Honolulu. Nelson’s 

primary responsibility was to inventory Hawaii’s forest resources as an extension of 

the nationwide FRS. The Hawaiian FRS determined the volume of standing timber, 

annual growth, natural mortality, and rate of cutting on the islands. Begun in 1957, 

the Hawaiian FRS was completed in 1961 with the excellent cooperation of Tom K. 

Tagawa, a staff forester for the Hawaiian Division of Forestry, who helped plan and 

conduct the detailed work of inventorying Hawaii’s forest resource. However, the 

results were not published until 1963 (Aitro 1977; Camp 2006; Nelson 1989; USDA 

FS 1957a, 1961).

Beyond the forest inventory, Robert Nelson was also asked to provide technical assistance to the territory on particular forestry matters and to look at Hawaii’s 

research needs, and recommend a plan of action. Program support for Nelson’s 

activities came from the Hawaii Board of Agriculture and Forestry through its 

Division of Forestry, which provided an office and related facilities and services 

to the station (Nelson 1989, USDA FS 1957a). Meanwhile, in 1959—the same year 

Hawaii became a state—the station’s administrative boundary was extended to 

include Hawaii. This action allowed the PSW Research Station to send Walter S. 

Hopkins, watershed division head, to review Hawaii’s watershed characteristics 

and problems, as well as the state’s watershed research needs and opportunities. 

Hawaii’s increasing population meant a rising demand for water, again paralleling 

the California experience. Because almost all of Hawaii’s rainfall fell on its porous 

upper mountain watersheds and was then pumped from springs at lower elevations, 

one of the first PSW Research Station projects was to determine which soils, forest 

cover types, and forest management measures were hospitable to rapid infiltration 
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

and percolation into underground water sources. To this end, research forester Paul 

Duffy completed an analysis of Hawaii’s watershed management problems in 1960. 

Additionally, two station studies of Hawaii forest soils, started around the same 

time in cooperation with the Army Corps of Engineers, revealed interesting information on infiltration and percolation rates and the bearing capacity of Hawaii’s 

forest soils (Nelson 1989, USDA FS 1959a, 1960). 

Besides watershed management, the PSW Research Station studied timber 

management issues and the possibilities and problems of developing a Hawaii forest 

products industry. Under the leadership of Forest Utilization Service head L.N. 

Ericksen, Gerald D. Pickford and Russell K. LeBaron completed several needed 

timber production investigations. The first study evaluated tree nursery sites on the 

islands of Maui and Hawaii, and led to plans to develop a centralized, mechanized, 

mass production nursery facility. The second study considered the growth and 

adaptability of certain introduced tree plantations on the Big Island. Results of this 

later study amazed mainland foresters because planted timber stands were found to 

contain 130,000 board feet per acre—the most productive forest land in the United 

States at the time. Subsequently, the California station surveyed wood quality requirements in Hawaii. The PSW Research Station staff found that although strength 

properties for wood construction and fabrication differed little from other parts of 

the world, Hawaiian use requirements were quite different. In Hawaii, house construction methods placed a premium on lumber appearance, resistance to decay and 

insect attack was critical, and shrinking and swelling as construction factors were 

less critical because of the mild climate. In addition to these studies, the station, in 

cooperation with the FPL, investigated other forest products utilization subjects, 

such as sawmill practices and the application of grading to Hawaii-grown woods. 

One important joint PSW Research Station-FPL study described the quality and 

yield of lumber from Robusta eucalyptus, which harkened back to the days of the 

“eucalyptus boom” in California in the early part of the century. Finally, in 1960, 

the PSW Research Station assigned Roger Skolmen, a research forester with special 

training and experience in wood technology, to Hawaii to accelerate forest products 

research. Skolmen became a highly valued forestry scientist in Hawaii, and during 

his tenure there (1961-77), published many important reports describing Hawaii 

forestry conditions and problems (Aitro 1977; Nelson 1989; USDA FS 1957a, 1959a, 

1960, 1961). 

In addition to forest resource inventory, watershed management, and forest 

products research, the PSW Research Station oversaw federal cost-sharing technical assistance programs in Hawaii, including fire control and forest nursery work. 

Total federal funds granted to Hawaii for these programs was less than $10,000 

Results of this later 

study amazed mainland 

foresters because 

planted timber stands 

were found to contain 

130,000 board feet 

per acre—the most 

productive forest land 

in the United States at 

the time.
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annually, but after 1957, the station reviewed past and present technical assistance 

in cooperative fire protection, and cooperative forest tree seedling production. New 

initiatives were rapidly developed for improving upon them, and funding increased. 

The Forest Service eventually helped the Hawaiian Division of Forestry develop 

a standard of fire protection—prevention, presuppression, and suppression—that 

curbed annual area burned to less than 0.1 percent of the area protected. This was 

a national standard at the time. To study island forest nursery practices, the PSW 

Research Station detailed Floyd Cossitt to Hawaii in 1960. Based on Cossitt’s recommendations (Cossitt 1960), the Division of Forestry established a centralized 

nursery at Kamuela on the island of Hawaii. By 1962, the Kamuela Nursery began 

providing Hawaii’s Division of Forestry with large quantities of tree seedlings for 

the state’s greatly increasing reforestation programs. The nursery was supported by 

federal funds earmarked for producing and planting forest trees on state or private 

lands (Nelson 1989).

In retrospect, the years 1957 to 1962 were formative years for the expansion of 

California/PSW Station programs in Hawaii. By 1962, the station’s official research 

study boundary had not only been expanded to include Hawaii, but important progress was made in developing new information in several research disciplines. The 

future promised expanded research studies pertaining to Hawaii’s forest economics 

problems.

Silent Spring

While station scientists from the late 1940s to the early 1960s busied themselves in 

their research and field laboratories trying to meet California’s and then Hawaii’s 

forestry needs, discontent over the declining quality of the environment mounted. 

Part of the leisure California lifestyle that emerged following World War II included 

outdoor recreation, and the state’s recreation industry blossomed with a whole range 

of activities including skiing, surfing, boating, hiking, and camping. But as people 

went outdoors, they increasingly witnessed a worsening degradation of California’s 

air, water, and other natural resources. All of the causes that would drive the environmental movement of the early 1960s and 1970s—the pollution of air and water, 

the mistreatment of forests, and the attrition of undeveloped areas and parklands 

by uncontrolled urban development—appeared as early as 1955. As Californians 

began to experience smog that irritated eyes, noses, and throats; as Californians 

witnessed factories, cities, towns, and farms pumping toxic effluents, deadly 

poisons, and raw sewage into the state’s rivers, streams, and bays and into the 

Pacific Ocean; as Californians watched incredulously at the rate that open space, 

coastline, and farmland disappeared to urban sprawl; and as Californians observed 
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

freeways bisect and then trisect neighborhoods into smaller pieces, they became 

overwhelmed with worry. In 1962, Rachel Carson’s (fig. 79) eye-opening and 

enormously popular book, Silent Spring (Carson 1962), warned of the impact of 

chemicals on the environment, and for the first time alerted Americans of threats to 

their environment (Godfrey 2005). Carson’s Silent Spring provided “a convenient 

starting point for the environmental movement,” which went “beyond the conservationist goal of prudent husbanding of natural resources to include quality of life and 

to place value on things that the marketplace had yet to recognize” (Steen 1998). As 

will be seen in the next chapter, with the aid of McIntire-Stennis funds, research 

at the PSW Research Station in the decades ahead would move toward universitybased forestry and reflect this growing environmental awareness.

Figure 79—Marine biologist, writer, and ecologist Rachel 

Carson, whose notable book Silent Spring (1962) brought 

environmental concerns to the attention of the American 

public.

 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
This Page Left Blank Intentionally
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Chapter 7: 1963–1979, Environmental 

Forestry Research

Following the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring,

1

 the Nation—and 

California in particular—embraced a new ethic of environmental protection. The 

transition from conservation principles to environmentalism was a significant leap 

for many Forest Service leaders, but by this date, many Californians had already 

noticed that rampant and unplanned growth and overdevelopment had caused enormous strains on California’s finite resources of air, water, forests, and wilderness. 

In his book, The Destruction of California (Dassman 1973), biologist Raymond F. 

Dassman wrote: 

After several decades of post-World War II boom most of California’s 

remaining resources—forests, petroleum, and natural gas, farmland, 

scenery, open space, water, and even the air itself—approached exhaustion. 

Like the overused older states to the east, much of the state was congested, 

littered, polluted, and disfigured. Californians were destroying the unique 

natural heritage that had contributed so much of their success. Smog, traffic 

jams, urban sprawl, overcrowded parks, and polluted water were only the 

most obvious manifestations of profound environmental transformation 

[Rice et al. 1996: 576]. 

Dassman went on to lament that greed and ignorance had turned California 

into the “not so golden state.” His comments were typical of a new environmental 

movement that “emphasized the interrelationships of nature’s parts, the importance 

of protecting all species to maintain genetic diversity, and the capacity for humaninduced environmental changes to spread dangerously in many directions.” Many 

believed that civilization could not survive unless harmony was reestablished 

between people and the environment. This reassessment called into “question conventional forms of technological progress, as well as practices in water development, land use, and wildlife management that conservationists once condoned.” 

Conservation was evolving into modern environmentalism, which emphasized 

“preservation of the environment as a whole and criticized unrestrained economic 

and technological growth” (Rice et al. 1996: 600–602). This was at odds with the 

traditional conservationism of most Forest Service leaders of the time, who believed 

1

 When asked about the impact of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, PSW Research Station 

Director R. Keith Arnold stated: “We got quite an impact on it because the lake one hundred miles north of Berkeley was her observation area. It gave more weight to ecological 

research certainly, but I can’t recall that it caused much immediate change” (Steen 1994).
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in the Progressive’s “gospel of efficiency” of Gifford Pinchot’s day. This belief that 

resources should be exploited and that the Forest Service unilaterally knew what 

was best for the public good no longer worked. The Pacific Southwest (PSW) 

Research Station would soon fall in line with the nascent environmental movement, 

but first had to undergo some administrative changes (Godfrey 2005). 

Harper-Jemison Legacy

In the spring of 1963, Deputy Chief of Research V.L. Harper and Associate Deputy 

Chief John R. McGuire conducted the first General Research Inspection (GRI) of 

the PSW Research Station. The major purpose of the GRI was to cover the areas not 

included in either the General Functional Inspection (GFI) by the Washington office 

(WO) Research Division directors or in the General Integrated Inspection (GII) by 

the deputy chief and the chief inspector. The periodic GFI reviewed activities in 

a single divisional research field (e.g., information and education), while the GII 

looked into policy matters of servicewide importance, major regional problems, and 

overall in-service and external relationships. Neither the GFI nor the GII were concerned very deeply with such station matters as program formulation and balance, 

coordination of research activities, and details of research operation and program 

administration. The GRI bridged this gap (Harper and McGuire 1963). 

The Harper-McGuire GRI pointed out several overall problems at the PSW 

Research Station. First, the report noted that three areas of research—timber management, watershed management, and forest fire research—received about 60 percent of the total research funding at the station. In their opinion, research programs, 

such as insects, disease, engineering, recreation, forest products, marketing, and 

redwood (see “Scientific and Common Names” section) silviculture, were not 

funded adequately. Harper and McGuire recognized this deficiency and promised 

special attention to finding more funding for these programs—a promise that the 

WO fulfilled soon thereafter. Second, Harper and McGuire observed that particular 

projects seemed to have only broadly stated goals, not clear achievable objectives, 

so they recommended that all project objectives be sharpened and prioritized. 

Third, relating to the previous concerns, Harper and McGuire believed that the station needed better control on individual assignments. They therefore suggested that 

the station discontinue assigning individual research personnel to more than one 

project. Fourth, the GRI thought that the station’s research program was too spread 

out over many small projects. Finally, Harper and McGuire questioned whether or 

not the station was too dependent on cooperative funding for much of its research 

(Harper and McGuire 1963).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

On the other hand, many aspects of the station’s program favorably impressed 

the inspectors. The station had handled the reorganization of research that came in 

1960–1961 very well. They acknowledged the accomplishments of the Institute of 

Forest Genetics (IFG), particularly the hybridization work that resulted in producing 

two key hybrids (knobcone-Monterey and Jeffrey-Coulter) on a large enough scale 

in California for immediate planting in national forests. The station’s range management research program at the San Joaquin Experimental Range (SJER) had been 

successfully reoriented, and a complex and difficult problem in external relations 

with the University of California had been overcome there with a new cooperative 

agreement. Overall, they noted that the PSW Research Station had done an excellent job of training professionals, but especially commended the advanced training 

done in forest insect research, where five of the seven younger entomologists had, 

or would receive, their Ph.D.s since joining the station. Finally, they praised the 

emergency research program following the fire at the San Dimas Experimental 

Forest (SDEF). In a very short time after the disaster, the station’s entire research 

program at SDEF was redirected, and a new and effective program was installed to 

take advantage of the postfire situation (Harper and McGuire 1963). 

The Harper-McGuire GRI thereafter turned to specific recommendations for 

each research program, but emphasized research facility expansion. They suggested that the station strengthen its redwood-Douglas-fir work and move it to 

the campus of Humboldt State College at Arcata in northern California. In May 

1963, Humboldt State College had made available a plot of land near the college’s 

forestry building, which was highly suitable for a redwoods laboratory, but a new 

redwood laboratory would not be built there for more than a decade2 (fig. 80). By 

comparison, the Harper-McGuire GRI advocated consolidating all project scientists 

involved in ponderosa pine and mixed conifers research at a new headquarters at 

Redding, in north-central California.3

 This priority suggestion was acted upon in 

1964, when the Redding Silviculture Laboratory was built on the outskirts of 

Redding. The laboratory was co-located with the Shasta-Trinity National Forest 

2

 Planning for a Forest Service building on the campus of Humboldt College began in 1973, 

but construction did not begin until 1975. A year later the Redwood Sciences Laboratory 

would be dedicated. The new laboratory contained about 15,000 square feet of office and 

laboratory space, including a library, conference room, and data processing area, and 

the building harmonized with its surroundings. The two-story building houses research 

hydrologists, geologists, wildlife and fisheries biologists, plant ecologists, biometricians, 

research technicians, and support personnel who are conducting watershed, wildlife, and 

fisheries research applicable to the Pacific Northwest from Alaska to California.

3

 Although Redding is a principal center for the lumber industry in the non magnesium 

coastal part of northern California, it was a considerable distance from any of the experiment stations. Consequently, scientists incurred considerable travel expenses for most 

fieldwork (Gordon 1982).

Overall, the PSW 

Research Station had 

done an excellent job of 

training professionals.
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Figure 80—Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park in Humboldt County, California, created in 

the 1920s as a coastal sanctuary for old-growth coast redwood trees.

Redwood Empire Association

supervisor’s office, in the heart of northern California’s forest industry. From here, 

the research unit continued the heritage of silviculture research begun by scientists 

at the station’s headquarters dating back to the 1930s, although not without some 

problems. Finally, the Harper-McGuire GRI recommended that the station give up 

the office it maintained in Fresno. Research had first begun in Fresno about 1934, 

but at the time of the GRI, the research program at Fresno was minimal, with most 

of it being conducted at SJER. Its limited use made their suggestion logical, but as 

time progressed, this recommendation was nullified by further changes in research 

priorities4

 (Gordon 1982, Harper and McGuire 1963).

4

 In 1970, rangeland research gained momentum when wildlife scientists were added to 

the range scientists at this location. This move was precipitated by a statewide concern 

over declining populations of mule deer in California. In 1976, research on threatened and 

endangered species was added to the responsibilities of the San Joaquin Experimental 

Range. Soon it was determined that a new laboratory was required and most logically 

located at Fresno, in cooperation with the university there. Then, in 1979, the Forestry 

Sciences Laboratory was dedicated on a 10-acre site on the north campus of California 

State University at Fresno to hold a complex of offices, research laboratories, and computer 

facilities.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Meanwhile, in 1965, Les Harper retired, just after the dedication of the Redding Silviculture Laboratory. George Jemison, who had been associate deputy chief 

under Harper, moved to the top research spot, and it fell to Jemison to deal with the 

early years of the environmental movement sweeping the Nation. One small step 

forward came in 1967, when the heading “Environmental Forestry Research” appeared in the Forest Service’s annual report. Under this heading, the annual report 

discussed the need to research air pollution and its effect on tree mortality. In only 

a few years, cleaner air and other environmental issues, such as water quality, were 

being investigated on a broader basis (Steen 1998). Of course, clean air and water 

quality were major California concerns, and the outcry there against smog and 

water pollution grew ever more strident in the 1960s5 (Godfrey 2005). 

In the meantime, Jemison significantly changed the Forest Service’s research 

organization. First, wildlife research, which studied habitat,6 was joined administratively with range research. This action stemmed from the manager’s traditional 

need to balance forage requirements between domestic livestock and big game. 

Also, fire research—largely a physical science—was conjoined for a few years with 

insect and disease research to become “protection research.” Of course, through the 

years, combinations such as these were adjusted in accord with shifts of emphasis 

and changes in Forest Service leadership. In the budget area, Jemison was able to 

take advantage of the momentum that he and Harper had built up in Congress. In 

1965, the year Jemison took over, the Forest Service research budget was $31 million. By the time Jemison retired in 1969, it had risen to $40.7 million. This growth 

was especially noticeable in the construction of experiment stations and laboratories, which the PSW Research Station took full advantage of, and was reminiscent 

of the growth in research facilities under Earle Clapp (Steen 1994, 1998).

5

 By this time, automobile traffic and other polluters belched more than 12,500 tons of 

petroleum-based contaminants a day into the air above Los Angeles, making it the smog 

capital of the state if not the country. Until that time, state agencies had relied on voluntary 

compliance by local governments, companies, and individuals as a means to keep pollution 

down. Eventually, some progress was made on muzzling stationary polluters, but the automobile situation was not addressed until 1960 when the California legislature passed the 

Nation’s first law establishing air-quality standards for vehicles sold in the state after 1966. 

Soon thereafter, because it was a national and not just a state problem, California pressed 

Congress to enact air-pollution legislation. Congress took action and passed the Clean Air 

Acts of 1967 and 1970, both based on California’s smog control experience. Water pollution 

control efforts in California followed a similar pattern. For decades, local governments, 

farmers, industries, and individual households casually released a variety of chemicals and 

pollutants into nearby streams and onto the ground, including sewage, fertilizers, toxic 

pesticides, and solvents. In the 1960s, California established the Water Resources Control 

Board, which established minimum water-quality standards, required regions to develop 

implementation plans and to set up enforcement agencies, and allocated federal and state 

funds for local water purification (Godfrey 2005).

6

 The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Interior Department studied the actual animals 

themselves.

Jemison significantly 

changed the Forest 

Service’s research 

organization. 
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However, unlike the Earle Clapp years, which pioneered basic forestry research, 

the Harper-Jemison legacy was one of broad policy decisions that strengthened 

Forest Service research organizations by giving scientists more opportunity to pursue their interests, while removing administrative responsibilities. Harper and his 

associate Jemison both believed that the scientist on the project level should be the 

key person in research. Under their leadership and with their encouragement, Forest 

Service research went from a research center organization to one dominated by the 

project concept. This reorganization streamlined administration and put more 

emphasis on science and the individual project leader, helping the program obtain 

funding from Congress, and attracting scientists to the Forest Service (Steen 1994). 

In California, John R. McGuire,7 one of the authors of the Harper-McGuire 

GRI, headed the PSW Research Station, becoming its sixth director (fig. 81). He 

assumed the directorship during the last years of the Harper administration (1963–

1965), and was at the PSW Research Station for most of the Jemison era (1965–

1969). During his tenure at the station, McGuire followed Harper and Jemison’s 

prescription of giving advice and encouragement to individual scientists on the 

project level (Steen 1994). In fact, for the first time, PSW Research Station annual 

reports not only listed and summarized current investigations,8 but also attached 

the names of responsible scientists and their most recent publications alongside the 

progress report for each Station research project (USDA FS 1963, 1964a). 

Administrative changes, large and small, occurred as well. For instance, by 

1965, the station had been fully reorganized under four assistant directors, which 

took the day-to-day administrative responsibilities away from individual scientists 

to give them more time for research. Additionally, the research team working on 

remote sensing of the forest environment moved from Beltsville, Maryland, to 

Berkeley (USDA FS 1965b). Station Director McGuire also closed the Susanville 

Research Center in early 1965. Most of its researchers had moved to the newly 

7

 John R. McGuire earned his M.F. degree from Yale University in 1941 and worked at the 

Northeastern Forest Experiment Station at New Haven. After serving in World War II in 

the Pacific, McGuire returned to the New Haven Station, but in 1950 moved to a research 

station at Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, while completing his M.A. in economics at the 

University of Pennsylvania. In 1963, he became the Director of the PSW Research Station, 

and in 1967 moved to the Washington, D.C., research office. In 1971, he was chosen as 

Chief during a time of increasing environmental awareness by the public.

8

 One unusual subject that McGuire and his staff dealt with in the early 1960s was the 

possibility of nuclear attack at the height of the Cuban missile crisis. To this end, McGuire, 

along with Region 5 Forester Charles Connaughton, developed a “War Disaster Plan.” It 

was premised on the possible occurrence of widespread and severe destruction to the Bay 

Area with little or no advance warning, and assumed that continued occupancy would be 

impossible (USDA FS 1964b).

One unusual subject in 

the early 1960s was the 

possibility of nuclear 

attack at the height 

of the Cuban missile 

crisis.
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established Redding Silviculture Laboratory, which was in line with a new “official” philosophy to get researchers “out of the boondocks and into university centers 

where they have good access to computers and can commiserate with their colleagues” (Gordon 1982). 

Station Director McGuire also took a number of actions to improve communications between research scientists and the people who used the station’s research 

results. These included Region 5 forest managers, members of the scientific community, practicing “on-the-ground” professionals in all kinds of disciplines, and the 

general public (Vitas 1966). One action was the August 1966 inauguration of the 

station publication What’s New in Research, a monthly news bulletin that provided 

the scientific community and the general public with articles and photographs of 

topical interest related to PSW Research Station research, such as DDT use,9 or 

adapting army night flight helicopter technology to fighting fires. Early issues also 

provided station personnel with news and abstracts of recent publications, as well 

as briefings on research conducted at other experimental stations nationwide (PSW 

1966a, 1966b). Some of the changes made by McGuire to improve station communications were suggested by an Informational and Education GFI conducted by 

George Vitas in 1966 (Vitas 1966). In the end, during McGuire’s tenure, it became 

possible through increased funding to employ more people trained in fields other 

9

 By 1965, the use of DDT became a controversial topic at annual insect field meetings in 

California (Hall et al., n.d.).

Figure 81—John R. McGuire, sixth Director of the Pacific 

Southwest Research Station, 1963–1967, and Chief of the 

Forest Service (1972–1979) during implementation of the 

Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Act (1978) 

and the National Forest Management Act (1976). U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
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than the traditional forestry research disciplines. Consequently according to 

McGuire, “the benefits of rubbing up against ‘alien’ ideas were becoming apparent.” It was also a time when the station started to decentralize administratively, 

as some of the assistant directors moved out of Berkeley to other station facilities 

(PSW 1990j). 

Research and the Environment

In March 1967, McGuire moved on to Washington to work in the research office 

as Deputy Chief of the Forest Service in charge of programs and legislation,10 and 

the next month, Robert D. McCulley (1967–1971)11 was appointed to replace him 

at the Berkeley facility,12 becoming the station’s seventh director (fig. 82). Station 

Director McCulley, “one of those crusty guys that would challenge the hell out 

of you,” guided the PSW Research Station during the early years of the environmental decade (Steen 1994: 222; USDA FS 1967). Many critical issues confronted 

McCulley upon taking office, including legislation that mandated environmental 

planning and management, such as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) 

of 1969, and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) of 1970. In this new 

era, conservation needed to work with environmentalism, for following the passage 

of NEPA, the Nixon administration declared that the 1970s would be an environmental decade, called for the Nation to begin to repair the damage done to the 

Nation’s air, land and water, and pledged a “New American Experience” that 

included more government responsiveness to citizen’s needs (Godfrey 2005).

10 Many years later, McGuire remembered that his tour as station director was like “a bed 

of roses” compared to some of his later positions with the Forest Service. He recalled that 

much attention was paid to strengthening PSW ties with the rest of the Forest Service, the 

state, the University of California, and some state colleges. He also recalled that it was a 

time of rapid change in providing library and other information services and in the use 

of computers—even taking a week-long course himself in computer programming (PSW 

1990j).

11 Robert McCulley began his Forest Service career in 1937 on the Sierra National Forest 

in California after receiving a B.S. in forestry from the University of California, Berkeley. 

After a variety of short-term assignments, McCulley spent 6 years at Lake City, Florida, 

conducting silvicultural research on longleaf and slash pine; six years at Franklin, Virginia, 

assigned to silvicultural research in loblolly pine and hardwood forests; and 10 years at the 

North Central Station in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he was chief of the division of timber 

management research. Before coming to the PSW Research Station, he was assistant to 

the deputy chief for research in the Washington Office, and succeeded John R. McGuire 

(McCulley, n.d.).

12 At this time, the experimental station’s headquarters, laboratories, data processing 

center, and offices were still in the Stead Building at 1960 Addison Street. The station also 

rented space in the Mercantile Building two blocks away (Harper and McGuire 1963), but 

by 1967, these arrangements were deemed unsuitable, so the station expanded again and 

took offices in the Koerber Building located at 2054 University Avenue (USDA FS 1967).

It was a time when 

the station started 

to decentralize 

administratively.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 82—Robert D. McCulley, seventh 

Director of the Pacific Southwest Research 

Station, 1967–1971. He oversaw the station's 

implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and the California 

Environmental Quality Act of 1970 in 

California. U.S. Forest Service, Pacific South- west Research Station

During these years, former California Station Director R. Keith Arnold13 replaced 

George Jemison as deputy chief of research. Arnold, who served in that post 

from 1969 to 1973, bristled with imaginative ideas, and was widely considered an 

innovator (Steen 1994). In response to the president’s new direction, Chief Forester 

Edward P. Cliff issued Framework for the Future: Forest Service Objectives and 

Policy Guides (USDA FS 1970), which recognized that many Forest Service programs were not addressing the public’s environmental concerns (Godfrey 2005) and 

promised that the Forest Service would develop and make available a firm scientific 

base for the advancement of forestry. With input from Arnold,14 Framework for 

the Future stated six specific research policy goals: to conduct research needed 

to insure the rapid and efficient advancement of programs aimed at obtaining 

optimum benefits from forest resource management, protection, and utilization; to 

promote forestry through cooperative programs with educational institutions and 

13 R. Keith Arnold was recruited for the deputy chief of research position from the University of Michigan, where he had been dean of the School of Natural Resources. There he 

had been criticized for dismantling the hard, discipline-oriented program and substituting 

“some fuzzy environmental stuff” (Steen 1994).

14 A year earlier, Arnold ambitiously issued Forest Service Research Program for the 

Seventies, a 250-page document. Based on major research accomplishments of the 1960s, 

the preface written by Arnold foresaw many important developments in forestry research 

for the coming decade (USDA FS 1969a).
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other public and private organizations; to make research results rapidly and equally 

available to all through information, education, demonstration, and technical 

assistance; to foster relationships between research scientists and forest managers 

that facilitate joint implementation of research results; to support professional and 

vocational education in forestry and related disciplines; and to support professional 

societies in forestry and those related to forestry (USDA FS 1970a). Naturally, given 

Keith Arnold’s personality, his goal was “to move forestry research to the cutting 

edge of environmental policy,” and stressed to his station directors the necessity 

of increasing “their concern about the environment and how it impacted forests” 

(Steen 1994, 1998). 

Meanwhile, in his first year as PSW Research station director, Robert 

McCulley expected that forestry research would increasingly be directed toward 

creating a better habitat for people concerned with environmental quality, and 

acknowledged the pressures and problems being created in California and Hawaii 

by population growth. The station’s 1967 annual report touched upon the urban 

influences that were damaging forests, and suggested the station bring urban 

forestry to California’s cities.15 One example of the need was that in the Los 

Angeles Basin, smog blown up and out of the valley into the mountains was killing ponderosa pines around scenic Lake Arrowhead. Also, people were moving 

their homes farther out into the steep, brush-covered hillsides, creating fire control 

problems worse than any ever known in the past while reducing watershed values 

through erosion or pollution. But McCulley optimistically felt that through research 

and good land management, adverse land impacts such as these could be reduced. 

Station scientists were directed to explore ways to develop less persistent insecticides, to find smog-resistant trees, to create more attractive ways to landscape, 

to plan better development of the countryside, to lessen sediment in streams, to 

improve fire protection, and in general, to improve the productivity of forest lands 

while maintaining environmental quality (USDA FS 1968c).

In the meantime, a GII of Region 5 and the station confronted Station Director 

McCulley, who had been in his position for less than a year. Deputy Chief E.M. 

Bacon and general inspector H.E. Howard conducted the 1968 GII whose itinerary 

included the Berkeley facility, as well as the new Redding Silviculture Laboratory, 

the Riverside Fire Laboratory, the SDEF watershed laboratory at Glendora, and the 

IFG at Placerville. The 1968 GII discussed programs in Hawaii, but that state was 

not included in the itinerary (USDA FS 1968e). The Bacon-Howard GII both

15 By the late 1960s, an urban forestry movement had begun in the United States as people 

realized that their cities were becoming more and more vulnerable to pollution and to 

destruction of natural beauty. Urban forestry research aims were to establish, maintain, and 

grow trees that would improve living in urban situations (Doolittle 1969).

Forestry research 

would increasingly 

be directed toward 

creating a better 

habitat for people 

concerned with 

environmental quality. 
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

applauded the station’s achievements and made particular recommendations for 

improving the station’s programs. It praised the station for its success in expanding scientific investigations through cooperative funding, its good relations with 

University of California officials at Berkeley and Riverside, its equal employment 

opportunity program for minorities,16 and its fuelbreak program on the southern 

California national forests, which promised to reduce the number of large fires and 

their associated high costs (fig. 83). 

Although the GII highlighted many areas worthy of commendation at the PSW 

Research Station, it also acknowledged that there were persistent problems in three 

areas: improving social orientation, intensification of ecological technology, and 

adjustment of organizational capabilities. In the tense sociopolitical climate of 1968, 

the Bacon-Howard GII reported that the station, in a joint effort with Region 5, 

should find ways to “tune into” public input in the decisionmaking process, and to 

restructure their advisory committee to be more nearly reflective of a greater range 

of public interests. Regarding ecological technology, the GII was very specific. 

Besides finding a more satisfactory system for gathering and dispensing research 

information, a perennial problem, Bacon and Howard also recommended that the 

station develop a system for identifying and measuring environmental contaminants affecting vegetative growth in California forests, assign higher priority to 

revegetation of exposed soils, accelerate the production of genetically improved tree 

stock and reduce the cost of reforestation in coordination with other resource activities and protection requirements, continue to refine the techniques for type conversion and incorporate aesthetic and ecological considerations into the program, and 

develop reliable guidelines for increasing production of commercial timber from 

California’s second-growth tree species. The GII further recommended that the 

station “revisit” cultural practices such as the use of DDT and other pesticides, 

clearcutting practices, and reforestation of barren areas, taking into account aesthetic and natural values of environmental groups such as the Wilderness Society 

and the Sierra Club. Finally, regarding the adjustment of organizational capabili 

ties, the GII suggested greater attention to the growing gap between research staff 

and forest managers, which widened as more and more research moved from the 

16 In 1968, minorities made up 11.5 percent of the station’s permanent workforce, and the 

search for more people with qualifications for professional positions continued (USDA 

FS 1968e). At this early date, the station began observing Black History Month, and in 

1990, Station Director Ronald Stewart instituted a Hispanic Heritage Month and American 

Indian Heritage Month, the first year that these occasions were celebrated on a national 

basis (PSW 1990a, 1990n).

The station should 

find ways to “tune 

into” public input in 

the decisionmaking 

process, and to 

restructure their 

advisory committee 

to be more nearly 

reflective of a greater 

range of public 

interests.
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Figure 83—The destructive aftermath of fire.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

field to the laboratory and the computer. In other words, station research scientists 

were increasingly being seen as “ivory tower” types whose inherent differences in 

orientation, organization, and interests worked against the free flow of information 

to Region 5 forest managers (USDA FS 1968e).

Station Director McCulley certainly had his hands full following the BaconHoward GII, and the introduction to the PSW Station 1969 annual report entitled 

“A Livable Home for Man” described the weaknesses and strengths of 20th-century 

technology17 (USDA FS 1969b). He acknowledged again the station’s growing 

concerns about the degrading quality of California’s environment, with its growing 

population problems, air and water pollution, noise, scarred natural beauty, disappearing open space, and increased dumping of waste. Thereafter, the station’s

17 The first moon landing was in 1969, and from outer space, evidence of air pollution over 

southern California was quite evident.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

research program shifted to put more emphasis on the interactions among ecological factors, stressing interdisciplinary research to answer these environmental 

problems and manage the land in harmony with nature. Director McCulley pointed 

with pride to one particular project that he felt met these goals. In 1969, the station 

had prepared a landscape analysis of the small town of Nicasio, in Marin County, 

California. The PSW Research Station study, financed in part by an America the 

Beautiful Fund grant and conducted in cooperation with the University of California, resulted in a 50-page report entitled Nicasio: Hidden Valley in Transition

(Twiss et al., n.d.). The Nicasio study considered the major environmental factors 

that might affect future development: geology, climate, vegetation, water, soil, 

wildlife, scenery, and historical and archeological sites. This applied research report 

was the first of its type in the western United States—setting a precedent for future 

NEPA studies nationwide (Aitro 1977, PSW 1968e, USDA FS 1969b)—and was 

indicative of the shifting national emphasis toward applied research that began with 

the election of Richard Nixon as president in 1968.

The shift in attention after World War II from basic or fundamental research 

back to applied research began shortly after Keith Arnold became research chief. 

The change was also furthered by a General Accounting Office (GAO) report, 

which was highly critical of forestry research, stating that it had failed to convert 

research findings to significant field practice. Eventually, the GAO critique found 

expression in the offices of key congressmen, who thereafter advocated applied 

research and technology transfer to private industry. This application emphasis led 

to the placement of an assistant director of planning and application at each experiment station. Robert A. Ralston initially filled that post at the PSW Research Station. Additionally, opposition had also built up against the research center/project 

organization created under Harper and Jemison, which some believed caused Forest 

Service research budgets to grow out of control. By the early 1970s, an in-house 

Forest Service study proposed that the “superheated” Forest Service research 

organization, with its burgeoning personnel and facilities, be scrapped altogether 

and replaced with a much simpler system (Steen 1998, USDA FS 1969b).

In the meantime, in late 1971, Robert McCulley stepped down as station director. Harry W. Camp18 served as acting director until April 1972, (fig. 84) and then 

was appointed director. Camp served in this post until his retirement in December 

1973. By the time Camp assumed the directorship, Forest Service research had 

developed into an organization built around multidiscipline research work units

18 Harry W. Camp had 40 years experience with the Forest Service, and from 1965 until 

1971, he was assistant director of forest products utilization and marketing, economics, and 

recreation research at the Berkeley Station.

The Nicasio study 

considered the major 

environmental factors 

that might affect future 

development: geology, 

climate, vegetation, 

water, soil, wildlife, 

scenery, and historical 

and archeological sites. 
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(RWUs), which differed from the old functional divisions.19 For instance, a hydrologist, an engineer, and a silviculturalist might all work in one place, but each might 

be assigned to a separate RWU. Also, assistant directors had completely replaced 

division chiefs and were responsible for supervising several RWUs. Vern Harper 

initiated this policy in 1960–1961, and George Jemison and Keith Arnold continued 

it. During this transition, an individual scientist’s research program shifted from 

studies that were based upon an organized long-term research program and mainly 

assigned from the WO, to a system whereby individual RWU project leaders decided what aspects of the research program to prioritize, and then channeled their 

studies to those ends. However, this situation sometimes had the unfortunate effect 

of resulting in projects of a personal nature and scientific self-aggrandizement 

(Klade and Lassen 2005). 

19 The older functional divisions were forest management, genetics, economics, forest 

products, range, water, fire, insects, disease, wildlife, and recreation.

Figure 84—Harry W. Camp, eighth Director of the Pacific 

Southwest Research Station, 1971–1973. Camp addressed 

equal employment opportunity issues and the establishment 

of an employee union—the first for the Forest Service.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Individual RWU project 

leaders decided what 

aspects of the research 

program to prioritize.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Harry Camp’s time as the station’s eighth director had relatively little impact on 

forestry research in California, but several important events occurred on his watch. 

First, in 1971, the California station stopped the publication of its annual report. 

In its place, the PSW Research Station launched in 1972 a weekly employee newssheet entitled For Your Information (FYI). For Your Information kept employees 

up to date on station news (hirings, transfers, etc.), and research taking place at 

the Berkeley Station and other PSW Research Station facilities. Second, in the 

fall of 1973, the California station began the publication and printing of Forestry 

Research: What’s New in the West, which was based on its earlier in-house publication What’s New in Research (1966–1973). Forestry Research: What’s New in the 

West featured broader popularized accounts of research programs and covered 

results not just at the PSW Research Station (California, Hawaii, Guam, and 

American Samoa), but at three other western stations—Pacific Northwest (Alaska, 

Oregon, and Washington), Intermountain (Montana, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and part 

of Wyoming), and the Rocky Mountain (North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, 

Kansas, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and part of Wyoming, Oklahoma, and 

Texas). Copies of Forestry Research were distributed by each experiment station, 

and the primary audience for the publication ranged from Forest Service managers 

to employees at the forest ranger district level. Typical Forestry Research issues 

contained a focal article highlighting a particular research area for each station, plus 

a dozen or more brief announcements of publications of direct interest to its readers. 

With few exceptions, public affairs specialists wrote the articles, bridging the gaps 

between typical scientific writing and more easily understandable accounts that 

presented research results. However, scientists always reviewed the pieces to ensure 

accuracy (Klade and Lassen 2005). By 1979, the publication changed its name to 

Forestry Research West, and eventually just to Forestry West. At the PSW Research 

Station, notable public affairs specialists and editors in the late 1970s and 1980s 

included Marcia Wood, John K. McDonald, and Richard B. Pearce.

Another challenge faced by Harry Camp as station director involved the 

development of an employee union, which, according to Camp, was a “first” for the 

Forest Service.20 Just holding the station together during these early organizational 

activities took much of his time (PSW 1990h). 

20 Actually, in California, agitation for better working conditions and salaries in the Forest 

Service went as far back as 1919, when California District 5 faced turbulent employment 

problems as enlisted men returned to the Forest Service seeking their former jobs, and 

Bolshevism threatened to spread among rangers and supervisors. At the time, many of 

these “agitators” were forced out of the agency (Godfrey 2005).
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Finally, equal employment opportunity (EEO) issues were yet another very 

important administrative change that took place during Harry Camp’s time as 

station director. In the early 1970s, many women and minorities in the Forest 

Service began to complain about discrimination in job evaluations, claiming that 

the Forest Service was a “white man’s” organization and that women and minorities 

were not being given equal opportunity for job advancement. This EEO problem 

was exacerbated by the fact that for a long time, women and minorities—particularly women—were discouraged from going into forestry. Women tried to apply 

to forestry schools across the Nation, but they were often flatly turned down, or 

they were accepted into some schools but not allowed into the field once they were 

hired. These complaints came to a head in June 1972, when Gene Bernardi, a Forest 

Service employee at the PSW Research Station, filed a class action suit against the 

Forest Service alleging sex discrimination in both the hiring and the promotional 

practices of the Forest Service. Bernardi alleged that she was denied promotion 

because of her sex and that discrimination on the basis of sex was a common practice in the Forest Service. The lawsuit Gene Bernardi et al. v. Earl Butz was filed 

in federal court under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, the case did not go 

to trial. Instead, in June 1981, the parties negotiated and approved a settlement: the 

Bernardi Consent Decree (No. C- 73-11110 SC) (fig. 85). While denying that any 

of its practices were discriminatory, the Forest Service pledged under the Bernardi 

Consent Decree to strive to eliminate underrepresentation of women within each 

job series and each grade level (Godfrey 2005). 

Meanwhile, in 1973, Deputy Chief of Research Keith Arnold abruptly left the 

Forest Service to accept a position at the University of Texas, and Chief Forester 

McGuire asked M.B. “Dick” Dickerman,21 who had been his associate deputy, to 

take his place. During Dickerman’s short administration (1973–1975), one important research program that emerged was the 3-Bug Program of 1974, which attacked 

the rising insect epidemics that had begun across the country in the late 1960s and 

21 Murlyn Bennet Dickerman earned his master’s degree in forestry from the University of 

California in 1936, joined the Forest Service, and was assigned to the Northeastern Forest 

Experiment Station, where he stayed until 1941. He transferred to the Lake States Forest 

Experiment Station just prior to World War II; and served during the war in Washington, 

D.C., on loan to the War Production Board and Office of Price Administration. In 1947, he 

rejoined the Forest Service and was assigned to the Northern Rocky Mountain Forest and 

Range Experiment Station in Missoula. Dickerman became the station director for the 

Lake States Forest Experiment Station in 1951, but moved to Washington in 1965, where 

he became associate chief for research under George Jemison and Keith Arnold in 1968 

(Steen 1994).

This EEO problem 

was exacerbated 

by the fact that for 

a long time, women 

and minorities—

particularly women—

were discouraged from 

going into forestry.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 85—Signing of consent decree. Front row: Station Director Harry Camp; to his left, Gene 

Bernardi, June 1981.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

early 1970s. With a special appropriation of $6 million, Forest Service experiment 

stations fought the tussock moth in the Northwest, the gypsy moth in the Northeast, 

and the southern pine beetle in the South, using various pesticides not specifically 

banned,22 as well other means, such as biological control of forest insects (Steen 

1994, 1998). 

In 1975, Dick Dickerman retired and Robert E. Buckman23 (fig. 86) replaced 

him as Deputy Chief of Research, a position Buckman held until 1985, as long a 

time as the combined tenure of his three immediate predecessors (Jemison, Arnold, 

and Dickerman). During Buckman’s decade-long tenure, he was responsible for 800 

scientists at 75 laboratories organized into eight experiment stations, as well as the 

22 Before 1972, DDT had been effectively used to control tussock moth outbreaks. 

However, in that year, the Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT use because of 

public outcry against the insecticide and would not grant authority for the Forest Service to 

use it unless the agency met certain stringent conditions, including an accelerated research 

program that included alternatives (Steen 1994).

23 Robert “Bob” E. Buckman was awarded a master’s degree in Forestry in 1953 by the 

University of Minnesota following military service in World War II and Korea. He joined 

the Forest Service in 1955, and earned a Ph.D. in 1959 from the University of Michigan. He 

worked at the Lake States Forest Experiment Station for more than a decade, but in 1965, 

he transferred to Washington, D.C., and eventually succeeded M.B. Dickerman as deputy 

chief for research (Steen 1994).
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Figure 86—Robert E. Buckman, career 

researcher and Deputy Chief for Research 

(1976–1986) whose leadership propelled 

passage of the Forest and Rangeland 

Renewable Resources Research Act of 1978, 

which authorized the Forest Service to 

conduct basic research.

Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) in Madison. Naturally, during his years in the 

post, he also witnessed and was involved in many important events that directly 

affected Forest Service research. Important statutes passed during his time included 

the Forest and Rangeland Resources Planning Act (RPA) of 1974,24 which required 

the Forest Service to make an assessment of natural resource needs every 10 years 

and required research to provide specific information for long-term forest projects; 

24 The Forest and Rangeland Resources Planning Act (RPA) of 1974 required the Forest 

Service to periodically assess the condition and productive capability of all private and 

public forest and rangelands in the United States. Under the RPA, the agency was required 

to prepare a program that defined the share of national needs for goods, services, and 

amenities the Forest Service should provide through its management of national forests, 

state and private cooperative programs, and research. The RPA program also defined 

specific levels of outputs and investments for each of the nine regions of the Forest Service. 

To be sure outputs and investments reflected current needs and capabilities, every 5 years 

the RPA program was reviewed, and every 10 years an RPA assessment was conducted. 

The initial RPA assessment and program were completed in 1975, and the RPA program 

updated in 1980. In developing the national RPA program, the Forest Service sought 

nationwide public involvement to identify major public issues, concerns, and opportunities 

to be addressed and established targeted outputs (Godfrey 2005). Courtesy of the Forest History Society, Durham, NC
341

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) of 1976,25 which called for a comprehensive management plan for each national forest and mandated scientific studies 

on topics such as biological diversity; and most importantly, the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Research Act (F&RRRA) of 1978,26 which updated the 

McSweeney-McNary Forest Research Act of 1928 and complemented RPA. The 

F&RRRA became the Department of Agriculture’s primary authority to conduct 

research activities. The 1978 act granted expansive authority to conduct research 

and technology development on all U.S. lands related to the protection, conservation, and sustainable use of natural resources. The F&RRRA also authorized competitive grants to conduct research and authorized cooperative agreements with 

university, industry, and other partners as needed to complement national program 

needs. Besides giving authority to conduct investigations into five major areas of 

renewable resource research—management, environment, protection, utilization, 

and assessment—the 1978 act expanded research activities to encompass international forestry and natural resource issues on a global scale (Steen 1994, 1998). 

For the remainder of the environmentally conscious 1970s, Robert W. Harris27

25 The NFMA, which amended the RPA, required that individual plans be prepared for the 

management of the land and resources of each national forest, including determination of 

timber harvest levels. In response to NFMA, the Forest Service issued planning regulations on September 17, 1979, that mostly were prepared by a committee of scientists. The 

regulations required that each national forest undergo a long-range planning process with 

mandated public involvement (Godfrey 2005).

26 By 1978, questions regarding the interpretation of the McSweeney-McNary Forest 

Research Act, such as authorization of international forestry, had arisen. The F&RRRA 

was designed to alleviate these problems (Steen 1994).

27 Robert W. Harris began his Forest Service career in 1939, while working for his B.S. 

in forestry degree at the University of Idaho. In 1942, after doing graduate work in forest 

ecology at the State College of Forestry at Syracuse, New York, he entered the military. 

He returned to the Forest Service in 1946 and in 1947 worked in various capacities at the 

Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station in La Grande, Oregon, and then in 

Portland. From 1957 to 1960, he was assistant director of the Division of Range Management in Washington, D.C., in charge of a nationwide program of range allotment and analysis and management planning. From 1960 to 1971, he served as a research administrator for 

range, wildlife, watershed, and recreation programs in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. In 

1971, he became director of the Intermountain Station, where he was a recognized authority on methods of evaluating trends of quality on rangelands (Harris, n.d.). After he left the 

station, Harris became associate deputy chief of research in Washington, D.C., where his 

major activity was coordinating the regional/national planning effort for forestry research. 

His PSW Research Station experience provided significant background for this assignment 

(PSW 1990i).
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and Robert Z. Callaham28 served as PSW Research Station Directors, seeing the 

California station through the turbulent controversies that embroiled the Forest 

Service at that time, such as the criticism leveled at the agency for the quantity 

and quality of timber harvesting in national forests. Harris (fig. 87), who served 

as director for only 2 years (1974–1976), came from the Intermountain Forest and 

Range Experiment Station in Ogden, Utah. As director of the PSW Research Station, Harris was in charge of 30 forestry and range research programs in California 

and Hawaii. Besides dealing with the early years of RPA—to which the station 

contributed through its skill in collecting and interpreting data—Harris oversaw 

several significant scientific developments. One in particular was the 1974 development by the Riverside Fire Laboratory of FIRESCOPE (Firefighting Resources 

of Southern California Organized for Potential Emergencies), a methods and 

vocabulary system for interagency cooperation in fire suppression. FIRESCOPE 

established incident command systems (ICS) that are still in worldwide use today 

to manage situations where groups of people need to work together in complex 

emergency situations, such as fire, floods, and earthquakes (Steen 1998).

One particular challenge that Station Director Harris faced came on the day he 

reported to the station. On that day, three station members presented him with an 

ultimatum and request for management reform based upon observed unequal treatment of people and abuse of administrative practices. Specifics of that challenge 

were sufficient to command Harris’ attention, and during his tenure he took steps 

to correct a class society perception within the station. He and upper administrative 

staff members thereafter took steps to encourage administrative staff and scientific 

support staff to become a more visible part of PSW. In the same vein, Station 

Director Harris began to actively recruit minorities and women for jobs, and many 

minorities and women received their start or advancement in the Forest Service 

during this period (PSW 1990i). 

Robert Callaham (fig. 88) finished out the 1970s as PSW Research Station 

director during President Jimmy Carter’s administration. When Callaham took over 

the station directorship after serving 12 years in the WO, he believed that among 

the eight stations nationwide, the PSW Research Station did not rank as high as he 

had hoped and announced that his main goal was to restore the Berkeley Station to 

national leadership (PSW 1990g). Nonetheless, the energetic Callaham, who spent

28 Station Director Callaham began his career in the Forest Service in 1949 after receiving 

his undergraduate degree in forestry from the University of California (UC). In 1955, he 

earned his doctorate in botany, also at UC, and, except for 2 years spent at the Intermountain Research Station in Spokane (1958–1960), he was at the Berkeley Station. In 1964, 

he was transferred to Washington, D.C. Initially he was assigned as chief of the branch of 

Forest Genetics Research, but eventually served in a number of other assignments before 

becoming an assistant to Deputy Chief of Research Robert Buckman (PSW 1976).

Station Director 

Harris observed 

unequal treatment 

of people and abuse 

of administrative 

practices, and during 

his tenure he took 

steps to correct a class 

society perception 

within the station.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 87—Robert W. Harris, ninth Director 

of the Pacific Southwest Research Station, 

1974–1976. He actively recruited minorities and 

women for station jobs. U.S. Forest Service, Pacific South- west Research Station

Figure 88—Robert Z. Callaham, 10th Director

of the Pacific Southwest Research Station, 1976– 

1983. He served while the station was at the peak 

of its development in terms of personnel numbers 

and facilities. U.S. Forest Service, Pacific South- west Research Station
344

general technical report psw-gtr-233

the early part of his career at the PSW Research Station, was pleased and proud to 

return as director. During the Carter administration, RPA, NFMA, and F&RRRA 

increased funding to the National Forest System (NFS) and gave momentum to the 

Forest Service research program. According to Robert Buckman, the Forest Service 

could not “pull off RPA without very significant research.” The years from 1976 to 

1980 saw budget increases and the first overall growth of Forest Service research 

since the Harper/Jemison days. Fortunately for the Forest Service, Rupert Cutler 

served as assistant secretary of agriculture during this period. Cutler had a keen 

interest in the Forest Service and had a strong environmental orientation (Steen 

1994).

During his first years, despite high inflation and the energy crisis during the 

Carter years, Callaham enjoyed a period very favorable to research. The PSW 

Research Station was at the peak of its development in terms of personnel numbers 

and facilities. In contrast to its initial modest quarters in Hilgard Hall in 1926, 50 

years later the station maintained modern research centers in strategic locations in 

California and Hawaii. Facilities in northern California included the headquarters 

at Berkeley, which housed not only its administrative offices but laboratories for 

a number of research units; the Institute of Forest Genetics at Placerville (the first 

and oldest such institute in the United States); a unit at the University of California, Davis, for field evaluation of chemical insecticides; the Central Sierra Snow 

Laboratory (CSSL) at Soda Springs; the Redding Silviculture Laboratory, a major 

field unit concerned with silviculture of Sierra Nevada conifers; and the Redwood 

Sciences Laboratory, recently built at Arcata. In southern California, there was a 

field unit at the Fresno Forestry Sciences Laboratory on the campus of California 

State University, conducting environmental research on range-wildlife relationships 

and threatened and endangered species; a unit at Glendora, which studied management of chaparral and related ecosystems; and the Riverside Forest Fire Laboratory. 

Research in Hawaii and the Pacific Basin was centered at the Institute of the Pacific 

Islands Forestry in Honolulu.29 In addition to these facilities, much of the station’s 

research was conducted in a number of outdoor laboratories. These included the 

San Joaquin Experimental Range, a 4,560-acre experimental forest 25 miles north 

of Fresno where grazing systems suited to management of annual-plant ranges in 

the Sierra Nevada foothills were developed, and nine experimental forests, located 

up and down the state. In northern California, there was the Redwood Experimental 

Forest 4 miles north of Klamath in the Six Rivers National Forest, with 935 acres

29 The Waiakea Arboretum on Hawaii State Forest reserves near Hilo, Hawaii, was used 

for silvicultural studies in cooperation with the Hawaii Division of Forestry and the Hawaii 

Department of Social Services (USDA FS 1967).

The PSW Research 

Station was at the peak 

of its development in 

terms of personnel 

numbers and facilities.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

of coast redwood and Douglas-firs, where silvicultural research in those types of 

trees was conducted. At the other end of California, the 12,670-acre North Mountain Experimental Area (NMEA), covered in chaparral, was located 35 miles east 

of Riverside in the San Jacinto Mountains, and was used for forest fire experiments and demonstrations.30 Research was also conducted and carried out through 

cooperative agreement on other federally administered lands, on state lands, and on 

privately owned lands (Aitro 1977, USDA FS 1967). 

Of course, as time passed, and the station’s responsibilities grew, there was a 

commensurate expansion of the station’s staff as well. By 1977, research staff 

included more than 100 scientists, representing more than 20 or more disciplines. 

The diversity of the staff—which included foresters, geneticists, botanists, biologists, plant physiologists, plant pathologists, entomologists, geologists, hydrologists, 

meteorologists, ornithologists, wildlife biologists, range management specialists, 

soil scientists, landscape architects, sociologists, economists, mathematicians, 

operations research analysts, and last but not least, computer specialists—graphically demonstrated the scope of the station’s program. They worked in RWUs, or on 

special research and development programs. About 25 research teams specialized in 

areas such as forest genetics, timber culture and forest management, forest fire and 

related sciences, forest economics, forest insect and disease control, recreation and 

land-use planning, range management, watershed management, wildlife habitat,

30 The North Mountain Experimental Area (NMEA) was established on January 8, 1964, 

when Public Land Order 3221 withdrew land previously administered by the Bureau of 

Land Management, Department of the Interior, from all appropriation under the Public 

Land laws, including mining and mineral leasing laws. Nearly the entire area is covered 

with chaparral, and is representative of low-elevation southern California interior wildlands. No unique or special features are found within the NMEA. Since 1932, nearly all 

of the vegetation on the experimental area has burned. A major fire that year burned over 

80 percent of the area, and the Bailiff Fire in 1967 consumed 60 percent of the NMEA. 

Other fires have swept the area since 1983, with the result that almost the entire acreage 

has been burned at one time or another. Early studies at the NMEA centered on fuelbreaks 

and fuel properties. Plant control research was conducted in two main categories: (1) the 

eradication of either selective brush plants or all vegetation, and (2) the reduction of plant 

growth with growth-inhibiting substances. The research centered on the use of herbicides, 

which were believed to give the most effective and economical control of brush regrowth 

in established fuelbreaks. Another project, a study of shrub seed production, dispersal, 

and deposition on chaparral vegetation, was concerned with developing better techniques 

for reducing the volume of hazardous brush fuels. Other studies involved development of 

a low-volume shrub that would slow down or repel fires and the use of sheep to reduce 

fuel volume on fuelbreaks. Studies to determine fuel properties affecting fire behavior of 

chamise and other species were also included. The NMEA was also the site of wind pattern 

investigations, which compared collected wind data with predictions from theoretical 

models of valley convection currents. The remaining seven experimental forests included 

Blacks Mountain (10,332 acres), Challenge (2,250 acres), Onion Creek (2,935 acres), San 

Dimas (17,163 acres), Stanislaus-Tuolumne (1,485 acres), Swain Mountain (6,157 acres), and 

Teakettle Creek (3,200 acres) (USDA FS 1967).
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anadromous fisheries, and threatened and endangered species. Their research was 

evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and paralleled the Nation’s changing concerns for environmental resources (Aitro 1977).

Station Investigations in the Environmental Era

During the period from the publication of Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 to the 

passage of the RPA in 1978, the California Station had five station directors.31

Additionally, its research program transitioned from one divided into distinct “traditional” functional divisions (e.g., forest management, genetics, economics, forest 

products, range, water, fire, insect, disease, wildlife, and recreation) to a program 

based upon interdisciplinary RWUs that addressed critical problems such as smog 

or erosion. 

Following the publication of Silent Spring, the evaluation of chemicals for the 

control of forest insects was an important research topic. Chemical insecticides had 

been used for many years to protect forests against destructive insect pests, but station scientists had long recognized that these uses could affect organisms other than 

the target insect, thus disrupting biological systems in ways that were only partially 

understood. The California station, like other Forest Service experiment stations in 

the post-Silent Spring years, therefore turned its research to the biology, ecology, 

and control of insects, while conducting a comprehensive investigation of chemicals 

already used to control pests. By 1965, nine lines of investigation were underway, 

targeting defoliators such as the Douglas-fir tussock moth, and the spruce budworm 

(the most widely distributed and destructive defoliator in North America). The 

station’s interdisciplinary, multifaceted insect research program included entomology, chemistry, toxicology studies, spray physics and formulation, plant and insect 

biochemistry, field operations, equipment development, biostatistics, and ecological 

studies. The California station’s ultimate goal was to develop a control strategy that 

minimized damage to the forest—one designed to provide land managers with a 

wider choice of approaches to the problem (USDA FS 1965a). 

A successful insect control strategy however did not mean total reliance 

on chemicals. It also included biological and silvicultural control methods— 

such as sanitation-salvage logging, which was widely used against the western 

pine beetle—to provide ways to check losses. Other approaches to insect control 

31 They were John R. McGuire (1963–1967), Robert D. McCulley (1967–1971), Harry W. 

Camp (1971–1973), Robert W. Harris (1974–1976), and Robert Z. Callaham (1976–1983).

The California station 

turned its research to 

the biology, ecology, 

and control of insects, 

while conducting 

a comprehensive 

investigation of 

chemicals already

used to control pests.
347

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

included virus and bacterial treatments32 and sex attractants, as investigations 

sought to find substitutes for DDT and other insecticides for use against forest 

defoliators. For instance, in 1964, the PSW Research Station began an enhanced 

research program in insecticide evaluation. Under the direction of Arthur D. Moore, 

its goal was to develop safer chemical and other treatments for forest insect control. 

Staff assigned to the team included entomologists, chemists, a plant physiologist, an 

insect biochemist, an ecologist, plus laboratory technicians and other specialists. In 

1966, noted organic chemist Julius Hyman33 joined the Berkeley group as an advisor and leased his laboratories for much of the work on the development of Dow 

Chemical’s Zectran, a nonpersistent carbamate insecticide found to be highly toxic 

and selective against the spruce budworm (PSW 1966b; USDA FS 1966a, 1968c, 

1968d). In the 1960s, Station scientists also conducted research on stabilization of 

the insecticide pyrethrins,34 derived from pyrethrum, a daisy-like flower that was 

grown in China as early as 2,000 years ago (PSW 1972b). Meanwhile, George R. 

Struble, an entomologist with the station since 1931, evaluated biological studies 

and techniques for measuring insect populations, and reviewed chemical control 

methods he had studied at Yosemite National Park, where a needle-miner epidemic 

in 1947 had ravaged 20,000 acres. In this case, malathion proved the most effective 

“stop-gap” measure, but Struble concluded that the best chance for protection in the 

long run was the use of natural enemies of the needle-miner, such as certain parasite species (PSW 1967d). At the same time, plant physiologist Carl E. Crisp, with 

the Berkley insecticide evaluation research team, worked on designing a “systemic” 

insecticide—a highly specialized molecule that could penetrate plant foliage, travel 

inside the plant to where insects were feeding, and then collect in sufficient quantities to kill them (PSW 1968c). Alongside this stealthy “poison pill” approach, 

32 In the mid-1970s, there was hope that micro-organisms would prove to be a safe and 

sound tool for pest management of insects such as the tussock moth. One major concern 

was whether or not they would be harmful to wildlife or humankind when sprayed in the 

forest (PSW 1974c).

33 Julius Hyman graduated from the University of Chicago in 1922, formed his own 

company by 1931, and after World War II created the insecticide chlordane, which was four 

times as effective against houseflies as DDT. In 1952, he sold his company to Shell Oil and 

established Hyman Laboratories in Florida, but moved to Berkeley in 1958 (PSW 1966b). 

By 1967, the station listed the Hyman Laboratory located at 2840 8th Street in Berkeley as 

one of its project locations (USDA FS 1968c).

34 Prior to World War II, pyrethrum flowers were a known insecticide with Japan as the 

leading exporter. But when the war cut off supplies, people turned to using DDT and other 

chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides instead. By the early 1970s, PSW Research Station 

scientists “rediscovered” pyrethrins in their search for new and safer substitutes for DDT. 

In 1969, the station tested the ability of pyrethrins to control insect outbreaks, and results 

were quite satisfactory. It was found to be highly toxic to many insects, but harmless to 

mammals, aquatic insects, and fish (PSW 1972b).
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

entomologist William D. Bedard35 used “love” to control the western pine beetle. In 

1967, scientists had discovered compounds that attracted common bark beetle pests 

(fig. 89). With this discovery, the PSW Research Station tested these artificial sex 

attractants in the woods by placing the compounds in “sticky” traps. The beetles 

picked up on the odor and were caught in the mesh as they tried to fly away. Initial 

tests were so successful that the Miami Forest Insect Laboratory began a full-scale 

field test in 1968. The station hoped that insect control by sex attractants, and other 

natural chemicals,36 could be cheaper, easier, and used on a broad scale, much like 

the popular use of lindane at the time (PSW 1968a; USDA FS 1968a, 1969b). 

While this work was underway, the California station participated in the nationwide 3-Bug Program and in 1974 began cooperative research on the Douglas-fir 

tussock moth, which had become a serious problem in northern California starting 

in the summer of 1964 (Hall et al., n.d.). Although the tussock moth was the target 

organism, woven throughout the station’s program was a continuing thread of 

concern for other forest life—insect-eating birds, fish, and other aquatic life, pollinating insects, and insect predators that might prey on the tussock moth or other 

forest pests. (fig. 90) The safety of these organisms had to be established before the 

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)37 approved and registered an insecticide 

for use in controlling any insect pest. Pacific Northwest Research Station researchers assigned to conduct field tests of chemical insecticides for the nationwide 

tussock moth program, an assignment unique within the Forest Service research 

organization, felt they had a high potential for controlling destructive forest insects. 

Three years of field experiments and monitoring test plots pre- and postspraying 

that started in 1976—along with hundreds of hours of laboratory analyses by 

PSW Research Station scientists led by Patrick J. Shea, and cooperators such as 

the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and several universities—resulted in

35 William D. Bedard was in charge of the Miami Forest Insect Laboratory from 1964 to 

1971. He, Paul E. Tilden, and David L. Wood of the University of California at Berkeley 

studied pheromones of the Ips beetle and western pine beetle from 1967 to 1982. There 

were field tests to identify and confirm pheromone components that might help protect 

trees from bark beetle attacks. In 1971, Tilden was placed in charge of the facility, a position he held until he was transferred to Berkeley in 1982 (Tilden 1983).

36 By the early 1970s, the station turned toward natural over chemical insect control. For 

instance, in 1973, Richard H. Smith, an entomologist at the Berkeley laboratory investigated limonene, a colorless, lime-scented chemical found in the xylem of ponderosa pine, 

which appeared to make trees with a high percentage of this chemical resistant to western 

pine beetle attacks (PSW 1973; USDA FS 1969b).

37 In July of 1970, the EPA was created in response to the growing public demand for 

cleaner water, air, and land. The EPA was given the power to establish and enforce environmental protection standards, to conduct environmental research, to provide assistance 

in combating environmental pollution, and to recommend to the President new policies for 

environmental protection.

The station hoped that 

insect control by sex 

attractants, and other 

natural chemicals,

could be cheaper, 

easier, and used on 

a broad scale.
349

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 89—Testing artificial sex attractant as an insect control strategy, 

1967.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Figure 90—Collecting foliage samples, 

1977–1978. U.S. Forest Service, Pacific South- west Research Station
350

general technical report psw-gtr-233

the EPA registering Sevin-4-oil for use in controlling Douglas-fir tussock moth, 

and Orthene for use against western spruce budworm. Nonetheless, in the end, they 

also learned that the myriad variables involved in the life sciences made the search 

for answers to seemingly simple questions, such as the impact of a chemical on 

insects, birds, and animals, far more complex than was apparent in the beginning 

(McDonald 1979, USDA FS 1978).

In the environmental research era, insecticides were not the only field of 

research in California. For a time in the late 1960s, air pollution became a significant new research area. Robert V. Bega, a station plant physiologist, began looking 

into the problem as early as 1958, but it was not conclusively diagnosed as smog38

until 1962. Even then, it was not until 1968 that the station began to monitor smog 

levels in cooperation with the United States Public Health Service. Using aerial and 

satellite photographs, the remote-sensing team noted that thousands of ponderosa 

pines in the Lake Arrowhead area, in the San Bernardino Mountains 60 miles 

southeast of Los Angeles, and perhaps the famous Torrey pines at Torrey Pines 

State Park, were dying from human-made pollution. Of course no research program 

could possibly cure the trees without getting rid of the smog, but Forest Service 

scientists like Paul R. Miller, who headed the station’s smog research program at the 

University of California at Riverside, hoped to determine where damage was occurring, find individual trees not susceptible, and find others that were highly susceptible to be used as “indicator” trees. By 1969, an aerial survey revealed that 1.3 

million trees were being killed or injured by smog in the San Bernardino National 

Forest alone. Thereafter, the station worked on developing a system for nationwide 

detection and evaluation of smog damage in forest and agricultural areas (PSW 

1968f, 1968g; USDA FS 1966a, 1967, 1968a, 1969b).

Besides air pollution, water management in the snow zone (above 5,000 feet in 

the southern Sierra Nevada and above 3,500 feet in the northern Sierra Nevada and 

Cascade Mountains) also became an important aspect of the station’s environmental 

research program. At the CSSL, and field study areas at the Swain Mountain, Onion

Creek,39 and Teakettle Experimental Forests and other facilities, snow zone research

38 Smog destroys the chlorophyll in the leaf tissue and speeds up the aging process. The 

first symptom is a yellow needle mottle, which gradually spreads to whole clumps of 

needles, beginning with the oldest needles. Gradually, younger and younger needles are 

affected. As needles drop, the tree becomes thin and spindly, dying of the blight, or in its 

weakened state, can be finished off by beetles or other pests.

39 The Onion Creek Experimental Forest was established in 1958 in the north drainage of 

the American River on the Tahoe National Forest west of Truckee, California, to develop 

techniques for increasing water yields from forested lands in the Sierra Nevada snow zone. 

Research at Onion Creek covered the relationship of Sierra Nevada snow dynamics to the 

red fir-white fir ecozone, and also involved the use of meteorological and streamflow data 

to develop and calibrate rain-on-snow models (Adams et al. 2004).

In the environmental 

research era, air 

pollution became 

a significant new 

research area. 
351

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

reached its peak. These investigations included studying the effect of vegetation 

manipulation on snow accumulation and melt, on streamflow, and on sediment 

production and reduction. The purpose of this research was to increase the wateryielding potential of the Sierra Nevada (PSW 1972c; USDA FS 1963, 1968a, 1969b, 

1972a).

To learn how to control snowmelt, CSSL and other scientists first studied the 

way snow accumulated and melted. Since 1909, snowpack scientists had relied on 

a device called the Mount Rose snow sampler, invented by James E. Church, who 

also performed the first snow studies in California. However, Church’s device was 

limited because it measured only snow density or water content, and destroyed the 

site for further tests. Scientists, such as those at CSSL, needed to know many other 

factors, such as how rain affects snow, how water moves through the snow, and 

how different layers in the snowpack absorb water. So in 1964, CSSL researchers 

developed a new device that gave them a complete snowpack profile. The “Nuclear 

Profiling Snow Gage,” designed by James L. Smith and Donald W. Willen, gave 

them the fourth dimension to snow surveys they were seeking. The device used a 

radioactive source—cesium 137—to determine this information and was patented 

in 1973 by the United States Atomic Energy Commission, which financed much 

of the research. By 1972, many snow and water hydrologists used the radioactive 

probe for research, flood forecasting, streamflow, and avalanche hazard prediction 

(PSW 1972c; USDA FS 1963, 1968a, 1969b, 1972a). Other studies on snow hydrology conducted by the CSSL under the leadership of Henry Anderson, who had 

succeeded James Smith as project leader in 1964, included the study of suppression 

of evaporation from the snow surface using hexadecanol, the investigation of soil 

water movement rates, research on the management of shadow sources for controlling solar light and heat, a methodology for calculating the extent of boundary shading for any combination of date, slope, and aspect in the contiguous United States, 

and calculation methodologies for estimating snowpack density in wilderness areas 

by measuring albedo, or reflectivity (PSW 1979b; USDA FS 1967, 1986b). 

Meanwhile, California water resource planners recognized that long-range 

state water needs required the exploration of all feasible alternatives for providing 

adequate supplies. This included enhancing California’s water supply through 

cloud seeding using dry ice pellets. In 1975, an interagency agreement between 

the Bureau of Reclamation, the PSW Research Station, and the state of California 

for the “Sierra Ecology Project” was signed. This study assessed the effects of 

additional snowfall and meltwater on components of central Sierra Nevada’s forest 

ecosystem. James Smith headed the Sierra Ecology Project until 1981, when Neil 

H. Berg succeeded him as coordinator. The project continued until at least the 
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

mid-1980s (USDA FS 1986b). By the time the Sierra Ecology Project was underway, the Snow Zone Hydrologic RWU operated the CSSL year round. Monthly 

snow measurements (January to May) were used by forest managers, hydrologists, 

weather forecasters, flood control agencies, as well as reservoir managers and all 

major water suppliers and hydroelectric power companies in California to estimate 

the water content of snowpack, and to predict how much runoff streams and rivers 

would receive when the snow melted. For the remainder of the 1970s, CSSL continued its research program of gathering snowmelt statistics and soil moisture content 

data. The CSSL crew gathered the latter information at its Teakettle and Onion 

Creek locations, which were critical to many forest management activities such as 

logging and planting. Five types of forest soils were monitored, with the goal being 

to use measurements of air temperature, streamflow, precipitation, and other environmental factors to predict how wet a soil would be at any given time. Although 

the results of these studies were primarily applicable to the Sierra Nevada, many 

of the experiments carried out at CSSL were of interest to researchers worldwide 

(Gordon 1982).

Besides studying snow zone water management, the PSW Research Station 

continued to conduct research on the management of southern California brushland 

watersheds at the San Dimas Experimental Forest. By 1963, the SDEF was finally 

beginning to recover from the 1960 Johnstone Fire. In the intervening 3 years, 

SDEF staff had successfully shifted their attention to the problems of postfire 

erosion. In that time, they learned that many normal soils had become highly water 

repellent after being burned by forest fires. This caused increased runoff and 

erosion in the watershed (PSW 1967c, USDA FS 1965b). Researchers at Glendora, 

such as Raymond M. Rice, believed that water-repellent soils were responsible for 

much of the excessive runoff and erosion that occurred after wildfires, as well as 

the swiftness with which even small amounts of rain could cause erosion on burned 

hillsides. Scientists at SDEF experimented with ways to break up the water-repellent layer, trying various treatments such as wetting agents; but from their research 

on these “hydrophobic” soils, they learned that there were no simple answers to this 

problem. They would not find one during the 1960s (PSW 1969d; USDA FS 1963, 

1968c, 1969b). 

In the 1970s, SDEF staff continued to study hydrophobic soils and their formation in mountain watersheds, but with little progress (fig. 91). They therefore turned 

their attention to other watershed problems, such as soil slippage on converted 

grasslands. In this endeavor they were more successful. Post-Johnstone Fire research determined that conversion of native chaparral to grass greatly increased the 

chance of soil slippage on steep slopes (FS 1966a). The 1970s also saw a change 

In the 1970s, SDEF 

staff continued to 

study hydrophobic 

soils and their 

formation in mountain 

watersheds, but with 

little progress. 
353

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

in SDEF research owing in part to increased participation by the staff and faculty 

of nearby California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and Pomona 

College in Claremont. New cooperative ventures focused on the effect of fire on 

animals, on soil micro-organisms and their responses to fires, and the effect of 

fires on chaparral growth. These new fire research efforts supplemented the Forest 

Service’s long-term research into vegetation management, erosion control, water 

quality, fire prevention, and streamflow studies that had been monitored since the 

early days of SDEF. In 1972, the 1,370-acre Fern Canyon Research Natural Area 

(RNA) was set aside so that scientists could compare it to the managed and manipulated areas in other parts of SDEF. Throughout the late 1970s, numerous scientific 

papers, based in part on SDEF research on mountain watersheds and water yield, 

fire effects and ecology, soil and slope stability, and vegetation management, were 

presented at symposia. In fact, in 1976, SDEF became part of the United Nationssponsored “Man and the Biosphere” program, and scientists from the United 

States and other nations carried out research studies using its facilities. By 1980, 

the Ecological Institute of America had also designated SDEF as an “Experimental 

Ecological Reserve.” Over the course of nearly 50 years, SDEF had certainly met 

its primary objective of providing an experimental area where problems in hydrology, erosion, and associated processes could be studied on a scale ranging from the 

laboratory, through use of plots, to entire watersheds of various sizes (Dunn et al. 

1988, Robinson 1980, Storey 1982).

Figure 91—Scientist studying “non-wettable” 

soils in laboratory. U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
354

general technical report psw-gtr-233

The subject of fire research was just as complex as watershed research, and 

no less important. With the dedication of the Forest Fire Research Laboratory at 

Riverside in 1963, the third fire laboratory in the Nation,40 much of the station’s 

fire research was moved there. James L. Murphy, Clive M. Countryman, Mark J. 

Schroeder, Lisle R. Green, and James B. Davis worked on fire control systems planning, forest fire behavior, fire meteorology, modification of chaparral fuels through 

the use of fuel breaks, and fire control tactics under the leadership of assistant 

director for forest fire and engineering research Carl C. Wilson (USDA FS 1963, 

1964a, 1965b). In 1966, the Riverside Laboratory also directed its efforts mainly at 

problems associated with large fires through Project FLAMBEAU, which fell under 

the direction of program manager Edward M. Gaines. At this time, according to a 

station publication entitled Stopping the Big Ones...Through Fire Research (USDA 

FS 1966c), 5 percent of the fires caused most of the damage in California. Project 

FLAMBEAU’s goal was to gain an understanding of the factors associated with 

“mass fire” behavior by describing and scientifically measuring such phenomena 

(USDA FS 1966a, 1966c). The Office of Civil Defense and the United States Defense Department contracts, which materially aided Project FLAMBEAU, were 

signed with these agencies because they shared mutual interests in the behavior 

and control of mass fires.41 In 1965, Station Director John McGuire, through a 

staff realignment, permitted the station to not only meet the needs of California 

clients, but to work with other regions on specific fire research problems, such as 

fire meteorology with Region 4 (Intermountain) and minimizing the impact of slash 

burning on atmospheric pollution with Region 6 (Pacific Northwest). Furthermore, 

considerable work was conducted at this time on the use of helicopters in fighting 

fires, including the use of helitankers to drop fire retardants and the perfection of 

helicopter night flying through advanced technologies developed during the Vietnam War.42 Other assignments for the scientists at Riverside included the first effort 

to bring the computer to the fireline in Project INFORMAP, a computerized display 

of information such as topography, fuels, and location of roads and firebreaks on 

maps—data that was vital to the dispatching of men and equipment to forest fires. 

40 The other two forest fire laboratories were in Missoula, Montana, and Macon, Georgia.

41 Much of this work on fire effects of nuclear attack is listed in Hostetter 1966.

42 Research on night helicopter flight was a cooperative effort between several agencies, 

including the United States Army Night Vision Laboratory, Los Angeles County Fire 

Department, California Department of Forestry, the Bureau of Land Management, and 

private industry, such as the Aerospace Corporation. Its main goal was to use military 

technology in developing a helicopter system for detecting and fighting forest fires at 

night, including the use of night vision goggles and FLIR—a forward-looking infrared 

system that allowed pilots to look at video screens in the cockpit to see a daylight picture of 

whatever was in the infrared scanner’s field of view (PSW 1974b, 1975a).

Five percent of the fires 

caused most of the 

damage in California.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

A year later, in 1968, the California Division of Forestry in San Bernardino tested 

this computer-fire dispatch system, the first of its kind in the world. Although it 

proved highly useful in helping fire bosses make decisions about the best use of 

limited manpower or equipment, researchers planned improvements that would 

make it faster, cheaper, and more foolproof (PSW 1966a, 1968d; USDA FS 1963, 

1966b, 1967, 1968c, 1969b, 1971; Wilson and Davis 1988). 

Despite these achievements in fire research, the 1970 fire season incinerated 

any smugness that had been built up by station fire scientists. Known as the “Big 

One,” virtually the entire southern California region was afire at one time or 

another. Tinder-dry fuels and Santa Ana winds blowing up to 70 miles per hour 

combined to produce the greatest number of large-scale fires burning out of control at one time in California’s history.43 The 1970 fire season resulted in 16 lives 

lost, 772 structures destroyed, and over 500,000 acres charred. These devastating 

fires proved to be a major turning point in stimulating fire research at the station. 

In the aftermath of the fires, a groundswell of interest in forest fire research developed in southern California, and major political and moral support emanated from 

Sacramento and Washington, D.C. For instance, in California, Governor Ronald 

Reagan appointed a Task Force on California’s wildland fire problem, and in 

Washington, D.C., Deputy Chief of Research Keith Arnold, who had overseen 

Operation FIRESTOP in the early 1960s, soon provided excellent support for fire 

research in California (Wilson 1984).

From the 1970 fire season, the Forest Service learned that things just did not 

work well when it had as many fires as occurred that year. One particular problem 

was communicating with other agencies because each one used different radio frequencies and terminology. To alleviate this problem and others, the PSW Research 

Station led by program managers Stan Hirsch and Bob Irwin undertook Project 

FIRESCOPE (Firefighting Resources of Southern California Organized for Potential Emergencies) along with Region 5, the California Division of Forestry and 

southern California fire agencies from Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and Ventura 

Counties. This was one of the most ambitious cooperative studies embarked upon

43 “During one week in late September to early October, more than 524,000 acres of valuable watershed, timber and recreation lands were destroyed by separate blazes in Central 

and Southern California. Of this acreage, 207,000 were national forest land that burned 

on five national forests (Los Padres, San Bernardino, Angeles, Cleveland and Sequoia). 

During the height of the Laguna Fire on the Cleveland National Forest, which burned 

185,000 acres, more than 2,000 men battled the blaze, including Forest Service and Native 

American crews from Regions 1, 3, 6 and 8. Thirteen persons lost their lives in fire-related 

incidents. Five of the thirteen were killed in a helicopter crash on the Fork Fire on the 

Angeles National Forest” (Godfrey 2005: 471–472).

From the 1970 fire 

season, the Forest 

Service learned that 

things just did not 

work well when it 

had as many fires as 

occurred that year.
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by the Riverside Forest Fire Laboratory. One objective of the FIRESCOPE program 

was to provide fire managers at all levels with the information needed to make 

prompt decisions. Another objective was to coordinate the efforts of southern 

California fire protection agencies and facilitate their working together on major 

wildland fires, rather than protecting their own areas. Essentially, the FIRESCOPE 

program developed the methods and the vocabulary for interagency cooperation, 

resulting in an ICS that managed a wide range of activities when multiple groups 

of firefighters needed to work together in complex fire situations. This required 

that the terminology for all agencies be consistent and, when fires occurred, that 

resources closest to the fires be used, regardless of the agency’s protective responsibility. FIRESCOPE also led to computerized dispatch centers shared by the Forest 

Service and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Godfrey 

2005). 

By 1974, research was underway by the Forest Service and its cooperating 

agencies to complete FIRESCOPE’S three-part action plan for fire management 

for the wildlands of southern California. Part I, system policy and operations, 

sought to establish a coordinated concept that could be fitted to the legal, procedural, and political requirements and constraints of all agencies, and to specify 

system performance requirements for resource status, situation assessment, logistics, communications, decision criteria, and other operational needs. Part I also 

developed uniform procedures, terminology, and training standards. System development, the purpose of Part II, translated system performance requirements 

into hardware and software design, and evaluated existing fuel, meteorological, 

fire spread, and other applicable models. It also improved or initiated new development work as needed, determined total system communication requirements, 

and developed a coordinated system for information transfer and display at field 

incident, coordinating center, and agency headquarters levels. Part III, system 

fabrication and installation, begun in 1976, procured and installed the hardware; 

Forest Service managers to employees at the ranger district level acquired and 

stored the required database information on fuels, topography, fire suppression 

resources, and transportation networks; prepared detailed computer programs for 

data collection, storage and retrieval, and model processing operations; and finally, 

developed training programs to prepare agency personnel for system implementation. No program in the Forest Service ever started smaller and got bigger over time 

FIRESCOPE required 

that the terminology 

for all agencies be 

consistent and, when 

fires occurred, that 

resources closest 

to the fires be used, 

regardless of the 

agency’s protective 

responsibility.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

than FIRESCOPE.44 The ICS, which was the primary FIRESCOPE product,45 has 

today been adopted throughout the country and worldwide where multiple agencies 

or multiple jurisdictions are involved in earthquakes or other emergency situations 

(Godfrey 2005, USDA FS 1974). 

There were other byproducts of the 1970 fire season. Certainly, there was an 

increased effort to better understand Santa Ana winds46 and their effects on fire 

weather and on fire behavior. After the 1970 fire season, Carl C. Wilson, Assistant 

Director for Fire Research at the PSW Research Station, plainly stated, “Under 

really bad weather conditions, a fire is just going to burn until it runs out of fuel.” 

In his opinion, the real problem was forest fuels. “Unless we break up the large 

expanses of flammable fuels for protection of individual homes and communities, 

we can expect to have these fire disasters during critical fire weather” (PSW 1971). 

Of course, no one could stop a Santa Ana wind from blowing, but fire control specialists could do something about forest fuels, the other major factor that affects fire 

ignition and spread. So station fire research scientists intensified their investigation 

of forest fuels modification, such as stands of chaparral, which can have 10 to 40 

tons of fuel per acre or more, in order to reduce the number of really big “disaster” 

fires in California. Station staff J.S. Horton and Charles Kraebel began the study of 

fuels management in 1927, and in 1955 published Development of Vegetation After 

Fire in Chamise Chaparral in Southern California (Horton and Kraebel 1955), 

which was still considered one of the best references available on the subject as late 

as 1970. They advocated managing and protecting chaparral in southern California 

44 The FIRESCOPE program, developed by the station in cooperation with California state, 

county, and city fire agencies was eventually turned over to the Forest Service State and 

Private Forestry branch for implementation and then taken over by the state, which became 

responsible through its Office of Emergency Service for its maintenance as an interagency 

fire coordinating system. The Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region continued to be one 

of the system’s funding agencies. In 1987, the FIRESCOPE program received a plaque from 

the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency for its exemplary practice in 

emergency management (PSW 1987b).

45 As a precedent to FIRESCOPE, the station had also developed a computer-simulation 

model to evaluate alternative fire management organizations. It was designed to model all 

possible fire agency configurations. The Sequoia National Forest was one of the first to 

test FOCUS in the field, and helped that forest configure the best organization of resources 

such as air tankers, helicopters, crews, and engines for fire management. This saved the 

Forest Service much time and money in fire suppression efforts (Godfrey 2005). “Although 

the model was used on several national forests, its large data requirements and complexity 

made it intractable for many users” (Wilson and Davis 1988).

46 Santa Ana winds are very warm, dry winds, or “foehns,” that blow across mountain 

ranges and down the lee slopes. Foehns (pronounced firns) occur in nearly all mountain 

ranges throughout the world. Mark Schroeder, who headed the Riverside Fire Laboratory’s 

meteorology studies in 1970, described them as perhaps the “most critical fire weather 

problem anywhere in the world” (PSW 1970b: 7).
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from wildfire for fire/flood control reasons, which inadvertently contributed to a 

dangerous and unnaturally heavy buildup of dead fuels. After the 1970 fire season, 

the PSW Research Station realized the errors in this approach and formed the 

Chaparral Management RWU at Riverside and Glendora, California. The RWU’s 

mission was to develop a fuel science management program that first searched 

for alternative, fire-resistant groundcovers to replace California’s chaparral, and 

second, found ways to reduce current fuel buildup in southern California through 

prescribed fires,47 the use of herbicides, or other means, including experimenting 

with the grazing of goats along fuelbreaks in critical areas (fig. 92). Toward these 

ends, from 1971 to the early 1980s, station fire research scientists concentrated their 

attention on a chaparral inventory system, evaluation of postfire erosion rates, and 

information on photosynthetic rate and water needs of several important chaparral 

species, all of which set the stage for future site-specific forest fuels modification 

research projects (PSW 1971, 1983d; USDA FS 1971; Wilson and Davis 1988; Wood 

1978a). 

Fire research made good use of computer calculating power in its endeavors, 

such as the ICS, and the PSW Research Station led Forest Service research in 

advancing the use of computer technology in many other ways. For instance, 

in 1963, David A. Sharpnack developed a computer model to test L.R. Grosenbaugh’s suggestions for better sample-tree-measurements outlined in STX-Fortran 

4 Program—For Estimates of Tree Populations from 3P Sample—Tree Measurements (Grosenbaugh 1964). Another example was a computer simulation model 

for projecting participation in major forest recreation activities developed by staff 

social science analyst Stanley Naparst. In recreation, computers were also used to 

estimate the effect on recreation use of changes in urban population and to predict 

winter sports use, either existing or proposed. Practically every discipline began 

to use computer technology. For instance, in 1968, Elliott L. Amidon and Gary 

Elsner developed a computer mapping system that retrieved and gathered map data 

and associated quantitative information from other sources to create map overlays. 

Eight years later, their earlier work was refined into VIEWIT, a computer program 

that allowed planners to predict how a new road, timber sale, or other proposed use 

47 Starting in the late 1950s, the PSW Research Station found that various staff members 

were speaking out against prescribed burning. Despite the early history of Forest Service 

opposition to “light burning” in the 1910s and early 1920s, the station became interested 

in using prescribed burning as a method of fuel hazard reduction in eastern pine stands, 

and conducted several experiments at that time. But after the experiments, station staff 

concluded that broadcast burning was not feasible in these stands either for fuel hazard 

reduction or for thinning young-growth stands because they felt that they could not control 

the fires (Gordon 1982).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

would affect the way a forest landscape would look under as many as 14 options. 

Computers also helped IFG geneticists to analyze 30 years’ worth of collected data 

for a ponderosa pine growth performance study at three Sierra Nevada elevations 

(PSW 1975b; USDA FS 1963, 1967, 1968a, 1969b).

Finally, the Management Sciences Staff (MaSS) used computer programs, such 

as the Planning-Programming-Budgeting System, to develop a range of alternative 

budget choices for California’s national forests, while a second research group concentrated their attention on the development of the Resource Allocation Model to 

prepare long-range multiple-use plans for wildlands and to determine the forest cutting schedules that best fit a land manager’s goals. The MaSS had been administratively established and assigned to the Berkeley headquarters in November 1962 in 

an agreement between PSW Director R. Keith Arnold and the WO. The MaSS was 

an internal think tank for the Chief’s office and was charged with conducting rigorous, long-term, often sensitive studies that were of high importance to the agency, 

and differed from the work of the Washington Office Policy Analysis staff, whose 

assignments were usually on a shorter timeline. The staff served as management 

sciences consultants to all branches of the Forest Service, and was the only unit 

of its kind in the agency. The MaSS grew over the years to become the home— 

temporarily, for the most part—of some 100 employees: scientists and other professionals, business managers, support workers, and students. During its existence, 

MaSS conducted more than 110 major studies and provided more than 125 major 

Figure 92—Goats grazing fuelbreaks, 1979.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Management Sciences 

Staff (MaSS) used 

computer programs 

to develop a range 

of alternative budget 

choices for California’s 

national forests.
360

general technical report psw-gtr-233

consultations. Its members published some 140 papers, articles, and reports. 

About half of these were in-house documents covering a wide variety of topics 

in the management sciences, including physical, social/economic, behavioral, 

and mathematical sciences. In a multidisciplinary organization, which proudly 

counted 26 disciplines at one time, its lasting contribution was the demonstration 

that management sciences could be used to refine and sharpen the effectiveness of 

Forest Service decisionmaking. The PSW Research Station provided MaSS with an 

enriching and supportive environment for 26 years48 (PSW 1988j).

By the mid-1970s, station computer use became even more sophisticated. In 

1973–74, station and Region 5 information services staff members put together a 

library service especially designed for California foresters called CALFORNET 

(California Forest Research Information Network). They felt that too many useful research findings were simply gathering dust on library bookshelves because 

researchers were unaware of their existence. Based upon interlibrary loan cooperation, CALFORNET included collections not just at the Berkeley Station, but those 

at the University of California, School of Forestry and Conservation and the university’s Forest Products Laboratory. Credit for creating the program goes to 

Bruce Yerke, in the station’s science literature service, and Al Groncki, general 

assistance officer for Region 5’s division of State and Private Forestry. Eventually 

the list of cooperating libraries included in CALFORNET grew to include University of California campus branch libraries, corporation libraries, and the National 

Agricultural Library in Beltsville, Maryland. Access to the system was granted to 

Forest Service employees, University of California graduate students and faculty, 

California Division of Forestry employees, and to industrial consultants, extension

48 Funding and guidance on choice of studies came from the Chief’s office. Staff scientists 

were responsible for applying the latest theories and methods in the management sciences 

to solve Forest Service problems and to improve decisionmaking within the agency. The 

MaSS studies dealt with fast-moving emerging and complex issues for which the agency 

wanted an examination of the basis of the issue, a rigorous analysis of the factors influencing the issue, and implementable recommendations. Some of the major multiyear studies 

included designing models for evaluating aircraft used in fighting wildfires; land management planning and budgeting models, and designing and evaluating effectiveness of public 

involvement models. The MaSS also did strategic analysis of information flow within the 

Forest Service, especially focusing on how the management of policy and direction would 

be changed by the implementation of the Data General distributed information system, the 

largest distributed information system in the world at the time, that connected every Forest 

Service unit and every employee across the agency. Members of the permanent professional staff and their specialities included Ernst Valfer, staff director and engineering and 

psychology; Daina Dravnieks, natural resource economics, geography; William A. Hager, 

civil engineering, forestry; Ernest Hirsch, operations research; Robert Hubres, forestry, 

land-use planning; Malcolm W. Kirby, operations research, industrial engineering, business administration; Stephen Laner, psychology, operations research; Gideon Schwarzbart, 

mathematical statistics, operations research; Dwain C. Wegner, operations research, mathematics; and Peter Wong, transportation engineering and mathematics (Dravnieks 2007).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

foresters, faculty members at schools of forestry, and instructors of college-level 

courses on land-use management (PSW 1974a). Around the same time, PACFORNET (Pacific Coast Forest Research Information Network) was developed. 

It allowed librarians and technical information specialists to conduct literature 

searches or to track down materials that might help solve a particular problem in 

wildland management or other research subjects. If little was written on the subject, 

PACFORNET put California, Hawaii, and the Pacific Northwest researchers in 

touch with other scientists or specialists who might be doing similar research49

(Wood 1979c).

Pacific Southwest Research Station staff members welcomed the ability to easily conduct computer literature searches, especially because of new environmental 

considerations regarding topics like outdoor recreation, which concerned many 

Californians. In 1960, John R. McGuire, then head of the station’s forest economics 

division, implemented a recreation research program at the Berkeley Station, the 

second program of its kind in the Forest Service—the first being established at the 

Northeast Experiment Station only months earlier. But it was Robert H. Twiss who 

headed the program throughout most of the 1960s, and who made recreation studies 

an important research field in California (Aitro 1977, Camp, n.d.).

Under the direction of Twiss, California recreation research was greatly affected by two factors: explosive population growth and competition for public 

lands. The highest priority was assessing recreational use in the national forests 

and determining its place in the multiple-use picture. Early researchers on the 

subject initially attempted to define a recreation unit of use and how best to record 

and evaluate it. But under Twiss, recreation research involved a number of subjects 

related to ecological trends in recreation areas. Studies ranged from better understanding of visitor activities and needs in national forests, to studying the environmental impact of visitor use on campground soil and vegetation conditions, picnic 

areas, and trails, as well as other forest resource uses, such as logging and grazing. 

The station investigated trends in the use of outdoor recreation sites that helped 

managers operate city camps in forest areas, and other studies sought ways to foster plant growth in heavily used recreation areas where conventional reforestation 

methods were ineffective. On the problem of maintaining and enhancing recreation 

sites, or researching techniques of rehabilitating recreation sites that were overused and hence had scarce vegetation, station researchers worked closely with 

Region 5 forest managers. Together, they tested plant materials and cultural treatments in these difficult-to-manage sites. Recreation research also included the study 

49 In 1979, WESTFORNET replaced PACFORNET and expanded the service to include all 

of the Western Forest Service regions and stations (Wood 1979c).
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of visual or scenic aspects of forestry and related practices, and implemented new 

concepts of environmental design for resource management in scenic areas. For 

some forest environmental design projects, the station also worked closely with 

Berkeley’s Department of Landscape Architecture, and the Department of Landscape Horticulture, University of California at Davis. For instance, in 1968, station 

staff worked closely with Berkeley professor R. Burton Litton, Jr., to develop a set 

of terms and definitions that allowed foresters, engineers, landscape architects, and 

others to speak the same language when it came to discussing forest landscapes 

(Magill and Leiser 1967; USDA FS 1963, 1964a, 1965b, 1966a, 1968c).

Floyd L. Newby led the station’s recreation research program in 1969, followed 

by Ronald A. Oliveira in 1971. During the tenure of these two leaders, the recreation program underwent considerable change, which started when recreation research came under a new RWU designation, “Forest Recreation and Landscape 

Management.” During this time, the PSW Research Station continued to develop 

methods to rehabilitate and revegetate overused recreation areas; to estimate carrying capacities as an aid in planning recreation areas; to establish criteria for assessing future recreation use, including user expectations, distances willingly traveled 

to a recreation source, and crowding tolerance; and to advance interpretive services. 

But the recreation research program languished for 2 years after Oliveira left in 

1974. Then in 1976, Station Director Robert Callaham redirected the program 

and renamed the RWU Land Use and Landscape Planning Methodology Research. 

A year later, Callaham added urban forestry research to the RWU and placed the 

program under the direction of J. Alan Wagar. In 1979, urban forestry research 

became a separate RWU, but in 1981, these two projects were recombined into 

Landscape Management and Urban Forestry Research, again under Wagar’s direction. However, the redesignated RWU emphasized urban forestry over landscape 

management, and this emphasis continued into the 1980s. By then, urban forestry 

had four major assignments: to develop better systems for planning, designing, and 

maintaining urban forests and related resources; to create and improve methods for 

selecting trees and shrubs for a variety of city conditions; to find ways to interest 

city residents in urban forestry; and to use technical information systems to distribute up-to-date information about urban forestry. Results of the RWU’s research 

were intended for use by arborists, horticulturalists, landscape architects, city and 

regional planners, city and county park managers, tree care specialists, homeowners, and others (Camp, n.d.; USDA FS 1969b, 1977f).

Recreation research and urban forestry were new research assignments for 

the PSW Research Station in the environmental era, but two other very important 

traditional research aspects in the station’s program were range and wildlife habitat 

Recreation research 

and urban forestry 

were new research 

assignments for the 

PSW Research Station 

in the environmental 

era.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

management. In range research, long-term experiments begun in the 1950s were 

beginning to show significant results a decade later. By 1963, 10 grazing seasons 

had passed since rest-rotation grazing management had been implemented on the 

Harvey Valley Allotment on the Lassen National Forest. Vegetation plots established in past years, and cattle responses within the allotment, continued to be 

studied and reexamined yearly by Philip Lord and William Sanderson. Over time, 

they compared their collected data to that on nearby allotments, which were under 

season-long management. By 1967, Lord and Sanderson determined that the Harvey 

Valley cattle had gained just as much weight from rest-rotation grazing as from 

season-long management, but with the added benefit of leaving the range in better 

condition. Senior range expert August L. Hormay continued to collect additional 

information for his long-term study of growth and reproduction of bitterbrush in 

northeastern California, while at the same time H. Reed Sanderson and Charles 

H. Graham studied high-elevation meadows that made up an important part of the 

Sierra Nevada’s summer livestock range (fig. 93). Some wildlife habitat research 

was conducted in cooperation with the National Park Service and the University of 

California, which sought data to answer problems such as the effect of horse and 

pack stock travel, the encroachment of lodgepole pine, and the periodic buildup 

of meadow voles in Sequoia National Park. Further west, on the SJER, grazing 

scientist Don A. Duncan totaled the results in unfertilized and fertilized grazing 

Figure 93—Typical 

mountain meadow in 

California. U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
364

general technical report psw-gtr-233

units, which put the effectiveness of fertilizer applications in a positive light. For 

the remainder of the 1960s and into the 1970s, the Management of Annual-Plant 

and Related Ranges RWU and the Management of Perennial Grass Ranges RWU 

steadily continued along these and other range research lines (McDonald 1985; 

USDA FS 1963, 1964a, 1965b, 1966a, 1967a, 1968c).

As noted earlier, in 1965, wildlife research was joined administratively with 

range research, and wildlife scientists began to take greater interest in range management, simply because cattle grazing often reduced grass growth on deer ranges. 

Heavy livestock use in the past was thought to be largely responsible for changing the climax bunchgrass association to a sagebrush-bitterbrush on some of 

the Great Basin winter ranges, such as the Devil’s Garden winter deer range in 

Modoc County. This change benefited deer, but with reduced livestock use on 

ranges thanks to Forest Service grazing policy in California following World War 

II, bunchgrass appeared to be increasing to the detriment of the browse. Before 

livestock grazing could be prescribed as an effective means to manipulate vegetation so as to favor browse, the station needed to know if and how they could reduce 

bunchgrass without killing browse (Godfrey 2005; USDA FS 1963, 1965c, 1969a). 

So, in 1965, station wildlife habitat researchers, in cooperation with the California 

Department of Fish and Game, closely studied cattle grazing habits, which they 

believed provided clues to better winter deer range. After 2 years of study, ecologists Don Neal and Tom Newman learned that cattle graze on the larger bunchgrass 

plants first, leaving smaller ones until feed is scarce. They also learned that cattle 

eat very little bitterbrush—a staple of the deer diet—until new twig growth starts. 

But in late July and early August, they learned that cattle begin to feed on bitterbrush as grass wanes. Thus, they ascertained that heavy cattle grazing—properly 

timed—could reduce the large bunchgrass that crowded out browse seedlings without killing all grass or seriously damaging established browse. Their studies of 

the competitive interaction between cattle and deer continued into the early 1980s 

(McDonald 1985; PSW 1968c; USDA FS 1967, 1969a). 

Although the study of cattle-deer interactions preoccupied much of their time, 

station wildlife habitat researchers also conducted other noteworthy cooperative 

investigations. For example, they studied the relationship between soils, vegetation, 

and deer distribution along California’s north coast, and changes in fish habitat and 

stream ecology caused by logging and road building on experimental watersheds 

in the Caspar Creek drainage near Fort Bragg. Under project leader Richard L. 

Hubbard, the station worked on these and other projects related to wildlife habitat 

improvement and management in the 1960s and 1970s. Additional studies included 

investigations of High Sierra wildlife habitat, aerial photointerpretation to evaluate 

They ascertained 

that heavy cattle 

grazing—properly 

timed—could reduce 

the large bunchgrass 

that crowded out 

browse seedlings 

without killing all grass 

or seriously damaging 

established browse.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

stream habitat, voice printing endangered forest birds such as the southern bald 

eagle, the peregrine falcon, and the spotted owl, and closely watching the California 

condor,50 which station wildlife biologist Jerry Verner felt was threatened with 

extinction (Hubbard and Hiehle 1965; PSW 1979a; USDA FS 1964a, 1965b, 1966a, 

1967, 1968c; Wood 1978b, 1979b). 

Last, but certainly not least, PSW Research Station scientists continued major 

studies regarding forest genetics, forest resource surveys, and forest management 

issues related to ponderosa pines, redwoods, and red and white firs at its Redding 

and Arcata laboratories, as well as on related experimental forests. 

In the post-1963 period, the Institute of Forest Genetics carried out its research 

program to develop better forest trees by applying the known science of genetics 

and the techniques of tree breeding, but the principal means of tree improvement 

continued to be selection and hybridization. The IFG pressed on with selecting trees 

that showed superior qualities in the forest so that their progeny might be used in 

planting new forests. Such trees, and cuttings from them, were also used in hybridization work, in which new kinds of trees were created by controlled pollination, 

combining the qualities of two parents to produce hybrid progeny with desirable 

characteristics. One of the first crosses, the knobcone-Monterey pine, had been 

spectacularly successful51 and gave early impetus to the hybridization program. 

However, although some hybrids were successful, by the mid-1960s, hybridization 

was generally proved to be a rather slow and costly means toward tree improvement. Even so, by 1965, staff members and visitors from all parts of the world had 

written over 255 articles about research work conducted at IFG. And, by the late 

1960s, IFG had become a historic Forest Service tourist attraction. Visitors were 

guided along a “nature” trail that included touring the famed Eddy Arboretum, 

IFG’s nursery, greenhouses, and the hybrid plantations, along the way observing 

scientists as they went about the business of studying the improvement of pines, 

true firs, and other important commercial Western U.S. trees. Visitors were also 

taken through two “freak gardens” where unusual phenotypes were transplanted 

for further scientific observation (USDA FS 1965c, 1966a, 1968b).

50 “In 1964, Region 5, in cooperation with the Audubon Society, Bureau of Sport Fisheries 

and Wildlife, and the California Department of Fish and Game, began a program to keep 

an official count of California condors at the Sespe Condor Sanctuary on the Los Padres 

National Forest. In 1966, that number stood at fifty-one. Subsequent counts indicated that 

the great birds were barely holding their own. By 1969, bird watchers tallied only fiftythree. These relatively few condors were all that remained of a population that numbered 

in the hundreds in the previous century, and the Forest Service and State wildlife agencies 

began to consider the condor in danger of becoming extinct” (Godfrey 2005: 443).

51 For instance, in 1969, 10-year-old hybrids of knobcone-Monterey pine were outgrowing 

ponderosa pine three to one in experimental plots at the Challenge Experimental Forest in 

Yuba County, California (USDA FS 1969b).

Hybridization was 

generally proved to be 

a rather slow and costly 

means toward tree 

improvement. 
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

In the 1970s under project leaders Stanley L. Krugman and later F. Thomas 

Ledig, IFG’s research program turned away from hybridization and began to investigate tree physiology, reproduction, and other factors that limited tree growth and 

development because new laboratory techniques, such as starch gel electrophoresis52 (fig. 94), provided answers to many critical questions faster than was possible 

through hybridization and other long-term studies. Institute research geneticist M. 

Thompson Conkle pioneered this technique to separate enzymes (proteins) electrically, thereby giving him a fairly direct look at the genetics of the tree. With starch 

gel electrophoresis, scientists were thereafter able to determine the genetic potential 

of forest trees, predict the results of a given cross, and learn how enzymes related 

to various stages of growth in the tree without waiting 10 to 20 years or more to 

see hybridization experimental results. In 1979, the station even sponsored the first 

international symposium on the use of this technique in forest genetics, as well as 

in forest insect research. Besides this genetic research, the IFG placed increased 

emphasis on studying the mechanisms by which trees resisted attack by various 

insects and disease. The IFG geneticists worked closely with practicing Forest 

Service personnel to furnish answers to insect and disease problems such as bark 

beetles, white pine blister rust, and western gall rust in hard pines. In 1967, blister 

rust was found in the central Sierra Nevada on the Mi-Wok District of the Stanislaus National Forest—farther south than it had ever been reported. Following this 

discovery, IFG started to make substantial progress in producing sugar pines that 

were immune to blister rust (PSW 1968b, 1972a; USDA FS 1969b, 1972b, 1980a). 

Great progress was made in conducting forest resource surveys in California 

as well, thanks also to technological advances—in this case, remote-sensing 

techniques. From 1963 to 1964, Ezra M. Hornibrook led Forest Resource Survey 

(FRS) work at Berkeley. During this period, he began the first statewide inventory of Hawaii’s timber resources, while the station continued research on the 

soil-vegetation survey of California in cooperation with the state. In 1965, this 

research unit was enhanced when Robert N. Colwell and his remote-sensing team 

moved to the Berkeley Station from Beltsville, Maryland. A new RWU entitled 

“Remote Sensing of the Forest Environment” was formed. The RWU’s mission was 

to develop sensing techniques for forestry applications using Earth-orbital vehicle 

photography and imaging, to research and develop aerial survey methods to detect 

and evaluate infestations of forest pests, and to apply photointerpretation to forest 

52 A Canadian scientist developed the starch gel electrophoresis technique in 1955 and used 

it for research on blood serum proteins. The technique later became widely used in studying fruit flies, and by the early 1970s was used in medical research to help diagnose human 

diseases such as enzyme deficiencies (PSW 1972a).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 94—Forest Service technician preparing starch gel for electrophoresis, 1980.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

resource inventories (USDA FS 1963, 1964a, 1965b, 1966a). By 1967, Colwell, 

an expert photogrammetrist, guided the PSW Station’s remote-sensing research 

program, using Gemini mission photos to map vegetation boundaries, soil types, 

and a host of other ground features. By studying low-altitude color photography and 

using special film-filter combinations, Colwell’s remote-sensing RWU could detect 

insect attacks before they could be spotted visually on the ground. For instance, in 

1967, large-scale color aerial photographs (1: 8,000) and a stratified two-stage probability sampling design was used to survey 1.6 million acres of timber for damage 

from the Douglas-fir bark beetle in northern California national forests. Colwell’s 

remote-sensing team conducted the survey in cooperation with station mensurationists and entomologists from California Region 5. Together, they determined that 

a high stand density of two to three times normal allowed the beetles to build up 

and cause damage (American Forests 1968; PSW 1967a, 1967b; USDA FS 1967). 

In 1968, Robert Heller replaced Colwell as project leader. Heller continued to apply 

Earth-orbital vehicle imagery to forestry problems, in cooperation with the National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and eventually these techniques 

were used to detect and evaluate air pollution damage to southern California 

national forests. Heller later continued this line of research with Apollo mission 

images (USDA FS 1968c, 1969b).

In 1970, the nationwide FRS, which had been a function of the Forest Service 

for over 40 years, was due for an update. Local and national planners, as well as 
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Congress, needed the FRS and its statistical analysis to better understand timber 

volume, growth, and harvest needs. Over time, a variety of methods had been used 

to increase the efficiency and reliability of sampling for the FRS, but during this 

time, basic techniques had changed little. On-the-ground tree measurements, coupled with the use of one level of aerial photographs, were the basic techniques used. 

However, since it took years to collect this data, the reports were often outdated 

by the time they were compiled by the Forest Service. Furthermore, in the 1970s, 

it was very difficult to get a good picture of the entire forest resource at one time 

because of rapidly changing patterns of land use coupled with a tremendous rate 

of wood utilization. Thanks to space-age imaging, research foresters at the PSW 

Research Station were technically equipped to meet the monumental task at hand. 

In 1970, Heller’s remote-sensing unit and Philip G. Langley’s forest measurement 

unit inventoried millions of acres of forest in Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, and 

Mississippi using space photographs along with multistage probability sampling for 

the first time. This experiment of sampling from space photos was believed to be 

the forerunner of a complete future information system that would allow the Forest 

Service to conduct inventories in this manner. Many optimistically looked forward 

to the launching of the Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS), a space 

platform designed to collect data on Earth resources of all types, which would make 

it possible to gather forest data from space on a continuing basis (PSW 1970a). The 

ERTS-1 mission (570 miles above the Earth) took place in 1972 and was followed 

by Skylab (260 miles above the Earth) in 1973, both of which provided photo-like 

imagery of the Earth’s surface. The remote-sensing research unit anxiously waited 

to see the imagery to see if it would provide faster and more accurate inventories 

that were vital to wildland managers who needed to make up-to-date resource decisions. In this they were not disappointed, for they found that although there were 

some data problems, and some usage limits, much of the information gathered was 

what they needed on the location, size, and composition of forests and rangelands 

(Wood 1975a).

Although space technology was fascinating, the vital research focus of 

the California Station since 1926 had been silvicultural research. Following 

the 1963 Harper-McGuire GRI, PSW Research Station Director John McGuire 

strengthened silvicultural research by setting up two new headquarters for such 

work in California. At the Redding Silvicultural Laboratory in the 1960 and 1970s, 

Douglass F. Roy headed up research in three of California’s major timber types: 

pine, mixed conifer, and true firs. With a staff of eight to assist him, and a new 

The remote-sensing 

research unit anxiously 

waited to see the 

imagery to see if it 

would provide faster 

and more accurate 

inventories that were 

vital to wildland 

managers who needed 

to make up-to-date 

resource decisions.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

headquarters building and three experimental forests (Blacks Mountain,53 Swain 

Mountain, and Challenge), Roy and later project leaders developed a wide range of 

timber management studies. At the Challenge Experimental Forest and elsewhere, 

they studied the intensive management of ponderosa pine stands, levels of ponderosa pine growing stock, as well as logging costs in young-growth pine.54 In 1979, 

they issued two important publications on the ponderosa pine growth in California 

and related matters pertaining to moisture (PSW 1978, USDA FS 1964a). 

But the most important field of research in California forestry at this time was 

studying red and white firs. By the late 1970s, California true firs provided onefourth of the state’s volume of merchantable timber, and managing true firs 

became the major research task for the Redding Silviculture Laboratory. One 

of the most pressing problems was how to get good natural or artificial regeneration after old-growth stands had been logged. Donald T. Gordon, who had worked 

at the station on the subject since 1960, experimented with shelterwood cuttings and 

small clearcuttings at the Swain Mountain Experimental Forest (SMEF). At SMEF, 

he learned that small openings were best for the regeneration of red and white fir 

and that successful true fir establishment was dependent on quantity of seed more 

than any other factor (USDA FS1966a, Wood 1975b). Other silviculture research 

led to California researchers developing true fir management guidelines, ranging 

from how to raise nursery seedlings successfully to how to prevent the spread of 

the parasite dwarf mistletoe in young stands of true fir. Specialists from a variety 

of disciplines—forestry, plant physiology, plant pathology, forest entomology, and 

others—worked together on the true fir studies. With foresters from Region 5, they 

worked in a group known as the True Fir Task Force (TFTF). Its mission was to 

improve the field survival rate of nursery-grown true fir, and they made several 

contributions toward this end. Plant physiologist James L. Jenkinson recommended 

53 By 1960, logging experiments at the Blacks Mountain Experimental Forest (BMEF) were 

completed, and logging equipment, tools, and supplies were either transferred or sold. As 

there was little use for the Blacks Mountain branch station after this, most buildings were 

transferred to the Lassen National Forest. The Berkeley office took whatever cooperative 

logging funds remained and used them to meet severe cost overruns occurring on road construction at the Swain Mountain Experimental Forest. In 1968, the Forest Service centered 

all east-side pine research at Bend, Oregon, under the aegis of the Pacific Northwest Forest 

and Experiment Station. Though BMEF was not disestablished at that time, it sat idle for 

the next 12 years. In 1972, a decision was made during Harry Camp’s administration to 

convert BMEF to a young-growth forest. Unfortunately, in the process, the Lassen National 

Forest staff could not recognize and record Duncan Dunning’s tree class work begun in the 

1930s, so these important data were lost forever (Gordon 1982).

54 At the Challenge Experimental Forest, besides tested methods of planting ponderosa 

pine, the station investigated native hardwoods of north-central California. A little-used 

resource, they were studied to determine their suitability for furniture and other special 

uses. New studies were also made to improve the regeneration of three California hardwoods—madrone, black oak, and tanoak (USDA FS 1966a, 1969).

The most important 

field of research in 

California forestry at 

this time was studying 

red and white firs.
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lifting seedlings out of the nursery setting in either December or January and putting them in cold storage prior to planting. This operation allowed a survival rate of 

better than 80 percent, a level Region 5 hoped to achieve in its planting programs.55 

Research plant pathologist Robert B. Vega also worked with TFTF. Bega recommended certain seed fumigation procedures that reduced root infections from as 

high as 80 percent to almost zero, while colleague Robert F. Scharpf showed in a 

large-scale demonstration how thinning could control dwarf mistletoe in true fir 

stands. Finally, entomologist George Ferrell developed a risk-rating system based 

on easily assessed characteristics of mature California red fir, Shasta red fir, and 

white fir, very similar to the Ponderosa Pine Risk Rating System, developed by the 

station in the 1930s. It determined the mathematical probability of a particular tree 

succumbing to attack by insects, disease, or other natural causes within a 5-year 

period (Wood 1975b, 1979a, 1980c).

In the meantime, at the Arcata quarters of the Redwood Sciences Laboratory on 

California’s north coast, which was maintained in cooperation with Humboldt State 

College, silviculturalist Kenneth N. Boe headed redwood and Douglas-fir studies 

(fig. 95). Boe’s mission was to concentrate his attention on young-growth redwood 

stand management, while his colleague, Robert L. Neal, Jr., continued his work on 

the subject of harvesting and regenerating old-growth stands at the Redwood Experimental Forest (REF) (USDA FS 1963). Boe and Neal felt strongly about the 

need for good forestry practices in the redwood region. By 1969, Boe and Neal’s 

redwood silviculture research concentrated on furnishing information on harvesting 

and production costs, and the merits of different silvicultural systems. Timber companies were increasingly concerned with growing redwoods and not just cutting 

them, and therefore wished to better understand the benefits and problems of clearcutting versus selection cutting. To answer these harvesting questions, the Arcata

55 In 1989, the California State Board of Forestry bestowed upon Jenkinson the Francis H. 

Raymond Award, which was given to a person or organization who contributed the most to 

the protection and wise use of forest resources in California, becoming the first researcher 

to receive this distinguished honor. The Raymond Award was named after the former state 

forester who served for 25 years, and led efforts that resulted in the Professional Foresters 

Licensing Act. For years, survival and establishment of planted seedlings in California 

forests were at best erratic. Plantations failed, but the causes remained obscure. As it 

turned out, the key to resolving the problem was the physiological capacity of seedlings to 

grow new roots quickly after they were planted. Jenkinson’s research demonstrated that the 

precise stage at which a seedling is lifted from the nursery and its subsequent duration in 

cold storage were critical factors that affect root growth capacity and, therefore, survival. 

The savings in replanting costs, as a result of his research, were estimated at $3 million a 

year for California’s national forests alone—and the potential savings were even greater 

when the techniques were applied to private forest lands (PSW 1989d). In the same year, 

Jenkinson added another award to his mantle—the USDA Superior Service Award for his 

significant contribution to improved reforestation success and reduced land management 

costs in the Western United States (PSW 1989e).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

group tested various methods on the REF, where they found that each logging 

method had distinct advantages and disadvantages. Clearcutting, whose end product was an even-aged new forest, was found to be more efficient in converting old 

growth to younger, more managed stands. However, one problem in clearcutting 

was “blow down” at the windward edge of standing timber. In contrast to clearcutting, selection cutting was designed to create a new forest with trees of several age 

classes. This harvesting practice was found useful where it is important to maintain 

the look of the forest. In terms of long-range productivity, however, the merits of 

each system were still an open book. In the meantime, Arcata researchers turned 

their attention more specifically toward managing younger timber and better 

utilization. Around 1967, demands on the commercial forests of the region had 

increased considerably, and some estimated that within 10 to 25 years, most of 

the old growth on private lands was likely to be gone. As companies began to shift 

their operations to second growth, they needed accurate information on how to 

improve young stand growth, which then included thousands of acres in the redwood region. Therefore, Arcata scientists turned their studies toward this kind of 

research. New projects56 included precommercial thinnings to determine optimum 

56 In addition to these redwood studies, in the 1960s, the Arcata laboratory studied management systems for Douglas-fir stands, as well as regeneration of Douglas-fir by seeding, 

planting, and natural means (USDA FS 1964a, 1965b).

Figure 95—Architect’s rendering of new Arcata laboratory, 1975.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Selection cutting was 

found useful where it is 

important to maintain 

the look of the forest.
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levels of growing stock, weeding of stands, and thinning of redwood sprouts (PSW 

1969c, USDA FS 1967). 

In the 1970s, Redwood Sciences Laboratory scientists continued to investigate 

natural and artificial regeneration of redwood and Douglas-fir on a variety of sites. 

Research forester James L. Lindquist showed how growth of redwood sprouts was 

influenced by different levels of overstory stocking, or by the diameter of the parent 

stump. At other sites, research forester Rudolph O. Strothman tested the response 

to repeated thinnings of previously unthinned stands of commercial-sized young 

growth redwood and Douglas-fir (Wood 1978b). Research also continued on harvest 

management systems in the 1970s. Plant physiologist Robert J. Laacke developed a 

way for managers to predict whether a proposed harvesting treatment would be 

successful on their sites, and planned to provide information on both the economic 

and biologic costs of various stand treatments. At the same time, research forester 

William W. Oliver experimented with thinning regimes for sapling and young sawtimber stands of Douglas-fir because there was very little information regarding the 

proper levels for thinning (PSW 1986t; Wood 1975b, 1979a).

Finally, starting around 1966, the Redwood Sciences Laboratory also investigated mass erosion, such as landslides and soil creep, the major source of sediment 

contaminating California’s north coastal watersheds and often the costly consequence of poorly planned logging and road building. At this time, researchers 

studied 15 sites between Fort Bragg and the Sacramento Valley to learn the 

mechanics of landslides and natural soil creep. Field observations were compared 

with laboratory analysis of soil properties. Redwood Sciences Laboratory studies by 

its engineering geologists of the mechanisms of soil creep enabled forest managers 

to forecast and reduce erosion rates caused by certain land use practices (USDA FS 

1966a, 1967, 1968c). In the 1970s, much of the research on road construction and 

logging on water quality and flood peaks was done in the Caspar Creek drainage 

on the Jackson State Forest, a site that was representative of northwestern California’s second-growth redwood and Douglas-fir. According to principal hydrologist 

Raymond M. Rice, preliminary results showed that road building did not affect 

flood peaks, but it did increase sedimentation. In the Douglas-fir forest that lay east 

of the redwood belt, researchers such as geologist Philip B. Durgin studied problems associated with logging on steep, granitic batholiths. According to Durgin, 

landslides there were most frequent when granitic rock was at an intermediate 

stage of weathering. At the same time, hydrologist Robert R. Ziemer led studies to 

determine how logging affects the role that roots play in maintaining slope stability 

(Wood 1978b, PSW 1999f).

The Redwood 

Sciences Laboratory 

investigated mass 

erosion, such as 

landslides and soil 

creep, the major 

source of sediment 

contaminating 

California’s north 

coastal watersheds 

and often the costly 

consequence of poorly 

planned logging and 

road building.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Hawaiian Environmental Research Program

Forestry research in Hawaii exemplified the breadth of pertinent subjects that the 

station confronted overall during the environmental era. During the period 1963 to 

1969, the station’s cooperative Hawaii forestry research program, which was headed 

by Robert E. Nelson, generally expanded along the same research lines established 

during the preceding 6 years—forest economics, forest products, watershed management, timber management, and forest insect and disease research.57 Also during 

this period, close to 90 publications and reports were issued by station personnel 

on Hawaiian forestry problems. These publications dealt with research results in 

watershed management (evapotranspiration, erodibility of watershed soils, rainfallrunoff relations on small watersheds), timber management (chemicals for control 

of vegetation, species adaptability of introduced trees,58 silvicultural methods for 

native and introduced trees),59 forest products technology (physical and mechanical properties of Hawaiian-grown woods, durability of local and imported woods, 

and wood seasoning methods), and marketing60 (Nelson 1989, USDA FS 1964a). 

However, protecting Hawaiian watersheds was still seen as key to the state’s 

concerns, which meant maintaining an adequate cover of trees in the mountains.61

Meanwhile, in 1967, the station’s Hawaiian Laboratory was named the Institute

57 Tree ferns were a predominant problem in Hawaii forests. Although tourists loved them, 

they were a thorn in the side of foresters who tried to establish new seedlings for reforestation projects on the Hawaiian Islands. Most defoliants and herbicides did not seem to work 

on them (PSW 1967d).

58 Since 1958, more than 800 foreign tree species had been planted in Hawaii for testing 

as potential timber trees. The station, under research forester Craig D. Whitesell, studied 

their performance, and 60 to 85 species were eventually selected for further work (USDA 

FS 1965b). Between 1964 and 1968, desirable species were planted in 15 locations in an 

effort to find better trees for timber and for improvement of recreation, aesthetics, wildlife 

habitat, and watershed values in Hawaiian forests (USDA FS 1968c).

59 Research forester Roger Skolmen conducted many of these studies on the quality, physical characteristics, and durability of both native and introduced species. Skolmen worked 

closely with industry, recommending processing and milling techniques for Hawaiiangrown woods, and furnishing technical assistance to lumbermen and mill owners (PSW 

1969b).

60 In 1963, the station sought to determine what markets existed for species being produced 

in Hawaii, and what species would be needed for future markets. Wood products in the 

Hawaiian Islands were very much in demand. For instance, until 1965, Hawaii imported 

almost all of its wood products, with 18 million board feet of timber being used annually 

for wood containers and housing in Hawaii, and 80 million board feet being used in military support activities in the Pacific area (PSW 1969b, USDA FS 1965b). Markets included 

not just local usage but also the mainland, such as the California and Michigan furniture 

industry (USDA FS 1963, 1967).

61 Early explorers also brought sheep, goats, cows, and horses to the islands. Because 

they were gifts, the kings put a kapu (taboo) on them and they ran wild. Overgrazing 

destroyed vegetation, trampled the soil, and contributed to floods and erosion. Then in the 

1800s, native forests were abused even more as loggers cut them heavily without regard to 

reforestation (PSW 1969b).
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of Pacific Islands Forestry (IPIF) in recognition of the growing influence of the 

program in the region. The location of IPIF at the crossroads of the Pacific in 

Honolulu as a station field office established it as an effective source of informtion 

about tropical and subtropical forestry for the Pacific Islands (USDA FS 1967). Subsequently, IPIF scientists began providing limited technical assistance to American 

Samoa,62Guam,63 and the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (Micronesia)64 on a 

limited basis. Although IPIF helped government officials of these three territorial 

areas in the Pacific during the 1960s, no formal cooperative programs were started 

(Nelson 1989).

In 1970, IPIF and the Hawaii Division of Forestry reviewed forestry research 

needs in the state 50th state. In a joint PSW Research Station/Hawaii Department 

of Land and Natural Resources document entitled Forest Conservation Research 

Plan for the Seventies (Ahuja and El-Swaify 1975), IPIF reemphasized the need to 

continue research started earlier, but identified new problems and opportunities that 

required investigation. It had become apparent to IPIF and the Hawaiian Forestry 

Division that many additional factors were adversely affecting the native forests at 

an accelerating rate, including fires, insects, diseases, feral animals, aggressive 

noxious plants, and even rats. This increasing forest damage and destruction 

occurred at a time when groups and individuals in Hawaii were joining together 

in an environmental movement to demand the preservation of Hawaii’s endemic 

flora and fauna. The IPIF scientists responded positively to the public’s changing 

attitudes, and were eager to tackle the newly emerging problems of preserving, 

protecting, and developing Hawaii’s complex forest resources and those of other 

Pacific areas. Forest Conservation Research Plan for the Seventies encouraged 

continued silvicultural research emphasizing tree species adaptability testing on

62 American Samoa is a group of seven tropical islands in the South Pacific Ocean, which 

in 1963 had a total land area of 76 square miles and a population of over 20,000. The 

Department of the Interior administered them as a U.S. Territory with an appointed governor. Initial work included surveying the forest resources, but, in 1966, the WO abruptly 

terminated this work (Nelson 1989).

63 Guam is another territory that was administered by the Interior Department and included 

a land area of approximately 130,000 acres, of which 50,000 acres were military holdings (U.S. Air Force and Navy). Brush and tree-covered areas total about 70,000 acres 

with grass and barren areas making up about 50,000 acres. Guam officials were highly 

concerned about vegetation destruction and watershed damage caused by extensive and 

frequent wildfires in the grasslands and forested areas, as well as erosion on large areas of 

bare lands (Nelson 1989).

64 The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands included the Marshall, Northern Mariana, and 

Caroline Islands. Encompassing some 2,000 tropical islands spread out over a vast area 

of the western Pacific Ocean, the Trust Territory had a total land area of only 717 square 

miles and a population of about 126,000. The station initially provided technical assistance 

in resource survey methodology, procurement of aerial photography, and other topics 

(Nelson 1989).

Additional factors were 

adversely affecting 

the native forests at 

an accelerating rate, 

including fires, insects, 

diseases, feral animals, 

aggressive noxious 

plants, and even rats.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

various sites, enrichment and mixed-species experiments, tree spacing and thinning experiments, expanded koa forest regeneration research, and listed topics of 

wood products research that had not been undertaken by the institute or the FPL in 

Madison, Wisconsin, but IPIF did not start additional projects in the latter area and 

instead gave priority to environmental issues (Nelson 1989).

One critical environmental problem was the epidemic decline of ohia lehua 

(Metrosideros collina) trees, resulting in the decimation of thousands of acres of 

forest. This was a particular concern on the island of Hawaii, but it was also later 

discovered on Kauai. Ohia lehua was an important forest resource because it 

provided a variety of values, such as watershed cover, wildlife habitat, timber, 

forage, and recreational importance. Therefore, between 1970 and 1976, IPIF 

concentrated much of its attention on the problem and issued many reports and 

publications pertaining to ohia forest decline—its extent, severity, and the insects, 

diseases, and other factors possibly related to the death of these trees. Despite IPIF 

efforts, the etiology of the epidemic remained a mystery. During this same time, 

IPIF also focused some research efforts on another environmental problem, the 

Mauna Kea mamane forests on the Island of Hawaii, which also had been declining 

for decades.65 Fortunately in this case, the culprit was discovered—feral goats and 

sheep. The subsequent removal of these animals resulted in the regeneration of the 

native mamane forest at Mauna Kea. This action helped restore critical habitat for 

palilas, large Hawaiian finches that fed almost entirely on immature mamane seed 

pods, and which were listed in 1967 as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service. Then there was the problem of noxious weeds. The extensive spread of 

these highly flammable introduced grass species caused increased fire hazard and 

fire occurrence throughout the islands. The need to determine an effective weed 

control measure was obvious, but by 1976, only preliminary research and experimental control work was underway. Meanwhile, IPIF made some progress in fire 

research and developed a forest fire danger rating system for the Hawaii Division of 

Forestry and other fire control officials, who were thereafter trained in the system’s 

use (Nelson 1989).

In 1977, the Forest Service celebrated 20 years of forestry research and technical assistance in Hawaii. Robert E. Nelson still served as IPIF’s project leader and 

the institute was assigned four individual RWUs. They were Pacific Islands (Territories), Maintenance of Native Hawaii Forest Ecosystems, Hawaii Forest Insect and 

65 Mauna Kea is the tallest volcano on the Island of Hawaii. From sea floor to summit it 

towers more than 5.6 miles (9 km). It is also the second largest volcano on the island. It 

began erupting on the sea floor about 800,000 years ago. Most of the volcano is made of 

shield-building lavas.

In 1977, the Forest 

Service celebrated 

20 years of forestry 

research and technical 

assistance in Hawaii.
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Disease, and Timber and Watershed Management. These four RWUs formalized 

an organization of research activities and responsibilities that had been in effect for 

several years (USDA FS 1977d, 1980b). 

Until 1977, IPIF had informally provided limited technical assistance to Guam, 

the Trust Territory of the Pacific, and American Samoa on forestry problems. Then 

in 1977, this program was formalized, which increased the California Station’s role 

in western Pacific forestry. Thereafter, IPIF initiated research in a number of priority problem areas, one of which was the development of data needed to determine 

tree species that would be successful in reforestation programs. The IPIF scientists 

also sought to develop a central source of general and technical information about 

the forest resources of the Pacific area. By 1980, IPIF was working closely with foresters and officials of these island nations to inventory and survey forest resources, 

and to develop techniques for establishing and managing healthy, productive stands 

of native and introduced tree species (USDA FS 1977d, 1980b). On the other hand, 

IPIF’s Maintenance of Native Hawaii Forest Ecosystems RWU continued to develop 

guidelines for rehabilitating, maintaining, and managing mamane, koa, and ohia 

forest ecosystems. (Nelson 1989; USDA FS 1977a, 1977c, 1977e) 

Although preserving native forests in Hawaii in near-pristine condition was 

deemed an unattainable goal, by 1979 preservation of many endangered endemic 

species through habitat management and protection appeared plausible, but overwhelming. For instance, although the epidemic decline and death of trees in the 

ohia rain forest on the island of Hawaii was of no major significance in terms of 

commercial timber losses, it was causing large reductions in populations of native 

birds. Furthermore, rats, diseases, insects, pigs, and aggressive introduced plant 

species were all damaging Hawaii’s forest resources. The Hawaii Forest Insect and 

Disease RWU, under project leader Charles S. Hodges, accepted the responsibility 

of identifying the major insect and disease problems in Hawaiian forests (Nelson 

1989; USDA FS 1977a, 1977c, 1977e).

Meanwhile, project leader Roger G. Skolmen’s task for the IPIF’s Timber and 

Watershed Management RWU was to develop and share the scientific knowledge 

needed to manage forests of native and introduced species in the Hawaiian Islands 

for timber production or watershed protection. At the onset, much Forest Service 

research emphasized developing information to support growth of the local timber 

industry. By 1979, the development of a timber resource base adequate to support 

a viable, large timber industry was not on the horizon, but the potential was there. 
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Nonetheless, the Timber and Watershed Management RWU had developed much 

information regarding watersheds and their management. Water yields, erosion, 

and situation control were becoming very important because water consumption 

had increased considerably with population growth (fig. 96). As Hawaii headed for 

near-explosive growth in tourism, as the long-reigning sugar and pineapple industries waned in economic importance, and as strong and visible interest in natural 

resources of the islands were shown by environmental groups, better watershed 

management also required better fire protection and more extensive revegetation 

programs (Nelson 1989; USDA FS 1977a, 1977c, 1977e). In the closing decades of 

the 20th century, IPIF would have to meet ever-challenging problems for Hawaii and 

Micronesia.

Research Budget Peaks

By 1979, the PSW Forest and Range Experiment Station had reached the apex of 

its growth as an institution, and the station’s investigations during the environmental era from 1963 to 1979 reflected that philosophical preference. However, when 

Ronald Reagan took over the White House in 1981, he appointed the businessfriendly and arch-conservative John B. Crowell, Jr., as Assistant Secretary of 

Natural Resources and Environment. Soon thereafter, Station Director Robert 

Callaham would be challenged by the “draconian” budget cuts that came to the 

Figure 96—Sampling soils for hydrologic characteristics, 1977. 

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest 

Research Station

The PSW Forest and 

Range Experiment 

Station had reached the 

apex of its growth as an 

institution.
378

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Forest Service’s research program under Crowell’s tenure. The shift was dramatic 

and painful; according to Deputy Chief of Research Buckman, “We were in a 

desperate situation. Imagine a $140 million budget; overlay inflation, each day it 

cost more to do business, and Crowell wanting to push that budget down to $100 

million.” Subsequently, budget justification determined whether research was 

conducted or not. Furthermore, the Budget Impoundment and Reform Act of 197466

prevented station directors from lobbying for local needs, such as a research laboratory or program increase (Steen 1994). While coping with these issues, Director 

Callaham moved the station’s research program from environmental management to 

ecosystem management.

66 Increased spending for programs initiated or expanded during the “Great Society’’ era 

of President Johnson, combined with escalating expenditures to support military efforts in 

Vietnam, heightened concern in Congress about budget deficits and spending controls. In 

response to both the frustration generated by the fragmented nature of the congressional 

budget process and the perceived encroachment of the executive onto the budgetary turf 

of Congress, Congress passed the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 

1974. The major purposes of this act were to reassert the congressional role in budgeting, to 

add some centralizing influence to the federal budget process, and to constrain the use of 

impoundments.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Chapter 8: 1980–1994, Ecosystem Research

Faced with inflation, high interest rates and other economic problems, as well as 

social disruptions, Americans elected Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980. 

Congressional staffer Dennis C. Le Master wrote:

The election of Ronald Reagan and a Republican majority in the Senate in 

1980 brought sweeping changes to Washington. The new administration’s 

attention was focused upon the domestic economy, upon fulfilling the 

president’s campaign promise of reduced taxes, increased defense spending, 

and a balanced budget. To this end, the Reagan administration worked for 

and achieved unprecedented tax and budget cuts in its first year in office. 

The cuts signaled that policy making during the Reagan years would be 

conducted through presidential budget requests, budget resolutions, and the 

funding programs in appropriation acts [Le Master, 1984: 177]. 

When President Reagan was governor of California, he was apathetic at best 

toward environmental protection, and during his presidency, the staffs of federal 

environmental agencies were discouraged from vigorous enforcement of regulations. In California, environmental groups had sought to preserve the environment 

as a whole and criticized unrestrained economic and technological growth at the 

expense of the environment, but their apocalyptic predictions for the future if 

environmental harmony was not restored, and their refusal to compromise, diminished their credibility in the eyes of those who were pro-business and others who 

questioned this radical style of environmentalism. Many saw environmental battles 

as increasingly anti-business. Pro-development, conservative political leaders, who 

came to power on Reagan’s coattails, were convinced that environmentalism was 

a threat to the state’s economy (Godfrey 2005). Was the environmental era clearly 

over in California? And what new philosophy would replace it? 

Although California prospered economically in the 1980s—mostly because 

President Reagan’s huge increases in federal spending for military projects 

dramatically stimulated the economy—it brought a mixed blessing for California’s 

environment. The public once again became dismayed over pollution caused by 

the supposedly “clean” computer and related high-technology manufacturing 

industries. By the end of the 1980s, a resurgent environmental movement had 

arisen in California. This new ethos exhibited a concern for a common natural 

world, and spanned class, regions, gender, ethnicity, and political lines in the state. 

This same movement developed among the Forest Service scientific community as 

well, resulting in ecosystem management. 

By the end of the 

1980s, a resurgent 

environmental 

movement had

arisen in California. 
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Ecosystem management was more a merging of traditions than a radical departure from the past. Some historians say that the origins of ecosystem management 

lay in Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac (1949) and its “land ethic” (fig. 97) 

A Sand County Almanac, reissued in 1966 in paperback form, catalyzed the environmental movement, much like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962). But even 

before Leopold’s book became well-known to the general public, the Forest Service 

had begun research on managing lands on an ecosystem-wide basis in the Pacific 

Northwest at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest near Blue River, Oregon. By 

the 1960s, research in Oregon, and similar research at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire contributed to a new management approach, 

initially called “New Forestry,” that emerged in the 1980s as ecosystem management (Lewis 2005). In looking back over its history, the Forest Service in California 

had been working toward this holistic goal from the very beginning, but had never 

quite understood it. In many ways, Californians had been trying to heal what they 

had destroyed in the past, while using resources to their sustainable limits. At the 

same time, they wanted to avoid leaving a wasted environment for future generations (Godfrey 2005).

Essentially, ecosystem management was the harmonization of two ways of 

looking at resource management. The Forest Service’s utilitarian conservation ethic 

meant taking care of the land and using resources wisely. The environmentalists 

Figure 97—Aldo Leopold, early ecologist 

responsible for laying the groundwork for the 

Gila Wilderness—the first administrative wilderness in the National Forest System. U.S. Forest Service

Californians had been 

trying to heal what 

they had destroyed in 

the past, while using 

resources to their 

sustainable limits. At 

the same time, they 

wanted to avoid leaving 

a wasted environment 

for future generations. 
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

wanted to accomplish these same ends but were also concerned with addressing the 

cultural and social needs of people, including aesthetic beliefs and lifestyles of all 

cultural and social groups (Godfrey 2005). As early as 1971, Charles A. Connaughton, a former chief of the Pacific Southwest (PSW) Region 5 (1955–1967), summed 

up the ecosystem approach in a speech entitled “What’s Ahead in Forestry—A 

Challenge to Research,” which he delivered at the 50th anniversary of the Southern 

Forest Experiment Station:

In recent months there have been references to a trend or desire to organize 

research on the basis of ecosystems. This seems in contrast somewhat 

pointedly with recent Forest Service experience aimed at organizing 

research on a problem basis. When the two are contrasted, the ecosystem 

approach seems generally favorable if we define the ecosystem as “an ecological community functioning as a whole in nature.” This approach means 

that research will be directed toward an understanding of the system as a 

whole and of all of its interrelationships. This contrasts with the selection of 

various parts to be studied in isolation. It means understanding the reasons 

why and how the whole picture fits together as well as what happens if any 

single phase of it is adjusted or modified in relation to other components.

The desirable research organization is one that considers the ecosystem the 

base and includes a system of studies, which deals with the community as a 

whole. As a supplement to this, however, and equally important, there must 

be a body of research which deals with specific detailed problems. The 

results of these detailed studies can and must be fitted into the ecosystem 

research in order to understand the impact of one detailed study on another 

[Connaughton 1971: 556–557].

Connaughton went on to say that detailed studies were like making bricks for 

a building. The bricks were necessary, but until they were arranged in an orderly, 

systematic design into a wall, “they won’t have the value that interdependence and 

interlocking strength will bring” (Connaughton 1971).

The violent eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 and the creation of the 

Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument presented an unprecedented opportunity for researchers, such as Jerry Franklin and James A. McMahon, to test New 

Forestry ideas by leaving “biological legacy” trees, which would benefit the ecosystem as opposed to traditional forestry practices, such as clearcut and selection 
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cutting. Meanwhile, in 1989, Chief F. Dale Robertson1 (fig. 98) was facing both congressional and White House complaints that the Forest Service was not fulfilling 

its timber harvest projections, and court cases from environmentalists that tied up 

and derailed Forest Service forest plans and projects with concerns for endangered 

species. As a solution to these problems, he seized upon the ecosystem concept of 

New Forestry, which involved a stewardship land ethic that placed a greater emphasis on ecological values, such as biological diversity and ecosystem sustainability. 

Forest Service Chief Robertson called his program “New Perspectives,” and placed 

Harold “Hal” Salwasser (later PSW Station Director, 1997 to 2000) in charge of it. 

During the next 3 years, New Perspectives encountered controversy and criticism 

from forest industries, who believed it jeopardized timber harvest levels, and from 

environmentalists who saw it as a public relations gimmick (Lewis 2005). Despite 

the criticism, the Forest Service as a whole kept its perspective and was able to 

successfully journey down this new path of ecosystem management.2 At the PSW 

Research Station, Station Director Stewart immediately implemented this shift in 

Forest Service management philosophy, by forming an interdisciplinary team of 

PSW scientists under the direction of Barry Noon, and making New Perspectives in 

Forestry one of the station’s six areas of research for the next decade (PSW 1990b, 

1991e). 

Pacific Southwest Research Station Ecosystem Research

Naturally, it took time for the PSW Research Station, and national Forest Service 

research, to swing from problem-organized to ecosystem-organized research. This 

1

 In February 1987, F. Dale Robertson succeeded R. Max Peterson as Chief of the Forest 

Service. Peterson had succeeded John R. McGuire, a former PSW station director, as Chief 

in 1979. Dale Robertson had been associate chief since 1982 and became the 12th person to 

become Chief since the office was established in 1905. Robertson, a forestry graduate of 

the University of Arkansas, earned a graduate degree in public administration at American 

University. He joined the Forest Service in 1961, and served in the South and Pacific 

Northwest as well as in Washington, D.C., and upon taking office stressed continuity and a 

smooth transition (PSW 1987b, 1987k).

2

 The environmental legislation of the 1960s and 1970s forced the Forest Service to slow 

its cutting and assess the impacts on the land, which gave it time to gain a new perspective. 

The broader perspective was needed in order to understand when an ecosystem was healthy 

or under stress. The strength of legislation like the National Environmental Policy Act 

(1969), the Threatened and Endangered Species Act (1973), and the National Forest Management Act (1976) was that they recognized that public lands could play an important role 

in the conservation of biodiversity for the Nation. When biological dimensions were taken 

together with understanding the constraints of the physical dimensions such as topography, 

geology, climate, nutrients, and hydrology, a framework for ecosystem management was 

born. With it, Forest Service management shifted to focusing on issues and concerns 

relevant to larger spatial and temporal scales (e.g., species viability). It also offered hope 

for the future resolution of key ecologic questions such as what is sustainable, what do we 

want, what do we have, and how do we get there? (Godfrey 2005).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

task fell upon not only Robert Z. Callaham, whose directorship ended in April 1983 

[when he was offered and accepted a position with the University of California to 

head the Wildland Resources Center (PSW 1983b)], but also on his successor Roger 

R. Bay (1983–1988)3 (fig. 99). During their administrations, Reagan-era mandates 

for economic efficiency often clashed with Forest Service attempts to implement 

ecosystem management. Meanwhile, Directors Callaham and Bay faced two critical 

administrative tasks. 

Consent Decree, 1980 to 1988

The first critical task was the implementation of the Bernardi Consent Decree. As 

noted in the previous chapter, in June 1972 PSW Research Station employee Gene 

Bernardi filed a class action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 

alleging that discrimination on the basis of sex was a common practice in the Forest Service. Federal judge Samuel Conti dismissed the suit in June 1981 upon the 

3

 Roger Bay earned his bachelor’s degree in forestry from the University of Idaho (1953), 

and both his master’s (1954) and doctorate (1967) in forestry regeneration and watershed 

research from the University of Minnesota. He began his full-time forestry career with an 

assignment on the Flathead National Forest, and his research career in 1956 at the North 

Central Station, where he served as project leader and research hydrologist. In 1974, he was 

appointed director of the Intermountain Station, Ogden, Utah, a position he held, except 

for a short stint in the Washington office, until coming to the PSW Research Station (PSW 

1983f, 1988o).

Figure 98—F. Dale Robertson, 12th Chief of 

the Forest Service (1987–1993). During his 

administration, he faced the growing controversy about the harvest of old-growth timber 

and the protection of species of animals and 

plants that fell under the Endangered Species 

Act of 1973. U.S. Forest Service
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

Figure 99—Roger R. Bay, 11th Director of 

the Pacific Southwest Research Station, 

1983–1988. Under his administration, 

the Bernardi Consent Degree was implemented and he worked hard to bring more 

women into professional jobs at higher pay 

grades.

approval of the Bernardi Consent Decree, which officially went into effect on July 

1, 1981. Under the decree, the Forest Service pledged to eliminate underrepresentation of women within each job series and each grade level. Thereafter, Director 

Callaham, followed by Director Bay, worked hard to bring more women into professional jobs at higher pay grades. For the next decade, hardly an issue of For Your 

Information, the news organ for the PSW Research Station, was published without 

containing a needs assessment, committee news, progress reports, monitoring 

updates, and overviews on the progress being made in meeting the goals set forth 

by the Bernardi Consent Degree, along with statements by Directors Callaham and 

Bay in support of affirmative action at the station (PSW 1981a, 1981b). 

Meanwhile, the PSW Research Station Consent Decree task force drafted and 

finalized an implementation plan to meet certain consent decree goals by the courtimposed June 1986 deadline. The station worked closely with Region 5 to heighten 

awareness of the contributions of women and their value and worth to the organization, while carefully scrutinizing all vacancy announcements and position descriptions for Consent Decree compliance, and training staff in their Consent Decree 

responsibilities. Furthermore, under the Consent Decree, the station was required 

to ensure that women employees receive 43 percent of all training, and to periodically report on progress (PSW 1984f, 1984g, 1984i, 1986e). In a short time, women 

were promoted to administrative jobs, with higher pay, at the PSW Research U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

The station worked 

closely with Region 5 

to heighten awareness 

of the contributions 

of women and their 

value and worth to the 

organization.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Station and within Region 5.4 For instance, in October 1985, Susan G. Conard5 was 

named project leader of the newly reorganized Chaparral Ecology and Fire Effects 

Research Work Unit (RWU)6 headquartered at the Riverside Forest Fire Laboratory (PSW 1985f).7

 Or for example, in mid-1986, during the celebration of the 60th

anniversary of the establishment of the California Forest Experiment Station,8

scientist Jacqueline “Jackie” L. Robertson was promoted to grade GS-15, becoming 

the first woman bench scientist and first woman project leader in the Forest Service 

to achieve that grade (PSW 1986r, 1986s).9 Then in March 1987, Shirley A. Moore 

became the first female assistant director of the PSW Research Station, having 

transferred from the Washington office (WO), where she had served for the previous 3 years as a staff assistant to the deputy chief of research (PSW 1987i). Additionally, a new program—called Career Pathing—was launched at the station under 

Roger Bay’s administration to provide station clerical employees with a vehicle for 

advancement in jobs other than clerical. The program was broken down into an 

exposure phase, where the participant received intensive career counseling and a 

chance to examine career opportunities, and a development phase, where the

 4 In January 1985, for example, Region 5 broke hiring precedents by making Geraldine 

(Geri) B. Larson supervisor of the Tahoe National Forest, the first woman to be named a 

forest supervisor in the Forest Service (Godfrey 2005, PSW 1985j).

5

 Susan Conard joined the station’s former Chaparral Ecology Research Unit in 1983 and 

had already earned a bachelor’s degree in environment sciences at Antioch College, and 

her master’s and doctoral degrees—both in ecology—at the University of California, Davis 

(PSW 1985f).

6

 At this time, the Chaparral Ecology Research Unit was engaged in prescribed burn 

studies on the San Dimas Experimental Forest (SDEF) that were designed to compare the 

hydrologic and ecological effects of fire on chaparral watersheds (PSW 1984q). In 1985, 

the 17,000-acre SDEF celebrated its 50th anniversary (PSW 1985b, 1985q). For the event, 

Paul Dunn, Sue Barro, Wade Wells, Mark Poth, Pete Wohlgemuth, and Chuck Colver 

published The San Dimas Experimental Forest: 50 Years of Research (1988) (Dunn et al. 

1988, PSW 1988n).

7

 In 1988, the Riverside Fire Laboratory celebrated its 25th anniversary with the publication 

of a history entitled Forest Fire Laboratory at Riverside and Fire Research in California: 

Past, Present, and Future written by Carl Wilson and Jim Davis (PSW 1988m, 1988n; 

Wilson and Davis 1988).

8

 During the celebration, at the age of 96, A. Everett (“Wies”) Wieslander was the only 

surviving member of the four-person team that started the California Forest Experiment 

Station 60 years earlier. He served under four station directors: Edward I. Kotok (1926–

1940), Murrell W. Talbot (1940–1945), Stephen N. Wyckoff (1945–1954), and George M. 

Jemison (1954–1957) (PSW 1986f, 1986u, 1986v). At the same time, a new logo to mark the 

anniversary was approved (PSW 1986w).

9

 Jackie Robertson earned her doctorate in entomology in 1973 from the University of 

California, Berkeley and became a research entomologist with the Insecticide Evaluation Research Unit. Since 1982, she had headed the Improved Technology for Integrated 

Management of Western Forest Insects Research Unit in Berkeley and as a senior scientist 

had more than 100 scientific and technical publications (PSW 1986r).
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participant received accelerated on-the-job training10 (PSW 1985l, 1985u, 1986b). 

By the end of 1986, each issue of For Your Information prominently posted in its 

“New to PSW” column job vacancies that had been filled by women. For example, 

the December issue announced that the Institute of Forest Genetics at Placerville 

had recently welcomed three new permanent positions filled by women (PSW 

1986m). 

Despite these and other efforts, as the station passed the June 1986 deadline, a 

hearing was held in January 1987 to determine whether or not the Forest Service 

had met all requirements of the Decree (PSW 1987d). After more than a year of 

deliberations, in May 1988, U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti upheld a contempt 

citation that charged that the Forest Service had failed within a 5-year period to 

implement fully an affirmative action program, after spending more than $750,000. 

Judge Conti asserted that the Forest Service had “dragged its feet” in this 15-yearold sex-bias case and affected about 1,500 women employees in California and 

Hawaii. Although Judge Conti did not levy a fine or impose any penalty, he stated 

that “if there is no progress” he would hold another hearing in the case. Instead, he 

extended the implementation period of the Consent Decree for an additional 

3 years, and agreed that $1.5 million more be spent for the program (PSW 1988f).

Shrinking Budgets, Retirements, Competitive Grants, 

and Relocation

As the PSW Research Station coped with fulfilling the Consent Decree goals in the 

years 1981 to 1988, it also faced another critical problem, a shrinking budget, which 

directly affected research projects and programs, facility growth and management, 

and the station’s personnel. In late 1981, President Reagan signed the first of many 

appropriations bills that cut the Forest Service research budget. The 1981 cuts, along 

with recent pay raises, reduced the funds for the station’s research program and 

general assessment by about 7 percent. As a result, difficult and stringent economy 

measures had to be taken. Forest Service research budget cutbacks, performance 

appraisals, merit pay also became familiar topics covered in For Your Information. 

But even with all the economy measures taken, Directors Callaham and Bay found 

it necessary to implement reduction-in-force (RIF) at the Berkeley Station and at

10 Its first participant and graduate was Linda Lux, who started out in 1985 as a project 

clerk for two RWUs (Snow Hydrology and Forest Disease Research) in Berkeley. At that 

time, Lux had B.A. and M.A. degrees in art history from the University of California, 

Davis and had done archaeological fieldwork in Greece, England, and California (PSW 

1985k, 1985n). In October 1988, Lux became the first “graduate” of the program and 

filled a newly created Region 5 historian position where she could work on her two broad 

interests: history and archaeology, and public affairs (PSW 1988i). In 1989, the program 

was considered successful and was renewed for another 3 years (PSW 1989c).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

some field units (PSW 1982b). Budget cuts also often resulted either in the termination of RWUs entirely, such as two RWUs in Hawaii in 1982 that eliminated 12 

positions (PSW 1982a, 1982b), or the combining of RWUs at the station, such as 

coupling the urban forestry with landscape management (PSW 1982g).

Thereafter, as the Reagan administration boosted its military spending, the 

rest of the budget categories, including Forest Service research declined. The President’s fiscal year 1985 budget called for a research budget of $103 million, down $6 

million from 1984, with timber management and genetics, protection of resources, 

acid rain, and old-growth wildlife habitat given high-priority research status. This 

budget decrease of 5 percent, according to Assistant Secretary of Agriculture 

John Crowell, reflected the administration’s objective of improving efficiency and 

reducing costs by closing research locations, terminating RWUs, and eliminating 

full-time equivalents (FTEs) at those facilities. The Forest Service also agreed to 

reduce administration costs by $4.9 million and 265 FTEs by fiscal year 1987. Forest Service Chief R. Max Peterson (fig. 100) expressed concern over the agency’s 

budget woes. He encouraged station staff to become more “visible” and to tell more 

people and organizations about the good work being done at the station.11 Peterson 

also asked them to consider consolidation of support functions with Region 5,12

which was accomplished in June of that year when fiscal and accounting functions 

for the station were reassigned to Region 5 (PSW 1984b, 1984f, 1984h, 1984n, 

1984p). 

During the remainder of his tenure, Director Bay approached the station’s 

budget problem in four ways: consolidation or termination of RWUs, requests for 

early retirement, an internal competitive grant program, and a change of location 

for the PSW Research Station. The first RWU consolidation came in late 1984, 

when two RWUs were terminated. In Honolulu, the Forest Protection Unit led 

by Charles S. Hodges was merged with the Watershed Management Unit led by 

11 To this end, in 1987, the station issued a new series of brochures that described a number 

of the station’s facilities and research units. They were highly useful in making contacts 

with constituents and others interested in the station’s research program. Subjects included 

a new directory of research programs, the Institute of Forest Genetics at Placerville, 

Redwood Sciences Laboratory at Arcata, and the Chaparral Ecology Research Unit at 

Riverside. At this time, the station also held a series of science seminars at its Berkeley 

headquarters and at the Riverside Forest Fire Laboratory with resident and visiting scientists talking about their research work (PSW 1987f).

12 By 1987, the station shared many services with Region 5, including personnel management, administrative, fiscal, accounting, law enforcement, and engineering services (PSW 

1984v, 1987f).
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C. Eugene Conrad. In Riverside, the Wildlife Prevention Research Unit was terminated with the retirement of Elliot L. Amidon and David Olson (PSW 1984d). Many 

scientists were moved to other locations or RIF’d to technician positions. According to one PSW retiree, “it was a real bloodbath. For example, when I came to the 

station in 1983, I had a GS-13 scientist in a GS-5 technician slot” (Bell 2007). Still 

other retirements of key project leader scientists with 30 to 40 years of service 

followed, such as Douglass F. Roy and Robert L. Neal at the Redding, California, 

Conifer Types Research Unit, and Robert V. Bega13 from the Berkeley Forest 

Diseases Research Unit (PSW 1984t, 1984u, 1985p). But the Gramm-RudmanHollings Act, formally known as the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, provided for automatic spending cuts to take effect if the president 

and Congress failed to reach established targets.14 Consequently, PSW Research 

Station employees eligible for early retirement—often called “early out”—were also 

13 Robert F. Scharpf succeeded Bega as project leader of the Forest Diseases Research Unit.

14 Because the automatic cuts were declared unconstitutional, a revised version of the act 

passed in 1987, but it failed to result in reduced deficits. A 1990 revision of the act changed 

its focus from deficit reduction to spending control.

Figure 100—R. Max Peterson, 11th

Chief of the Forest Service (1979–

1987). Peterson served during a period 

of turbulent criticism of the Forest 

Service but managed to implement 

regulations for the National Forest 

Management Act of 1976. U.S. Forest Service
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

asked to “voluntarily” request early retirement so the Forest Service could meet its 

budget targets (PSW 1985t, 1985w). Many obliged under this program.15

But with ever-declining research funding, Director Bay pilot tested an internal 

competitive grant fund, whereby the station reserved up to 10 percent of its operating capital after fixed costs and used it to fund solicited project proposals from 

station scientists. The program was designed to encourage important scientific 

advances within the station, to create internal competition for funding of innovative 

research, to be responsive to priority research, to reward good work, and to gather 

preliminary data to solicit outside funds. The first awards were made in the fall of 

1986 (PSW 1986j, 1986o). For several years, this internal program ran alongside 

the competitive grants program authorized by the Forest and Rangeland Renewable 

Resources Research Act (F&RRRA) of 1978, from which the PSW Research Station had received research grants almost annually (PSW 1986p, 1987c).

By fiscal year 1987, Director Bay optimistically predicted the station’s budget 

to rise to $11.9 million, an increase of $1.8 million over the previous year. This 

meant increased funding for several station research programs, including spotted 

owl research at Arcata and Fresno, biotechnology and related genetics research 

at Berkeley, forest fire research and atmospheric deposition work at Riverside,16

timber management research in Hawaii, watershed management research at Arcata, 

and research in recreation to be started in southern California17 (PSW 1986q).

Like many Forest Service units, to meet budget constrictions, the PSW Research

15 Interestingly, Forest Service Deputy Chief of Research Robert E. Buckman retired at 

this time as well. He listed three major accomplishments during his decade-term as deputy 

chief that he was proud of. One was his work in helping to update the guides to forestry 

research that culminated in the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Act of 1978. 

Another was his work that modernized the authorizations for the Forest Service to conduct 

research, and enabled it for the first time to compete for research grants. This work came 

to fruition in 1985–1986. And third, he was proud of his work in building relations with 

forestry schools and the forest industry (PSW 1986b). John H. Ohman initially succeeded 

Buckman as deputy chief of research, but was soon replaced by Jerry Sesco (PSW 1988p).

16 In mid-1986, the Washington office announced major changes in the agency’s forest fire 

research program. These changes strengthened its fire science capability by concentrating 

all forest fire and atmospheric sciences research at five locations—Missoula, Montana; 

Riverside, California; Seattle, Washington; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Macon/Athens, 

Georgia. This meant that the Riverside Laboratory would receive additional funding and 

scientists from the North Central Station’s facility at East Lansing, Michigan, which was 

consolidated with the Riverside Laboratory. The reorganization brought three scientists 

and several professionals, technicians, and programmers, all of whom helped strengthen 

Riverside in the areas of prescribed fire, fire severity forecasting, and computer systems 

(PSW 1986i, 1986l, 1987f).

17 In June 1987, the Urban Forestry/Landscape Research Unit was relocated from Berkeley 

to the station’s Forest Fire Laboratory, Riverside, and redefined as the Wildland Recreation 

and Urban Culture Research Unit. The heavy population pressures on national forests in 

southern California emphasized the need for more effective recreation management there 

(PSW 1987g).
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Station made wide use of temporary employees, who worked at almost all levels 

and contributed substantially to the station’s research mission (PSW 1987l). 

Not quite out of the budget problem yet, in early January 1987 Station Director Bay, along with Region 5 Forester Zane Smith, began to explore a proposal to 

co-locate the station with the Regional office in the Davis/Sacramento area. At this 

time, the PSW Station had about 100 employees in the Stead Building in Berkeley, 

and the Regional Office had 380 employees in the Appraisers Buildings in San 

Francisco. Besides the budget, another concern was that the Stead Building did not 

meet current earthquake standards according to the General Services Administration (GSA) and it was more economical to seek an alternate site than to upgrade the 

building. Among several options considered for new office/laboratory space was a 

proposed move to a building in the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) complex 

in Albany, California (fig. 101). Director Bay estimated that the station would 

need about 30,000 square feet of space, and that it would costs about $1 million to 

refurbish a building there (PSW 1987a, 1987e). 

In June 1987, WO and station staff joined forces in conducting a combined 

program review of research and administration, which started in Honolulu and 

concluded at the Berkeley headquarters. This review—the first to be held at the 

PSW Research Station since 1982—discussed the relocation issue, but its primary 

Figure 101—Agricultural Research Service Building, Albany, California, current home of the 

Pacific Southwest Research Station.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

purpose was to evaluate the station’s overall research program and suggest ways 

of improving program results. The General Research Inspection (GRI) found that 

the station had “an excellent record of cooperation with user groups and outside 

agencies; good stable leadership; and a general desire and willingness to work 

cooperatively within the station, among stations, and across budget line items 

where appropriate.” The GRI singled out several RWUs for commendation, and 

recommended that the station be moved to a refurbished building within the ARS 

complex in Albany (PSW 1987f). A year later, Congress earmarked $2.3 million 

for funding a move to the ARS complex as a cost-saving alternative to remaining 

in the Stead Building. With the appropriation of funds, architects were set to work 

designing the new space. The move took several years to complete (PSW 1988d), 

but Director Bay, after 32 years in the Forest Service, was not to oversee the move 

to Albany, for he retired shortly after the announcement of the move. In reflection, 

Director Bay stated that the biggest challenge he faced as station director was to:

...build back the confidence in people and programs with PSW (and from 

cooperators and customers) after the Station received major reductions in 

budgets, programs, and people in the early 1980s. It seems that PSW had 

faced greater reductions than most other Stations, with corresponding 

displacement of programs and people [PSW 1990f].

With the help of many people, the station built its budgets back up with internal 

and outside funding, strengthened a number of programs, and started new ones. 

Under Director Bay, the station was also able to maintain its good relationships with 

long-time cooperators, such as Region 5, the California Department of Forestry 

and Fire Protection, Los Angeles County, industry, university partners, and others 

(PSW 1990f).18

Thus, to the new Station Director Ronald Stewart fell the task of moving 

the station to another location, and reprogramming the station’s research efforts 

because of changing national priorities (PSW 1988q).

Pacific Southwest Research Under Directors Callaham and Bay

Despite the upheavals caused by both the Consent Decree and the Reagan-era budget cuts, a great deal of research was accomplished during the Callaham and Bay 

administrations. Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station scientists 

worked in 20 RWUs, specializing in research in such areas as timber management, 

silviculture, and forest genetics; control of forest insects and diseases; and wildfire

18 Interestingly, when Roger Bay was asked what he considered to be the biggest challenge 

he faced as station director, he did not mention the implementation of the Consent Decree 

(PSW 1990f).
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management and related fire sciences. Forest fire economics, management of watersheds, range, and wildlife, and landscape and urban forestry were also included. 

For administrative purposes, PSW Research Station’s programs were grouped 

as “Research in Northern California,” “Research in Southern California,” and 

“Research in Hawaii” (McDonald 1985). 

There were seven RWUs in Research in Northern California that operated 

from the Berkeley Station. One was the forest genetics RWU in Berkeley and at 

the Institute of Forest Genetics (IFG) in Placerville,19 which studied the application 

of isozyme analysis20 to the genetics and genetic engineering of conifers (PSW 

1982d). The unit made significant headway in determining the genetic mechanisms 

that enabled sugar pines (See “Scientific and Common Names” section) to resist 

white pine blister rust and western yellow pine to be resistant to western gall rust. 

They also conducted work on seed source trials of pine and fir and on improved forest nursery practices that contributed significantly to tree improvement programs. 

This allowed Region 5 nurseries to produce Douglas-fir seedlings with survival 

rates of 90 to 99 percent in the first year (McDonald 1985, Wood 1983). 

However, by 1986, thanks to a technology invented by American scientists 

in the early 1970s and perfected by a consortium of industry, entrepreneurs, and 

government, it became increasingly possible to endow important tree species with 

the outstanding characteristics of others and to do so in a fraction of the time that it 

took using conventional methods. That technology was working with recombinant 

DNA—popularly known as gene splicing. Using DNA technology, geneticists at 

IFG believed that the prospect of designing a tree was just around the corner. 

According to Thomas Ledig, leader of the research unit managing the IFG, “Reaping the benefits of recombinant DNA technology as applied to forestry is coming 

close to reality.” At this time, Ledig and his genetic research unit, which included 

Ronald Sederoff 21 and Thomas Conkle, began an adventurous 5-year plan for the 

isolation and mass production of disease-resistant genes from sugar pine, the testing of various schemes designed to insert these and other genes into the DNA of 

19 As noted in previous chapters, the Institute of Forest Genetics (IFG), founded in 1925 

by Seattle lumberman James G. Eddy, was the first facility for forest genetics research in 

the world. In 1985 it completed its 60th year of research, an event marked by having IFG 

nominated to the National Register of Historic Places (PSW 1985i, 1988g).

20 In isozyme research, the proteins, or enzymes, in the tree seeds are analyzed. Because 

protein formation is a function of genes, information gained from analyzing the proteins 

provides, in turn, clues to the genetic makeup of the tree.

21 In 1985, project leader Tom Ledig received a competitive research grant from the Office 

of Grants and Program Systems, USDA, to conduct a workshop in forest biotechnology, 

and Ronald Sederoff was awarded a similar grant to investigate DNA transfer systems for 

pines over a 3-year period (PSW 1985v).

Using DNA technology, 

geneticists at IFG 

believed that the 

prospect of designing 

a tree was just around 

the corner.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

tree cells, and finding ways of getting the freshly transplanted genes expressed 

in adult trees. As the researchers would learn, however, getting genes into pine 

cells, determining which genes to insert, and isolating valuable genes was not as 

easy as assumed. Furthermore, even if valuable genes were isolated and a sure-fire 

way devised to introduce them into pines, there remained one last and formidable 

hurdle—developing ways of growing whole trees from single cells in culture. Discovering a way to coax single cells to grow into plantlings would provide the final 

link in the attempt to genetically engineer forest trees. But techniques like DNA 

transfer, the regeneration of trees from cells, and somacional selection were certain 

to have a profound impact on the way trees were utilized as a natural resource 

(Pearce 1986).

Studying the hydrology of the snow zone in the Sierra Nevada was assigned 

to station scientists at the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory. Research Work Unit 

4301, called “Environmental Hydrology of the California Snow Zone,” continued 

to work on techniques to more accurately predict the water-holding capacity of the 

snowpack, and the changes that occur in the moisture content of snow zone soils. 

However, by 1985, the unit’s scientists, in close cooperation with station scientists 

in Riverside, were increasingly emphasizing research on acid rain (McDonald 1985, 

PSW 1981d). Pressured by the Environmental Protection Agency and the public,22

in 1984, President Reagan announced plans to seek “substantial” spending increases 

for acid rain research. Given a higher priority than other research, Neil Berg, project 

leader for the snow zone hydrology RWU, attended workshops to guide PSW Research Station planning efforts for future Forest Service research programs on acid 

rain and acid deposition. By December, PSW Research Station scientists at the 

Snow Laboratory and the Forest Fire Laboratory at Riverside were working closely 

with the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program on the problem over the 

next few years (PSW 1984c, 1984h, 1984k, 1984r, 1989l).

Meanwhile, in October 1980, the Forest Insect and Disease RWU at Berkeley 

was renamed the Forest Pest Management RWU with the responsibility for providing leadership in integrated pest management (IPM) and for maximizing pest 

management effectiveness and efficiency while minimizing adverse impacts on 

people and the environment. At this time, this unit continued its research to reduce 

losses caused by root diseases in forest nursery seedlings, to develop methods for

22 Groups like the Environmental Defense Fund reported that if acid rain continued to fall 

at current levels, it would affect more lakes and streams, kill more fish and plants, and 

cause irreversible damage to the environment. Meanwhile, in California, researchers and 

scientists recorded acid rain and acid fog hundreds of times more acidic—and on some 

occasions thousands of times more acidic—than normal rainfall. Although the problem 

was most severe in southern California in or near the congested urban air basins, it had 

been documented in northern California as well (PSW 1984a, 1984o, 1984s).

Researchers would 

learn, getting genes 

into pine cells, 

determining which 

genes to insert, and 

isolating valuable 

genes was not as easy 

as assumed.
394

general technical report psw-gtr-233

predicting potential losses from root diseases in young stands, to understand root 

strengths and weaknesses, and to develop information leading to the control of 

mistletoes (McDonald 1985; PSW 1980b, 1983c; Wood 1980d, 1981c). Robert F. 

Scharpf continued his research on the western dwarf mistletoe, which was a widespread and damaging parasite of ponderosa and Jeffrey pines in the Western United 

States. By 1987, Scharpf and his colleagues pointed out that from both financial 

and economic standpoints, living with some mistletoe in the forests was a more 

reasonable goal than trying to completely eliminate it, especially as not all of the 

trees infected were accessible or displayed symptoms of the disease. However, they 

also felt that through a conscientious IPM program, both valuable timber areas and 

high-value campsites could have trees that were relatively healthy and safe for users 

(PSW 1988d).

During this same period two research units at Berkeley concentrated their 

attention on the biology, control, and management of forest insects. They continued 

to assess chemical insecticides proposed for use in forests in terms of not just their 

effectiveness, but also whether they might damage beneficial predators or parasites 

or other forest organisms. A new computer program entitled POLO2 made it easier 

and more convenient for scientists to test more variables in experiments with 

insecticides. The PSW Research Station Pest Management RWU made significant 

contributions to the Western United States program of controlling the devastating 

Douglas-fir tussock moth (fig. 102) and to a joint U.S./Canadian effort to control the 

Figure 102—Defoliation by the Douglas-fir 

tussock moth kills or top-kills many trees and 

weakens additional trees that are eventually 

killed by bark beetles. U.S. Forest Service, Pacific South- west Research Station
395

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

western spruce budworm. They also developed guidelines for protecting Douglasfir seeds and cones from insect damage through an injection technique ( McDonald 

1985: 18, PSW 1982e, Wood 1981b), and in 1986, provided guidelines for testing 

insecticides on coniferous forest defoliators (PSW 1986k).

Finally, there was the landscape and urban forestry unit. This unit worked to 

provide more cost-effective techniques for predicting the effects of land management activities on visual aesthetics of forest landscapes and to develop procedures 

for reducing the costs of managing urban forests (McDonald 1985). Two California 

landscape architects, R. Burton Litton (a part-time station scientist), and Robert J. 

Tetlow at the University of California, Berkeley, developed a landscape inventory 

system for scenic resources in wildland areas, which could be used to describe 

everything from small settings of several square miles to regions covering thousands of acres (PSW 1980b). The RWU also developed a user-friendly computer 

program called SOLPLOT, which helped landscape architects, arborists, homeowners, and others use trees and vegetation to control sunlight and shade at various 

times of the day and season on buildings, homes, and other structures, including 

solar panels, patios, swimming pools, and other features (Wagar 1985).

Outside Berkeley, there were two RWUs at the Redding Silviculture Laboratory and two more at the Redwood Sciences Laboratory in Arcata. One RWU in 

Redding was a closely integrated program on the regeneration and maintenance of 

California conifer types, including the study of clearcutting and natural regeneration in the northern Sierra Nevada region through work at the Challenge and Blacks 

Mountain Experimental Forests (PSW 1984e). The other, based on research at the 

Swain Mountain Experimental Forest, had since 1958 concentrated on growth and 

yield of valuable red fir and white fir forests and their management, including natural regeneration of true fir forests (Pearce 1987a, PSW 1984l). A long-term concern 

was the impact of competitive brush on timber growth, so toward this end, Redding 

Silviculture Laboratory studies produced guidelines for optimum tree densities and 

brush control strategies that markedly increased the productivity of ponderosa pine 

and Douglas-fir on a variety of sites in northern California (McDonald 1985, PSW 

1985c, Wood 1982c). Preharvest prescribed burning on the Lassen National Forest 

was also evaluated at the Redding Laboratory as a practical alternative for controlling shrubs and other competing vegetation in regenerating forests. Early data in 

1987 indicated that this method could reduce the density or vigor of postharvest 

shrubs to the point that the need for later treatments would be lessened or even 

eliminated (Pearce 1987b). 

In Arcata, the Redwood Sciences Laboratory (fig. 103) research units concentrated on the management of Pacific coast forests on unstable lands and on the 
396

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Figure 103—Main building of the Redwood Sciences Laboratory, 1976.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

relationships between timber management practices and wildlife interactions, 

particularly in old-growth habitat. The first Arcata RWU under project leader 

Raymond Rice developed guidelines for predicting and monitoring the effects of 

logging, road building, and other forest management activities on soil stability23

and non-point-source pollution. For the previous two decades at Caspar Creek, in 

cooperation with the California Department of Forestry (CDEF), the PSW Research

23 In the Forest Service’s 1984 Research Accomplishments (USDA FS 1985), nine areas of 

the station’s research were highlighted, one of which dealt with research in landslides in 

West Coast forests conducted at the Redwood Sciences Laboratory by project leader and 

outstanding scientist Raymond Rice. Other highlights reported by the station included 

studies of the effects of atmospheric pollutants on trees and forest ecosystems, and the cost 

of multiple-use management resulting from changes in timber value because of wildfire 

(PSW 1985a, 1986n). 
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Station had been studying the effects of logging on the integrity of northern 

California watersheds. Their findings from the 1962–76 study greatly illuminated 

the extent and nature of the hydrological impact, erosion, and stream sedimentation 

on this northern California basin undergoing a “typical” logging operation. But 

forest practices change over time. Therefore, in 1985, the PSW Research Station and 

the CDEF launched a second study to cover the next decade—this time to monitor 

cumulative, not just isolated, effects. They hoped that two long-term investigations 

would give forest managers, public policy managers, and private enterprise an 

empirical basis on which to formulate sound logging practices (McDonald 1985, 

Pearce 1987a).

The second Arcata RWU began to study closely the interconnectivity between 

the northern spotted owl and old-growth habitat,24 and station scientists were active 

participants in the Forest Service Westside Old-Growth Forest/Wildlife Habitat 

Research and Development Program25 (McDonald 1985). In early 1987, a new 

Spotted Owl Research, Development, and Application RWU was established in 

Portland. Its mission was to conduct a 5-year research program to develop, apply, 

and integrate new information about the spotted owl into guides and procedures 

for managing suitable spotted owl habitat in the national forests of Washington, 

Oregon, and California. At this time, the PSW Station’s Timber/Wildlife Habitat 

Research Unit, at Arcata, and the Wildlife Population Monitoring Research Unit at 

Fresno supplemented the program with limited research on California’s spotted owl 

(PSW 1987h).

Research units in southern California by 1985 were located in the Forestry 

Sciences Laboratory, Fresno, and the Forest Fire Laboratory (FFL) at Riverside. At 

Fresno, there were two RWUs. One concentrated on range management research, 

and the other on understanding and monitoring wildlife populations. The range 

research RWU aimed to develop ways to determine the timber-range relationships 

in forests on the west side of the Sierra Nevada, to provide guidelines for maintenance of mountain meadows, and to better understand the competitive interactions 

between cattle and deer in the same region (McDonald 1985, PSW 1983a). However, 

24 For instance, in July 1982, Reg Barrett, professor of wildlife management at the University of California received a grant from the PSW Research Station for a 3-month study of 

young spotted owls. The purpose of his research was to determine where 2- to-6-monthold owls set up their nesting territory, after they leave their parents. Earlier observations 

indicated that spotted owls prefer to nest in the large trees of old-growth forests or in the 

biggest trees of younger stands (PSW 1982f).

25 This research program in 1983 came in the midst of an acrimonious controversy over the 

northern spotted owl and old-growth forests. The debate centered on whether old growth 

was a unique stage of Douglas-fir/western hemlock forest development that provided critical habitat for a broad array of associated species, such as the northern spotted owl.

The Arcata RWU 

mission was to conduct 

a 5-year research 

program to develop, 

apply, and integrate 

new information about 

the spotted owl into 

guides and procedures 

for managing suitable 

spotted owl habitat.
398

general technical report psw-gtr-233

by 1985—the 50th anniversary of the San Joaquin Experimental Range (SJER)—

previous studies conducted on the effects of range fertilization on herbage production and livestock gains, range improvement of brush and tree species, and grazing 

systems for natural and fertilized ranges were largely phased out (PSW 1985r). 

Nonetheless, the SJER continued to be the site of some wildlife population monitoring work in managing Sierra Nevada wildlife habitat conducted by Jared “Jerry” 

Verner, project leader of the Protection and Management of Sensitive Species in 

California RWU in Fresno, and Allan S. Boss, formerly of the Eldorado National 

Forest, who jointly published California Wildlife and Their Habitats: Western 

Sierra (Verner and Boss 1980) in which they argued that the key to managing 

wildlife was to manage its habitat. This book, along with a computerized database 

and matrix system, served as a practical working reference on the habitat requirements of some 355 wildlife species, from the alpine chipmunk to the yellow-headed 

blackbird. This information was needed to give land managers the ability to predict 

the potential impacts of logging, prescribed burning, brushfield conversion, or any 

other manipulation of vegetation on wildlife species with the Sierra Nevada (Wood 

1980b). The wildlife RWU also focused on developing safer methods for sampling 

and monitoring wildlife populations, using such innovative techniques as “voiceprinting” bald eagles and peregrine falcons so that their movement and habitats 

could be studied with minimal disturbance to the birds (McDonald 1985, PSW 

1983e). 

Furthermore, to meet National Forest Management Act requirements that all 

wildlife resources on national forests be monitored by means that were not only 

comprehensive, but also biologically and statistically sound, the PSW Station 

took a new approach—inventorying everything in a wildlife guild—“a group of 

species that exploits the same class of environmental resources in a similar way.” 

The whole-guild approach, according to Verner, who was in charge of the station’s 

research on protection and management of sensitive species in California, would 

define the capability of habitat to support wildlife populations more efficiently than 

the traditional use of single indicators. By counting everything in the defined guild, 

the approach also reduced the possibility of losing a species from the area. It also 

permitted the researcher to look separately at any trends among permanent residents, winter residents, migrant feeders, and spring or fall residents (Hanson 1983). 

Jerry Verner’s work was acknowledged among four other significant PSW Research 

Station activities in the Forest Service’s Research for Tomorrow’s Forests: 1983 

Research Accomplishments (USDA FS 1984) (PSW 1984j).

Elsewhere in southern California, RWUs were located at the Forest Fire Laboratory in Riverside (fig. 104). They were concerned with the ecology of chaparral 

The PSW Station 

took a new 

approach—

inventorying 

everything in a 

wildlife guild—“a 

group of species 

that exploits the 

same class of 

environmental 

resources in a 

similar way.”
399

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Figure 104—Riverside Forest Fire Laboratory, 1988.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

and associated ecosystems; meteorology for forest and brushland management; fire 

management planning and economics; and prescribed burning in chaparral and 

related ecosystems. In 1978, the station began a 5-year program on chaparral management. For decades prior to that time, management of California’s chaparral was 

concentrated on watershed protection and protection from fire, particularly for the 

urban areas that were rapidly encroaching on the hills and mountains. The program 

staff was brought in from Region 5 to provide linkage between researchers and 

practitioners, and by the close of this program, this RWU had 11 full-time professionals with a supporting staff that ranged from 11 to 8 technicians and clerical 

personnel. Through new findings or through interpretive applications of existing 

information, they significantly contributed to a better understanding of chaparral 

ecosystems in several problem areas (PSW 1985h, McDonald 1983). The objectives 

of the new Ecology of Chaparral RWU included research to determine chaparral 

moisture content (PSW 1980c); to understand the effects of fire on soils in southern 

California chaparral (PSW 1980a); to develop a better understanding of erosion 

processes to minimize the hydrologic impacts of land treatments; to determine the 

dynamics of nitrogen in the chaparral ecosystem; to determine the processes of 

deposition and transfer of air pollutants and their influence on ecosystems and on 
400

general technical report psw-gtr-233

forest resources in general26 (Miller 1985, Wood 1981a ); and to develop an understanding of the ecology of oak woodlands, as well as postfire management through 

emergency ryegrass reseeding (PSW 1981c, 1984m, 1988e). 

Research forester Tim Paysen also took a new ecosystem approach to classifying plant communities in California, so that colleagues from other wildland management agencies and different disciplines could communicate better (Wood 

1982a). Toward this same end, in 1987 C. Eugene Conrad published a keyed and 

illustrated guide entitled Common Shrubs of Chaparral and Related Ecosystems 

of Southern California (Conrad 1988, Pearce 1988a). In the meantime, station 

research aimed at developing techniques for using meteorological information 

in predicting fire behavior, determining fire effects, and maintaining air quality 

through a network of telemetering weather stations. The Fire Economics RWU 

developed and pilot-tested FEES (Fire Economics Evaluation System), a model 

that screened budgets and options for fuel treatment, initial attack, aviation operations, and large fire suppression, and evaluated the economic efficiency of each 

option, estimated program performance, and predicted potential fire-related 

changes in natural resource outputs (McDonald 1985 PSW 1985e, Wood 1982b). 

By late 1986, the station had developed and tested a computer program to find 

the optimum fire management program level for a given situation (PSW 1986g). 

Called FIRECAST, 27 it estimated six fire behavior parameters—rate of spread, 

fireline intensity, flame length, perimeter and area, scorch height, and ignition component—to determine a particular fire’s behavior (PSW 1986h). Finally, the Chaparral Prescribed-Fire RWU was charged with developing guidelines for prescription 

burning for Region 5 and the California Department of Forestry on national forests, 

state lands, and cooperatively on private lands in southern California. Part of this 

research included gauging the amount of forest fuels on the ground as natural fuel 

for wildfires, and was conducted on the San Bernardino National Forest in cooperation with Region 5 (McDonald 1985; PSW 1981e, 1982c, 1985m). 

26 In 1985, Paul H. Dunn was named project leader of a new RWU called Atmospheric 

Deposition Effects in the Western United States. The new RWU was a spinoff of a research 

unit that Dunn headed from 1982 to 1985. It was headquartered at the Riverside Forest 

Fire Laboratory, and its mission was to conduct research on nutrient cycling and on smog 

deposition and its relation to tree physiology and pathology. Fieldwork was done on the 

San Dimas Experimental Forest and the San Bernardino National Forest north of Riverside 

(PSW 1985g).

27 The FIRECAST program was one of five PSW Station projects mentioned in the Forest 

Service’s 1985 Research Accomplishments (USDA FS 1986a). Other projects noted in the 

publication included station work on airborne nitrate pollutants, protecting white pine seed 

from infestations of pine cone beetles, coneworms, and cone moths, designing fire weather 

networks, and transferring genes from bacteria into pines (PSW 1986n).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

In 1980, the Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry (IPIF) in Hawaii had 40 scientists, technicians, and others working on four different teams specializing in research on timber and watershed management, insects and diseases, native Hawaiian 

ecosystems, and forest management in Micronesia and nearby areas (Woods 1980a). 

But by the end of President Reagan’s first term in office, because of budget cuts, 

it had been reduced to two RWUs, each of which worked closely with Hawaii’s 

Department of Lands and Natural Resources, Division of Forestry and Wildlife, 

other state and federal agencies, the University of Hawaii, and private forestry and 

associations. The Hawaii Forest Management RWU continued working to develop 

information on and techniques for reforestation of koa, to determine productivity 

of biomass in relation to the site, and to develop biological controls of noxious 

weeds. Hawaii’s second RWU was engaged in forestry research in the American 

Pacific Islands, assessing the forest resource to produce an accurate database for 

use in planning land management options, and to enhance forest productivity there 

(McDonald 1985).

Directors Stewart and Weber and the Consent Decree

Complying with Judge Conti’s 1988 order to extend the implementation period 

of the Consent Decree for an additional 3 years initially fell to Ronald E. Stewart 

(fig. 105), who replaced Roger Bay as station director in April of 1988 (PSW 

1988b, 1988o). A native of San Mateo, California, Stewart became the station’s 

12th director,28 and made meeting the Consent Decree requirements and diversifying the station’s workforce a major priority. To achieve this goal, Director Stewart 

reorganized the station’s approach so that all Consent Decree matters were reported 

directly to him, a change made to ensure that the station maintained a balanced 

civil rights program that was not a problem for research (PSW 1989b). The PSW 

Station Director continued to pursue its civil rights/Consent Decree goals in a 

number of ways to meet Judge Conti’s deadline. For instance, in the sixth quarter

28 Ronald E. Stewart graduated from Oregon State University with a forestry degree (1964) 

and doctorate in forest ecology (1970). In 1969, he joined the Forest Service as a research 

forester in the Brushfield Reclamation Research Unit, Pacific Northwest Station, at Roseburg, Oregon. In 1977, he was assigned to the Washington office as a staff specialist, and 

in 1984 joined the PSW staff as assistant director, supervising two research units in Arcata, 

six in Berkeley, and two in Redding (PSW 1988r).
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

of the Consent Decree extension, women employees at PSW received 70 percent 

of the overall station training opportunities, and women in the professional series 

made the largest gains, receiving 61 percent of the opportunities and 42 percent of 

the training hours29 (PSW 1990r). 

However, in mid-December, Station Director Stewart left to become Regional 

Forester for the PSW Region (Region 5) in San Francisco, having held the station 

director position for only 2 years (PSW 1990q). In February, Barbara Weber30 (fig. 

106) assumed the duties of acting station director, becoming the first woman to 

head up a research station in the agency. However, Forest Service Chief F. Dale 

Robertson at that time changed the position of PSW director, which until then had 

29 Women in general had progressed in the Forest Service in the 1980s. In 1980, they made 

up 27 percent of the agency’s workforce. By 1990, that figure had risen to 37 percent. In 

average grade, during the decade, they jumped from grade 5.83 to 6.8. On the other hand, 

women represented less than 20 percent of the Forest Service professional workforce and 

93 percent of its administrative/clerical force. As further sign of change, in 1980, women 

represented less than 5 percent of the employees in the agency’s four largest occupations—

forester, forestry technician, civil engineer, and engineering technician. By 1990, women 

constituted more than 15 percent in each of these four occupations (PSW 1990s).

30 Barbara Weber was a native of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, and started her Forest Service career in 1975 as a researcher at the North Central Station’s Hardwoods Research Unit 

at Carbondale, Illinois. Upon assignment to the Washington office in 1987, Weber served 

as staff assistant in the Legislative Affairs staff, and then assistant to the deputy chief of 

research before taking the PSW assignment (PSW 1991o).

Figure 105—Ronald E. Stewart, 12th Director 

of the Pacific Southwest Research Station, 

1988–1990, a native Californian who continued 

and extended implementation of the Bernardi 

Consent Decree. U.S. Forest Service, Pacific South- west Research Station

Barbara Weber 

assumed the duties of 

acting station director, 

becoming the first 

woman to head up a 

research station in the 

agency.
403

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

been a Senior Executive Service slot, to an open competitive position—another 

“first” in the Forest Service (PSW 1991o). Director Weber’s first priority was to 

work toward a successful conclusion of the Consent Decree, which was scheduled 

to end in May, if its programs and goals were met. This goal was accomplished in 

June 1988, when a Consent Decree milestone hearing was held. Although Judge 

Conti ordered that the decree be extended for another 2 years for Region 5 compliance, the PSW Research Station was exempted from his decision (PSW 1991e, 

1991f, 1991g, 1991h, 1991n). It had been 25 years, but at last the PSW Research Station was out of the shadow of this court action. In recounting the many years under 

the Consent Decree, Assistant Station Director Enoch Bell commented that the 

station went through a series of evolving emotions during those years: first “denial,” 

then “isolation,” then “grudging compliance,” and finally, “adoption,” and believed 

that while the Forest Service would never be the same, it would be a much better 

place. “We lead the nation in dealing with our people in a positive and upright manner,” said Bell. “Perhaps the rest of the Forest Service should consider some of these 

Consent Decree programs” (PSW 1991e). Several months later, in September 1991, 

Barbara Weber, who had applied for the station director position in February, was 

appointed to the office, becoming the station’s 13th director (PSW 1991l). 

Figure 106—Barbara C. Weber, 13th Director of

the Pacific Southwest Research Station, 1991–1994. 

The station’s first female director, Weber successfully completed the Consent Degree program 

and oversaw the station's move to the USDA West 

Annex Building, Albany, California—the first 

time that offices and laboratories were built to the 

station's own specifications.
404

general technical report psw-gtr-233

More on Budgets, Workforce, and Relocation

Barbara Weber held the station director post until May 1994, a 3-year period that 

not only saw the successful conclusion of the Consent Decree issue, but several 

other key events in the station’s history. For instance, overseeing the relocation 

of the station to a refurbished ARS facility at Albany fell to her administration. 

New laboratories and new open working space had to be designed for the first and 

second stories, a new library/publications center created, old equipment disposed, 

rooms assigned, records retired to the Federal Records Center, and delays in construction by ICF Kaiser’s Albuquerque unit and Page Construction Company 

overcome. Because the station had not intended to keep its headquarters in the 

Stead Building beyond January 1992, the later problems caused work disruptions 

and extra months of rent. Although the second-floor laboratories were still incomplete, on March 9, 1992, 113 PSW Station employees said goodbye to their former 

Berkeley headquarters and used “Albany” as their new work address. The station’s 

relocation to the USDA West Annex Building, at 800 Buchanan Street, Albany, 

which had originated nearly 6 years earlier, marked the station’s fourth move in its 

66-year history. However, its move to the West Annex Building was its first occupancy of a government-owned building, and the first time offices and laboratories 

had been built to the station’s own specifications. There was an additional need 

for space, and employees had to get used to new commute routes and to the roar of 

the Amtrak train streaking past the building in the back, but the station scientists 

were very happy with their new laboratories. Tom Conkle sized up the situation 

this way: “The new laboratories are palaces, when compared to the old, dark, dirty 

Stead Building labs.” Four research units maintained laboratories on the second 

floor: Forest Genetics, Insect Ecology, Insect Population, and Forest Disease. They 

shared use of preparation rooms, cold rooms, dark rooms, and equipment rooms. By 

September of the next year, Director Weber declared that any move to the Sacramento area in co-located headquarters with Region 531 was no longer a consideration (PSW 1991a, 1991b, 1991c, 1991m, 1992a, 1992b, 1992c, 1992m, 1992n, 1993l, 

1994d).

31 In mid-1994, there still remained the question of whether or not the station should join 

Region 5’s proposed move to Mare Island, Vallejo. The Mare Island Naval Complex was 

scheduled to close down by 1996. Forest Service Chief Jack Thomas had approved Region 

5’s move, and had said he favored PSW relocating there as well, so as to strengthen the 

collaboration between the two organizations. However, Station Director James Space made 

a case for why the station should not relocate at Mare Island, quickly pointing out that it 

would be impractical, even though the move from the Stead Building to a government 

building had not realized the anticipated savings because the building’s maintenance costs 

had continued to escalate rather than drop. By August, Station Director Space convinced 

Thomas that closer collaboration with Region 5 and cost reduction could be achieved 

without the trouble and expense of relocating to Mare Island (PSW 1994c, 1994f).

“The new laboratories 

are palaces, when 

compared to the old, 

dark, dirty Stead 

Building labs.”
405

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Besides the relocation of the station headquarters from Berkeley to Albany, 

Station Director Weber also dealt with several other critical issues that had been 

building during the previous decade. Dramatically apparent changes as well as 

subtle changes characterized the PSW Research Station during the decade prior to 

Weber’s tenure. A comparison of budgets, size, and composition of the workforce, 

and number of scientists and of publications suggested these differences. In fiscal year 1980, or the start of the Reagan administration, the station’s total funds 

amounted to $9.2 million; in fiscal year 1990, the amount was $14.7 million. But 

although the sum appeared to be a substantial increase, funds in terms of constant 

1990 dollars were nearly identical for the two fiscal years: $9.2 million in 1980, 

and $9.12 million in 1990. However, if the publication numbers demonstrate the 

research results of station scientists, there was an upturn. In fiscal year 1980, the 

PSW Research Station issued 162 publications, or 1.6 per scientist, and in fiscal year 

1990, an estimated 170, or 2.6 per scientist. Owing to changes in the budget, the 

station’s permanent workforce underwent significant transformation. In fiscal year 

1980, there were 91 persons classified as scientists; in fiscal year 1990, that figure 

had dipped to about 64, and the entire permanent workforce declined from 290 in 

fiscal year 1980 to 210 in fiscal year 1990. Not only was the new workforce more 

productive, perhaps because of the introduction of desktop computers, but also 

during the decade, it had become more diversified through the hiring of women and 

minorities. In fiscal year 1980, women made up 39 percent of the station workforce; 

in fiscal year 1990, they composed 55 percent. In the same period, ethnic minorities 

made up 22 percent of the workforce in fiscal year 1980, and 24 percent in fiscal 

year 1990 (PSW 1991i).

In fiscal years 1991–1993 the PSW Research Station budget inched up with 

small add-on amounts for 10 RWUs: Global Change, Insect Chemical Ecology, 

Urban Forestry, Recreation, Forest Genetics, Vegetation Management, Conifer 

Silviculture, Watershed/Inland Fishery and Aquatic Ecosystems, Wildlife/Range, 

and Timber/Wildlife (PSW 1991l, 1992o). President George H.W. Bush proposed an 

additional $10 million increase in Forest Service research for fiscal year 1994.32

32 In fiscal year 1994, Forest Service Region 5, unlike the PSW Station, faced enormous 

downsizing owing to restrictions in timber cutting brought about by the courts and related 

decisions on preserving the northern spotted owl in Region 6, and in Region 5’s decision 

to manage California spotted owl habitat in 10 national forests in northern California. 

These reductions in timber cutting resulted in budget cuts and in the need for a smaller 

workforce. Although Station Director Weber predicted that the station would not have any 

unfunded positions for the next 3 years because of budget levels and vacancies expected 

to take place in the permanent workforce over the same period, Region 5 was projected to 

have an estimated 220 unfunded positions because of the action related to the spotted owl 

habitat protection (PSW 1993h, 1993k). As a result of Region 5’s downsizing, some of the 

fiscal services provided by Region 5 to the station in a 1985 transfer were reassumed by the 

station (PSW 1994i).

Owing to changes 

in the budget, the 

station’s permanent 

workforce underwent 

significant 

transformation.
406

general technical report psw-gtr-233

The increased funding in Forest Service research was to be added to a base program of $17.9 million for continuing research aimed at developing an ecological 

basis for managing the national forests and other forest lands (PSW 1993d). Part 

of this increase went to the PSW Research Station, to conduct a major study of the 

Sierra Nevada ecosystem as mandated by Congress.33 This study was to be completed in 2 years, and provide a detailed look at old-growth ecosystems as well as 

other ecosystems found in the Sierra Nevada. Forest Service Chief F. Dale Robertson called the study “one of the most significant science-based assessments of 

resource options in recent years and will form the basis for important and complex 

decisions regarding management of this vast and diverse region.” A steering committee appointed and headed by Station Director Weber directed the study and an 

independent scientific panel gathered state-of-the-science knowledge on the biological, physical, and human environment of the region for future use by policymakers 

(PSW 1993e, 1995f). However, before the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Study, could 

be completed, in November 1993, Jack Ward Thomas34 succeeded Dale Robertson 

as the 13th Chief of the Forest Service (PSW 1993n). At this time, Thomas, the first 

chief whose entire career had been steeped in science and research, called for “new 

leadership” to “reinvent” the conservation principles of Gifford Pinchot and take 

the agency into the 21st century (PSW 1993o, 1994k, Thomas 2000). At that time, 

the National Performance Review, headed by Vice-President Al Gore, issued its 

report, which called for sweeping reforms in the federal government. It sought to 

create a government that worked better and cost less—a government that served its 

customers better by cutting red tape and putting customers first. Among its major 

33 Congress mandated the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project in 1993, when it enacted HR 

5503 (1992 Congress) and allocated $150,000 for an assessment of old-growth forests in 

the Sierra Nevada. The U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Agriculture also 

approved a separate bill (HR 6013), specifying that the study should be a comprehensive 

ecosystem assessment of the entire range. Though HR 6013 fell victim to adjournment, 

the Forest Service considered the requirements of HR 5503 and HR 6013 as the basis for 

this study, which was to be completed by December 31, 1995. The study area included both 

public and private lands (PSW 1995f).

34 Jack Ward Thomas, a native of Fort Worth, Texas, earned an M.S. degree in wildlife biology at West Virginia University and a Ph.D. in forestry at the University of Massachusetts. 

He joined the Forest Service in 1966 as a research wildlife biologist at the Northeastern 

Station in Morgantown, West Virginia, and later at Amherst, Massachusetts. Since 1974, 

Thomas had been a chief research wildlife biologist and project leader at the Pacific 

Northwest Research Station at La Grande, Oregon. Thomas had authored an estimated 

250 publications and was probably best known for heading up an interagency scientific 

team that in 1990 issued the report A Conservation Strategy for the Northern Spotted Owl

(Thomas et al. 1990) that elicited considerable interest as well as controversy. Thomas was 

the second person whose career had been primarily in forestry research to head the Forest 

Service—the first was John R. McGuire (PSW 1993n).

Forest Service Chief 

F. Dale Robertson 

called the study 

“one of the most 

significant sciencebased assessments 

of resource options 

in recent years and 

will form the basis 

for important and 

complex decisions 

regarding management 

of this vast and diverse 

region.”
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

proposals to move the federal government into the 21st century was a smaller federal workforce, reformation of the personnel system, simplification of the contracting process, closing or consolidating field offices, and instituting major changes 

in management of the work environment. In return, the Forest Service offered to 

“reinvent” itself and to serve as an agency for change, innovation, experimentation, 

and reform in the way it organized, structured, and functioned (PSW 1994i). The 

National Performance Review (Gore 1993) and Thomas’ appointment signaled a 

time of unprecedented change that was sweeping over resource management, the 

whole federal government, and the Forest Service in particular. Nowhere was this 

more evident than when PSW Station Director Barbara Weber held an all-employee 

conference in Sacramento, “Reawakening the Spirit in PSW.” With 200 people in 

attendance, Weber held the meeting to ensure that the station turned in the right 

direction and positioned itself to withstand even greater changes (PSW 1993n). 

However, within 3 months, Thomas announced that Barbara Weber would relocate 

to the WO as associate deputy chief of research, succeeding Eldon Ross, who 

retired. Thomas named James C. Space as her replacement (PSW 1994a).

Ecosystem Research Under Directors Stewart and Weber

From 1988,35 when Ronald Stewart became director of the PSW Research Station, 

to 1994, when Barbara C. Weber took over, a need developed for large-scale synthesis of information for land managers and planners and involvement of scientists 

in national forest planning—in other words, ecosystem research based on interdisciplinary research (Stewart 2004). The locations of individual research scientists 

was no longer important because projects often spanned several regions of the state 

or were part of larger national forestry concerns. To meet this new approach, the 

PSW Research Station and the Forest Service research program moved to a research 

attainment reporting system. Under this arrangement, each research station produced an attainment report as one basis on which to evaluate its research program 

and work unit performance. The WO aggregated the PSW Research Station report 

with reports from other forest experiment stations to prepare a national report on 

research programs and accomplishment as required by Congress, the Department 

35 In 1988, the PSW Research Station listed 18 active RWUs (PSW 1988l) and had a healthy 

budget. For fiscal year 1988, the PSW Station had a 61-percent increase in total funding 

from other agencies and organizations over the previous year (from $1.6 million to $2.5 

million), and a 47-percent increase in extramural research funds from the previous year. 

In addition, the Forest Service’s 1986 Research Accomplishments (USDA FS 1987) highlighted 16 PSW Research Station achievements (PSW 1988c). However, in the fall of that 

year, the PSW Research Station lost the Management Sciences Staff (PSW 1988j).

The locations of 

individual research 

scientists was no 

longer important 

because projects 

often spanned several 

regions of the state 

or were part of larger 

national forestry 

concerns.
408

general technical report psw-gtr-233

of Agriculture, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). In return, they 

used the national research report to evaluate Forest Service research progress. Each 

yearly PSW Research Station research attainment report contained two parts. Part 

I broke down the station’s research program into four general functional categories: 

forest management, environment, protection, and resource analysis. Within each 

category, the attainment report provided a research work unit description (RWUD) 

that defined each RWU’s mission, described the problems to be studied that year, 

and discussed how RWU scientists intended to accomplish their goal. Part II 

provided a bibliography of all the publications produced as a result of research.

Forest Management Research in California, 1988 to 1994

Essentially, during these 6 years, forest management research had five research 

work units. Three were located in California. They were Institute of Forest Genetics, Silviculture of California Conifer Types, and Establishment and Maintenance 

of Regeneration for California Forests.

In 1988, project leader Tom Ledig led the IFG. In that year, the big event at IFG 

was hosting a national genetics workshop that attracted nearly 50 geneticists and 

other specialists from all the Forest Service regions, three Forest Service experiment stations, the WO and three universities. The PSW Station staff discussed 

applied uses of isozymes and established procedures for working with the Forest 

Service National Forest Genetics Electrophoresis Laboratory (NFGEL), recently 

opened on the Lassen National Forest about a mile from the IFG.36 Analyses by the 

NFGEL made it possible to map patterns of genetic variation, check compliance 

of cone collectors, and check on commercial seedlots. This work also permitted 

ramets, families, provenance, and seedlots to be identified; specific crosses to be 

verified; and pollen dispersal and seed orchard contamination to be estimated (PSW 

1988h). In the same year, research plant geneticist Connie Millar joined the Forest 

Genetics Research Unit at Berkeley. Millar, who earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in forest 

genetics at Berkeley and who had worked as a summer employee at PSW, helped 

establish the Center for the Conservation of Genetic Diversity at IFG. A winner of a 

prestigious Pew Scholars Program in Conservation and the Environment (1991), she 

established an innovative program at IFG to create opportunities for forest managers to have “mini-sabbaticals” at the institute where they could focus on educating 

themselves about specific biodiversity issues (PSW 1991k, 1992l).

36 Sharon Friedman, a full-time technician, directed the NFGEL, which processed seeds 

and tree samples to provide genetic information about relative amounts and geographic 

patterns of natural variation and performed analyses that identified different forms of 

enzymes called isozymes (PSW 1988h).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

However, by 1992, Ledig had stepped down and M. Thompson Conkle was 

made project leader. Under his leadership, the IFG focused most of its time and 

research budget37 on two other problem areas: quantifying the level and pattern 

of genetic variation for adaptive growth traits in conifers, and molecular forest biology. Analysis of the evolutionary histories of pines provided knowledge necessary 

for managing ecosystems to maintain high levels of adaptive variations (USDA FS 

1992, 1993). By 1994, IFG scientists were involved in cooperative trials of Douglasfir representing the West Coast from British Columbia through California, and 

sugar pines in Spain, that yielded important data about growing adaptations for 

different seed sources (USDA FS 1993, 1994, 1995). On the other hand, the study of 

molecular forest biology was a more focused discipline, and was conducted both at 

Albany and the IFG in Placerville. Together with the NFGEL—which by 1992 had 

been renamed the Molecular Genetics Laboratory (MGL)—they made significant 

progress in mapping the key genome and DNA sequences of various pines (USDA 

FS 1992, 1993, 1994).

At the Redding Silviculture Laboratory, project leader William Oliver, who had 

succeeded Douglass Roy in 1984, forged ahead with investigations of three problem 

areas in the Silviculture of California Conifer Types. This RWU was one of two 

that formed the Vegetation Management Research and Development Program.38

Besides project leader Oliver, the unit consisted of researchers Bob Powers and 

Leroy Dolph, forester Kathy Harcksen, and biologist Rose Leonard. This RWU 

was responsible for three experimental forests in northern California. Active research studies were conducted in the ponderosa pine and Jeffrey pine stands at 

Blacks Mountain Experimental Forest, but no active studies were being conducted 

on the Challenge Experimental Forest or at the Stanislaus-Toulumne Experimental 

Forest at this time (PSW 1994f).

The unit’s primary research goal involved growth and yield projection systems needed for managed forests of California. Oliver and his staff aimed to 

develop the necessary equations and integrate them into simulators that would 

help predict growth and yield of managed stands in the major timber types. Oliver 

worked on the relationship of tree growth and stand development to initial spacing 

37 Other research problem areas included studying the mechanisms and inheritance 

of disease resistance, investigating exotic species for biomass, and the study of gene 

conservation.

38 Chartered in 1987, the Vegetation Management Research and Development Program was 

located in Redding and was managed by Phil Aune. In 1994, a Forest Service WO review 

of the station’s program resulted in a series of commendations for the program’s progress 

toward solving problems selected by its two units through interdisciplinary research (PSW 

1994e).
410

general technical report psw-gtr-233

and thinning in stands of ponderosa pine and true fir. He and Powers also investigated predictions of growth responses to soil fertilization, and along with researcher 

Leroy Dolph, he studied the influence of shrub competition on growth of true fir. 

Such records proved invaluable for validating computerized growth and yield projection systems and monitoring the health of forests in response to disease, insect 

attack, and global climate change. From this cumulative work came SYSTUM-1, an 

individual-tree/distance-independent computer program developed for use in young 

tree plantations in all parts of California, described in the PSW Research Station 

publication User’s Guide for SYSTUM-1: A Simulator of Growth Trends in Young 

Stands Under Management of California and Oregon (Ritchie and Powers 1993) 

(PSW 1994f; USDA FS 1992, 1993, 1994). 

The second research goal of this RWU concerned developing better information on soil processes that affect forest productivity, and was related to the national 

Long-Term Soil Productivity Cooperative Study (LTSP) begun in 1989. Initiated 

by the Forest Service because of public concern about the effects of management 

activities on forest ecosystems in national forests, the LTSP study provided for a 

network of installations and research data across a broad range of forest ecosystems 

throughout the United States and Canada. Under Section 6(g) of the National Forest 

Management Act of 1976, the Secretary of Agriculture was required, through 

research and continuous monitoring, to ensure that management systems “will not 

produce substantial and permanent impairment of the productivity of the land.” 

This project was initially established to evaluate timber management impacts on 

long-term soil productivity, but the importance of the issues involved eventually led 

the Canadian Forest Service, the British Columbia Ministry of Forests, universities, 

and industry groups to cooperate on the program. Bob Powers chaired the Forest 

Service LTSP study. California’s first LTSP experimental site, the Nation’s second, 

was established in 1991 at the Challenge Experimental Forest and operated by the 

PSW Research Station. After that, other sites were established, and by 1995, five 

other installations were operating across the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. 

Partners included the Eldorado, Plumas, Sierra, and Tahoe National Forests, and the 

University of California’s Blodgett Research Forest (PSW 1994f; USDA FS 1992, 

1993, 1994).

Finally, the third research goal for Oliver’s RWU involved interdisciplinary 

evaluations of the effects on forest resources of alternatives to even-age silviculture. 

Forester Kathy Harcksen led the team that researched how ecosystems function, 

particularly in response to management. To this end, in January 1992, a team of 

scientists from a number of appropriate disciplines and different RWUs were 

assembled to conduct research at BMEF on the effect of management practices 

The Secretary of 

Agriculture was 

required to ensure that 

management systems 

“will not produce 

substantial and 

permanent impairment 

of the productivity of 

the land.”
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

on plant, animal, genetic, and biological diversity, on which ecosystem processes 

were sensitive to disturbance, and on the consequences of disturbance on biological diversity (PSW 1992d). The team also included key personnel from the Forest 

Regeneration Research Unit in Redding, the Wildlife Monitoring Unit in Fresno, 

the Insect Chemical Ecology Unit at Davis, and Region 5’s Genetics Electrophoresis 

Laboratory in Placerville. The Blacks Mountain researchers sought information on 

the health and vigor of wildland ecosystems, their resilience to natural and humaninduced disturbances, and the implications for managing Forest Service lands. The 

effects of three common management practices—high and low structural diversity, 

cattle grazing, and prescribed fire—on east-side pine ecosystems were of particular 

interest. By 1995, the scientists had collected baseline data on the vegetation and 

wildlife at BMEF prior to the installation of treatments for the investigation (PSW 

1994f; USDA FS 1992, 1993, 1994).

The second component Vegetation Management Research and Development 

Program was the Forest Regeneration Research Unit. It was unique at PSW, and 

was led first by Jim Laacke (PSW 1988l), and then by project leader Charles “Phil” 

Weatherspoon. Besides Weatherspoon, the RWU consisted of silvicultural researchers Jim Laacke and Philip M. McDonald, research entomologist George Ferrell, and 

mathematical statistician Martin Richie. Headquartered at the Station’s Silviculture 

Laboratory at Redding, California, the unit worked closely with Region 5’s unique 

Silvicultural Development Unit staffed by foresters Gary Fiddler and Walter Leonard. Their mission was to bridge the gap between the station and region in areas of 

developing studies with both scientific and operational objectives, and in sharing 

technology transfer. Together, the station’s RWU and Region 5 provided an extra 

boost to technology transfer and the application of research beyond that usually 

associated with research units. The RWU maintained the Swain Mountain Experimental Forest and oversaw cooperative studies on 10 national forests in California 

(PSW 1994g).

The RWU divided its research time between three problems, the most noteworthy being how to systematically control competing vegetation during stand 

regeneration.39 From 1988 to 1994, steady progress was made toward solving this 

problem through either controlling undesirable plant species or by stimulating the 

growth of seedlings through fertilization or genetic enhancement. By 1994, Phil 

McDonald and Gary Fiddler had more than 40 studies that quantified the major 

techniques for manipulating vegetation in planted and naturally seeded areas. These

39 From 1992 to 1994, the other two problems of this RWU were to better understand plant, 

insect, and disease responses to predict effects, and to assess competition and tree growth 

development to alternative treatments.

The Blacks Mountain 

researchers sought 

information on the 

health and vigor of 

wildland ecosystems, 

their resilience to 

natural and humaninduced disturbances, 

and the implications 

for managing Forest 

Service lands.
412

general technical report psw-gtr-233

included methods that directly affected competing plant species and those that 

indirectly affected conifer seedlings through boosting seeding growth or modifying the environment to the detriment of the competing species. Direct manipulations included using grazing animals, applying selected herbicides, manual release, 

installing mulches, and deploying large machines with rotary heads. Indirect 

methods included evaluating enhanced seedlings and taking advantage of the shade 

produced by different-sized openings in the forest. Information from these studies 

was valuable for helping forest managers establish rapidly growing plantations. 

Furthermore, in a series of publications, researcher Philip M. McDonald addressed 

the reasons that a sustained hardwood industry had failed to develop on California’s 

forest-zone hardwoods. Later, his research broadened PSW’s perspectives on hardwood management, culminating in California’s Hardwood Resource: Managing for 

Wildlife, Water, Pleasing Scenery, and Wood Products (McDonald and Huber 1995) 

(PSW 1994; USDA FS 1992, 1993, 1994).

Forest Management Research in Hawaii, 1988 to 1994

The Forest Management Research in Hawaii, and American/Pacific Islands Forestry Research40 were the fourth and fifth RWUs in forest management research, 

which was reorganized and strengthened in Hawaii and the Pacific Islands from 

1988 to 1994. In 1990, the Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry, which had been 

formed in 1967 and oversaw both RWUs, became established by statute under the 

International Forestry Cooperation Act (IFCA). This act authorized the Agriculture 

Secretary to provide assistance that promoted sustainable development and global 

environmental stability in support of forestry outside the United States. The secretary was also authorized to expand the capabilities of the IPIF and, at the request of 

the Governor of Hawaii, to establish and administer a Hawaii Experimental Tropical Forest as a model of tropical forest management, a site for research, and a center 

for demonstration, education, training, and outreach. Then, in September 1992, 

Hawaii Forest Management Research (PSW 1988l) took a significant turn again 

when the Hawaii Tropical Forestry Recovery Act (HTFRA) amended IFCA. The 

HTFRA established the Hawaii Tropical Forest Recovery Task Force with a mission 

to develop strategies for the long-term management, protection, and use of the existing and potential forest resources of the state of Hawaii. Pacific Southwest Research 

Station Director Barbara Weber served as one of two Forest Service members of the 

40 In May 1987, the Pacific Islands Research Unit was renamed the American/Pacific island 

Forestry Research Unit to show that many of the new governments in the Pacific islands 

were semi-independent (PSW 1987j).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

task force.41 The HTFRA also expanded IPIF and other tropical facilities in Hawaii. 

In September 1994, the task force presented the Hawaii Forest Recovery Action 

Plan to Hawaii Governor John Waihee (PSW 1994j, 1995a).

Prior to HTFRA, the PSW Research Station had two RWUs in Honolulu, which 

were under the IPIF. The first was Forest Management Research in Hawaii. Prior 

to 1994, project leader Eugene Conrad, who had been responsible for such research 

since 1988, had concentrated the unit’s attention on gathering data in Hawaii to 

understand the organization and dynamics of koa and koa-ochia, develop techniques to restore mixed-species native forests, and control noxious weeds in Hawaii 

using insect biological control agents (Conrad and Gill 1996; USDA FS 1992, 1993, 

1994). The second RWU, American/Pacific Islands Forestry Research, was led 

by Craig D. Whitesell. Whitesell focused most of this RWU’s work on gathering 

necessary resource information for management purposes and strategies. Permanent growth plots were established in the tropical forests, and forest inventories of 

these islands were undertaken (fig. 107). However, RWU also performed long-term 

studies pertaining to establishing and managing eucalyptus biomass plantations 

(USDA FS 1992, 1993). By 1994, Whitesell moved the unit into new areas, such as 

exploring the biological, social, and economic aspects that limit agroforestry expansion, studying the ecology of native and exotic species that limit forest productivity, 

and gathering knowledge to protect, manage, and restore critical ecosystems, such 

as mangrove forests (USDA FS 1994).

After the passage of HTFRA, the PSW Research Station still had three principal RWUs to guide the unit’s activities. However, three research teams now 

conducted studies formerly undertaken by the RWUs. They were Restoration of 

Ecosystem Processes, Control of Invasive, Nonindigenous Weeds, and Forested 

Wetlands with Jack Ewel as Institute Director.42 The Restoration of Ecosystem 

Processes team continued more than 12 years of research into understanding the 

structure and function of Hawaii’s endangered koa forest and developing techniques 

41 Associate Deputy Chief of State and Private Forestry Michael Rains was the other task 

force member representing the Forest Service.

42 In addition to this major PSW Research Station program change, Region 5 and the 

Forest Service’s State and Private Forestry Branch reorganized as well. In 1980, a fulltime position of Pacific Islands Forester at Honolulu was established in Region 5 to work 

with landowners in Hawaii and the other Pacific Islands. Under the 1994 reorganization, 

Region 5’s Pacific Islands Forester and Associate Pacific Islands Forester were assigned to 

work under the PSW Research Station to coordinate research with its eventual users, and 

to provide consistent leadership with the Pacific region. Staffing the new unit were Len 

Newell, Pacific Islands Forester; Katie Friday, Associate Pacific Islands Forester (both of 

whom were based in Honolulu); and Pacific Basin Agroforester Robert Westcom, who was 

based in Guam. Besides Hawaii, they worked also in the Territories of Guam and American 

Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, the Federated States of Micronesia, 

the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and elsewhere in the region (PSW 1995d).
414

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Figure 107—Netting forest birds, Keauou Ranch, Hawaii, 1979. 

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

to restore them. Logging, cattle grazing, invasion by feral pigs and weeds, and 

other disturbances had degraded these native ecosystems. Key members of the 

team included forest ecologist Gene Conrad, research forester Paul Scowcroft, and 

biologist Janis Haraguchi. Studies were conducted throughout the state, with many 

projects taking place on the island of Hawaii, site of IPIF’s research laboratory in 

Hilo and the state’s largest remaining forests (PSW 1995a). 

The Control of Invasive, Nonindigenous Weeds team consisted of research 

entomologists Rosemary Leen and Rex Friesen, supported by several technical 

assistants. When Captain Cook arrived in the islands in 1778, there were at least 

1,400 native species of seed-bearing plants. Since then, more than 4,000 new 

species had been introduced, with many of them becoming naturalized. Europeans 

also brought hoofed animals—cattle, goats, pigs, sheep, and horses—which consequently ran wild. As a result, many native plants and birds had been lost and the 

ecosystems disrupted. By the early 1980s, only a small portion of Hawaii’s original 

rain forest remained. For the most part, these relic rain forests were protected in 

national parks, state forests, and other reserves, but some predicted that if the 

invasion of plants could not be stopped, Hawaii’s native forests would be gone in 

a hundred years. Starting in 1984, saving Hawaii’s native forests became a major 

concern for a loosely based cooperative group that had one goal: stop an invasion of 

weeds that threatened to destroy what was left of Hawaii’s rain forest. However, it 

Hawaii’s native forests 

became a major 

concern for a loosely 

based cooperative 

group that had one 

goal: stop an invasion 

of weeds.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

was decided instead of chemicals or mechanical means, only the natural insect and 

disease enemies of the plants themselves were to be used. This approach broke new 

ground because it was the first time biological control had been used in an attempt 

to save a native ecosystem (Mastrantonio 1989). 

Since the IPIF first began its biocontrol program under the direction of George 

Markin, who created the program, its work was primarily concentrated on four 

target weeds: banana poka,43 gorse,

44 faytree,45 and strawberry guava.46 Efforts 

were also concentrated on Koster’s curse,47 a vine officially classified as a “noxious 

weed” throughout the Hawaiian Islands, and considered an aggressive invader in 

Hawaii. All of these weeds had a destructive impact on Hawaii’s native forests, 

mid-elevation rangelands, and other ecosystems, where they suppressed native 

plants or prevented their regeneration. Biological control was considered the only 

long-term means of control of forest weeds in Hawaii.48 The battle plan was to 

develop an understanding of the target weeds and their native habitats, identify 

promising control agents in the countries of origin and study their biology, screen 

candidate control agents for effectiveness and obtain permission to release them, 

and evaluate their effectiveness and release them in large quantities. Eventually, 

insects were imported from the homelands of these weeds and released in Hawaii to

43 Banana poka is a climbing vine that threatens much of Hawaii’s koa forests. This 

tendriled, woody vine comes from the tropical montane forest of the high Andes in South 

America. Brought to Hawaii around 1900 as an ornamental, by 1989, banana poka had 

become well established on the Big Island, and on Kauai and Maui, affecting some 120,000 

acres. In dense growth, this vine could smother and kill the tallest trees (Mastrantonio 

1989).

44 Gorse is one of the most damaging exotic weeds in Hawaii. This spiny European shrub 

was probably introduced in Hawaii around 1900, along with sheep ranching. By 1989, gorse 

was established on about 50,000 acres on the island of Hawaii and on Maui. A remarkably 

hardy and aggressive plant, gorse commonly invades areas disturbed by fire and cattle 

grazing (Mastrantonio 1989).

45 Fayatree, a small deciduous tree of the Azores, Madeira, and Canary Islands, is an 

aggressive invader of Hawaii’s dry forests and lava fields. Once considered for reforestation 

purposes, it soon was recognized as a weed. In 1989, it posed a major threat within Hawaii 

Volcanoes National Park (Mastrantonio 1989).

46 Strawberry guava, also known as Asian raspberry, is a very serious, habitat-altering 

pest in many parks and preserves in Hawaii, where it poses a major threat to Hawaii’s rare 

endemic flora and fauna. This thorny cane, native to the Himalayas, is related to but more 

aggressive than the domestic raspberry. It forms impenetrable stands and is a threat even to 

undisturbed forests because it is spread by birds and can grow in the understory (Mastrantonio 1989).

47 Also known as “soap plant,” Koster’s curse is a dense growing ornamental shrub native 

to Central and South America. It forms thickets and smothers other vegetation and by 1989 

was established on all the islands (Mastrantonio 1989).

48 Chemical and cultural control methods (the latter included shading out weeds by 

replanting trees) were hindered by the inaccessibility of forests degraded by weeds and the 

cost of herbicide spraying programs. Herbicides also posed a danger to Hawaii’s sensitive 

ecosystems (PSW 1995b).

The battle plan 

was to develop an 

understanding of the 

target weeds and their 

native habitats.
416

general technical report psw-gtr-233

attack a number of these species. But by mid-1995, only the impact of insects, such 

as spider mites, on gorse was shown to be successful (Mastrantonio 1989, PSW 

1985d, 1995b). 

Finally, there was the Forested Wetlands team, which worked to understand 

how wetlands in Hawaii and the other Pacific Islands functioned. Staffing the new 

unit were researchers from the American/Pacific Forestry Research Unit, which 

was phased out. Specialist Craig Whitesell, research ecologist Kathy Ewell, and 

forester Tom Cole (both based in Honolulu) worked as a team on research projects 

that were expected to have implications for designing and evaluating management 

practices in wetlands. For instance, one research project involved establishing 

permanent plots in mangrove swamps throughout the Federated States of Micronesia to provide valuable information on species abundance and growth rates. 

Another project studied the distribution and physical characteristics of three kinds 

of swamps in this region: fringing, riverine, and interior. Understanding the variation among swamps and its effect on the distribution of tree species helped the 

Forested Wetlands team determine how upland management practices that divert 

freshwater, such as reservoir or road construction, might affect these swamps (PSW 

1995c).

Forest Environment Research, 1988 to 1994

Forest environment research also involved five separate RWUs, but over a space of 

years they often changed their formal titles to match emphasis on new problems. 

Essentially, during these 6 years, forest environment research included: Methods 

and Guidelines for Monitoring Wildlife Populations, headed by Jerry Verner; 

Timber Management/Wildlife Interactions in Northern California Forest Types led 

by Barry Noon; Environmental Hydrology of the California Snow Zone, with Neil 

Berg as project leader, Effects of Forest Management on Hillslope Processes, Fishery Resources and Stream Environments, with Robert Zeimer as project leader;49

and Ecology and Fire Effects in Mediterranean Ecosystems, led by Susan Conard.

49 In 1989, Raymond M. Rice, long-time project leader in the areas of watershed and 

hydrology, retired after 42 years of service. He served as project leader at Glendora 

(1960–1973) and at Arcata (1973–1982), and was a hydrologist in the Hillslopes Process/

Fishery Research Unit at Arcata until 1989. Floods, sedimentation, and erosion had been 

the focus of much of his research career as they related to brush fires in southern California 

and to logging in northern California, and Rice’s work was instrumental in the development of principles and guidelines for implementation of the State Forest Practices Act 

and practices to protect water quality. In 1989, the California Board of Forestry awarded 

Rice the Francis H. Raymond Award, the highest honor the organization could bestow on 

a member of the forestry profession. Rice was the second PSW Station scientist to receive 

this award, the first being James Jenkinson (PSW, 1989j, 1989k).

One research project 

involved establishing 

permanent plots in 

mangrove swamps 

throughout the 

Federated States of 

Micronesia to provide 

valuable information 

on species abundance 

and growth rates.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Verner’s team was headquartered at the Forestry Sciences Laboratory (FSL) 

in Fresno, which from 1988 to 1993 conducted wildlife, range, and monitoring 

research (PSW 1988l; USDA FS 1992, 1993, 1994). One of their main assignments 

was to continue to identify cost-effective, biologically defensible, and statistically 

reliable methods to monitor trends in bird and deer populations—a subject Jerry 

Verner had been investigating since the early 1980s as a requirement of the National 

Forest Management Act (USDA FS 1992, 1993). But during Director Stewart’s 

2-year tenure, two other projects were also underway. First, PSW research wildlife 

biologist John Kie investigated whether or not cattle adversely impacted native deer 

populations in the Western Sierra Nevada ranges by competing for, and trampling, 

various resources. In cooperation with scientists from the University of California, 

Davis and the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG), in 1984–1985, 

Kie studied the McCormick Creek Basin, a mountain basin within the Stanislaus 

National Forest, to find the answer. By 1988, their findings indicated that with 

higher cattle stocking rates, deer spent more time feeding and less time resting 

than they did when no cattle were present. However, the study could not precisely 

determine what level of cattle stocking improved overall forage conditions for deer, 

and anticipated further analysis and studies to better understand the relationships 

between cattle and deer (Pearce 1988c). 

Another cooperative study between the PSW Station and CDFG at this time 

involved understanding the role of predators in declining deer numbers along the 

west slope of the Sierra Nevada. Don Neal, research scientist at the Fresno Laboratory, along with George Steger (also with PSW), collected data from 1970 to 1985 

for this study in North Kings area, where apparently the deer population was 

declining as mountain lion numbers increased. To learn whether mountain lions 

benefited mule deer herds by keeping their numbers in balance with their habitat, 

the researchers attached radio collars to 14 cats and 25 does to track them as they 

roamed their home ranges. In 1988, detailed information from the study revealed 

that lions were not benefiting the population by taking only the weak and old, but 

were preying upon an already depressed herd. Interestingly, however, the data 

indicated that some lions were not following herds as they migrated to higher elevations in the summer, but remained at lower elevations. At these levels, they preyed 

upon livestock, small mammals, and pets—a good way for a mountain lion to get 

into trouble. Neal and Steger expected livestock predation to continue at a high level 

or even increase, and deer to continue to decline in all but the most favorable years 

(Harrison 1989).
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Meanwhile, in 1991–1992, the PSW Research Station became ever deeper 

involved in the spotted owl controversy.50 In January 1992, the Forest Service 

released its final environmental impact statement on the northern spotted owl. The 

management plan preferred by the Forest Service aimed at maintaining the viability 

of the species and saving it from extinction by increasing the area of its habitat—at 

the time, 6.1 million acres in Washington, Oregon, and California—by 12 percent 

over the next 150 years (PSW 1992i: 10 February: 1–2). 

Thereafter, Verner, along with Barry Noon and Kelvin McKelvey of the 

Timber/Wildlife Research Unit at Arcata were assigned to study the geographic 

variability in habitat use by California spotted owls51 (fig. 108). For instance, one 

objective of the RWU was to compare owl populations in managed and unmanaged 

forests on the Sierra National Forest and the Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Parks 

(PSW 1991m; USDA FS 1992, 1993). Their work at the Fresno Sciences Laboratory 

and elsewhere eventually resulted in an important publication on the subject, The 

Spotted Owl: A Technical Assessment of Its Current Status (Verner et al. 1992). 

Supplies of this report, which was spotlighted in the 1993 Forest Service Annual 

Report, were quickly exhausted. Owing to heavy demand, Verner and his team also 

produced important studies on the major prey species of the California spotted owl, 

and on identifying other birds associated with older forests, such as the habitat ecology and distribution of the marbled murrelets in northwest California and southwest 

Oregon (PSW 1993m, 1994b; USDA FS 1993, 1994). 

However, by early 1994, the unit had completed its original mission of developing methods for monitoring wildlife populations, documenting the size and 

composition of spotted owl populations, and characterizing the effect of grazing on 

sensitive plants in montane riparian zones. In February, under an RWU description 

approved by the WO, the research unit was renamed Sustaining Wildlife Communities and Key Ecosystem Linkages in Montane Forests of the Sierra Nevada. Their 

new mission was twofold: to sustain viable populations of California spotted owls, 

and, in cooperation with the Sierra National Forest, to monitor responses of plant

50 By this date, the Portland Spotted Owl Research, Development, and Application RWU 

studies found that the northern spotted owl was dependent on old growth for its survival, 

and a court injunction forced the Forest Service to reduce logging in its remaining patches 

of old-growth forest along the Pacific Coast. The northern spotted owl was seen as an 

“indicator species” of old growth, and to environmentalists, its plight represented that of 

the many species associated with that increasingly rare habitat. Ultimately, the spotted owl 

issue affected timber harvests in the Pacific Southwest Region, reducing them from the 

1.5 billion board feet in the 1980s to just 500 million or fewer by the early 1990s (Godfrey 

2005).

51 The California spotted owl inhabits forests and woodlands from north-central California 

to the Mexican border. It is a “cousin” to the northern spotted owl, which the U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service in 1990 listed as a threatened subspecies (PSW 1991m).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

and animal communities to ecosystem management. The unit had 16 permanent, 

full-time employees. Research wildlife biologist Jerry Verner continued as project 

leader. Other key wildlife biologists included John Kie and Bill Laudenslayer, and 

range scientist Ray Ratliff. The unit continued to manage the San Joaquin Experimental Range (SJER)52 (fig. 109) and the Teakettle Experimental Range (TER) 

(PSW 1994h) (fig. 110).

Timber Management/Wildlife Interactions in Northern California Forest Types, 

first led by Barry R. Noon (PSW 1988l), and later by Cynthia J. Zabel, was another 

important RWU within forest environment research. At the Redwood Sciences 

Laboratory, they investigated the habitat requirements of select wildlife species 

within mature and old-growth forests in northern California and southern Oregon, 

studied the habitat necessary for the spotted owl’s survival and reproduction, and 

then integrated that information with results from other experiment stations and 

federal agencies, such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land 

Management. These studies contributed significantly to the understanding of the 

habitat requirements of spotted owls, and ongoing studies of spotted owl biology 

by PSW researchers proved important in pending litigation and various evidentiary 

hearings (USDA FS 1992, 1993, 1994).

52 By this date, SJER had been designated a Man and the Biosphere Reserve, and was the 

only site used for research in annual grasslands under the International Biological Program 

(PSW 1994h).

Figure 108—Tagging a spotted owl during California habitat study.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
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Figure 109—San Joaquin Experimental Range building, 1971.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

Figure 110—Cattle grazing on the San Joaquin Experimental Range, 1971. 

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

At the same time, the RWU under project leader Neil Berg, whose mission had 

been to study the cumulative environmental hydrology of the California snow zone, 

had been redirected to a new mission and given a new title, Cumulative Effects of 

Resource Management on Forest Watersheds, Aquatic Ecosystems, and Fish Communities in California. Berg continued as project leader, but the unit was charged 

with investigating problem areas related to forest environmental research on the 

inland mountains of California, primarily the Sierra Nevada. By 1992, the RWU 

had three primary goals: to develop and test cumulative effects models that related 

land management practices to watershed responses over time and space and to 

changes in diversity and integrity of aquatic ecosystems; to develop monitoring 

procedures that defined the spatial and temporal variability of physical and biological systems so that changes owing to land management might be detected; and to 

understand the recovery of channel systems in disturbed watersheds in order for 

stream restoration and enhancement efforts to be cost effective and successful. 

Besides Berg, the unit consisted of several fish biologists, hydrologists, and other 

specialists who maintained two field facilities in the central Sierra Nevada: the 

Central Sierra Snow Laboratory (CSSL) and the Onion Creek Experimental Forest. 

The CSSL was part of the California Acid Deposition Monitoring Network, the 

USDA Soil Conservation Service’s snowpack monitoring network, and the National 

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s weather monitoring network. Snow 

accumulation records at CSSL and nearby sites made up the longest known record 

of snowfall west of the Mississippi River (PSW 1993g). 

Some of the RWU’s studies focused on the effects of cattle grazing on aquatic 

ecosystems (fig. 111). Others explored stream channel dynamics because there was 

a general concern that construction of dams modified downstream channels with 

increases in riparian vegetation, reduction of aquatic habitat, and other ramifications. Biologists and hydrologists with the RWU also established a regional database for fisheries inventories (PSW 1993g). Another notable project came in 1992, 

when the unit collaborated with the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project (SNEP). In 

that year, Congress mandated that the Forest Service study the entire Sierra Nevada 

ecoregion (California and western Nevada) for planning purposes. The overall goal 

of SNEP was to scientifically review late-successional forests, key watersheds, 

and significant natural areas on federal lands of the Sierra Nevada ecoregion, and 

provide Congress with an accurate, multidimensional ecosystem assessment so that 

key structural components and functional processes could be identified and adequately described to enable the management of these systems at sustainable levels 

for the future. In support of SNEP, the RWU made a critical review of cumulative 

watershed effect methodologies used by states and the Forest Service. This was 
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Figure 111—Forest environmental research included the study of fishery 

resources and stream environments.

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

completed in June 1996. Other forest environmental studies involved regionwide 

studies on trout habitat and understanding the recovery of disturbed watersheds 

and aquatic ecosystems from impacts, such as cattle grazing (USDA FS 1992, 1993, 

1994). 

A related area of study was Effects of Forest Management on Hillslope Processes, Fishery Resources, and Stream Environments, which had been led by Robert Zeimer at the Redwood Sciences Laboratory at Arcata since 1988 (PSW 1988l). 

His research unit concerned itself with evaluating erosion, timing, and routing of 

sediment and related cumulative effects on fish habitat and the effects of stream 

structure, processes, and stream ecology on anadromous and resident fish. Fishery 

biologists and hydrologists in land management agencies lacked practical, quantitative methods for evaluating and monitoring effects of sediment on stream habitats, 

and Zeimer’s research aimed to meet this need (USDA FS 1992, 1993, 1994). 
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Susan Conard’s RWU, Ecology and Fire Effects in Mediterranean Ecosystems, 

was the last but not the least of the forest environmental research units. In the years 

from 1988 to 1994, this was one of the largest units at PSW, numbering more than 

25 employees, and had the management responsibility for the San Dimas Experimental Forest (SDEF). The SDEF, which had opened its doors 50 years earlier in a 

building built with funds donated by the citizens of Glendora, investigated many 

fire and ecology problems (PSW 1990a, 1992e). One interesting study was begun in 

1987 when PSW research forester Hulton B. “Hutch” Wood and soil scientists from 

the University of California, Riverside, and Oregon State University won an internal PSW Station competitive grant to study the effects of air pollution on soils in 

the watershed using the old lysimeters at Tanbark Flats at SDEF that had not been 

used since fire struck the area in 1960. In this study, they compared archived soils 

with present-day soils that had been exposed to high levels of atmospheric pollution 

to determine the presence of toxic metals such as lead, copper, cadmium, arsenic, 

and mercury, and compare sulfate concentrations from smog (fig. 112) with earlier 

basic chemical characteristics of lysimeter soils. Naturally, they found excessive 

amounts of toxic metals, particularly zinc and lead, and sulfates from smog, but 

Figure 112—Scientist taking air samples, 1981. 

U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

They compared 

archived soils with 

present-day soils that 

had been exposed 

to high levels of 

atmospheric pollution.
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they also inadvertently discovered other interesting data regarding soil genesis 

under different plant species and regarding site stability that was useful to builders 

and engineers. Researchers who spent so many years designing the lysimeters and 

carrying out the original study in the late 1930s would have been gratified to find 

out that their lysimeters were still producing useful results and lessons long after 

the original study had been terminated (Mastrantonio 1990). 

Meanwhile, another interesting Fire Ecology Unit project at SDEF and nearby 

sites was conducted in 1990, in cooperation with Region 5, the California Department of Forestry, and Los Angeles County. In this study to determine the effects 

of postfire treatments, a prescribed burn of about 500 acres was set in Bedford 

Canyon, in the Santa Ana Mountains in southern California, with the objective of 

reducing fire hazard, managing wildlife habitat, and evaluating the effects of fire 

and postfire seeding on chaparral systems (PSW 1990c, 20). The experimental burn 

actually turned into a wildfire that scorched about 3,200 acres before it came under 

control, and other areas were also burned. Station personnel gathered needed data 

on dynamic responses of chaparral to fire and concluded that seeding grasses after 

a fire could severely inhibit regeneration of native postfire herbaceous flora (USDA 

FS 1992, 1993, 1994).

Forest Protection Research, 1988 to 1994

Fire research had been a priority for the PSW Research Station and Region 5 in the 

past, and California’s 1987 fire season, one of its worst ever, once again brought 

forest protection research to the fore53 (PSW 1988c). The Riverside Fire Laboratory, 

which was the PSW Station’s largest single field facility, celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1988. It housed four fire-related RWUs: Meteorology for Fire Severity 

Forecasting; Fire Management Planning and Economics (renamed Fire Management in the Wildland-Urban Interface in 1993); Site-Specific Fire Prescriptions for 

Chaparral and Related Ecosystems, which was renamed Prescribed Fire Research 

the same year; and Sue Conard’s Ecology of Chaparral and Associated Ecosystems, 

which was discussed earlier in this chapter in the section on forest environment 

research.54

53 In the year after the devastating 1987 fire season, the Riverside Laboratory held a major 

symposium on wildland fire management and expanded its program through additional 

funding from Washington.

54 Between 1988 and 1990, the Riverside laboratory shifted its program to the integration of fire management with other resource management problems (PSW 1990p). In this 

regard, Conard’s unit was recategorized as forest environment rather than forest protection 

research, and therefore was discussed in an earlier section.

Researchers who 

spent so many 

years designing the 

lysimeters and carrying 

out the original study 

in the late 1930s would 

have been gratified 

to find out that their 

lysimeters were still 

producing useful 

results and lessons 

long after the original 

study had been 

terminated.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

The Meteorology for Fire Severity Forecasting RWU was led by Francis 

Fujioka (PSW 1988l). Until 1994, it had steadily addressed two meteorological 

problems related to fire: discovering statistical relationships between forecast 

weather elements and fire severity, and gathering data on seasonal temperature and 

precipitation to forecast the magnitude, duration, and spatial variation of fire severity in parts of California and other regions of the United States. In 1994, this RWU 

was renamed Meteorology for Forest and Brushland Management. Francis Fujioka 

continued as project leader for this long-range fire weather forecasting unit. But 

before the unit moved on to its new mission, Fujioka summarized the major accomplishments of the unit’s previous work. Among its accomplishments, the RWU had 

over the years developed baseline data upon which related research on fire weather 

forecasting could be built, and developed the means to forecast monthly weather 

conditions across the United States from this operational forecast data. From their 

work, others could correlate weather information with other fire activity data and 

predict potential fire weather. Furthermore, the unit derived probability measures 

of fire potential from over 120 locations across the contiguous United States, which 

could be used to predict fire severity 3 months in advance (USDA FS 1992, 1993, 

1994).

Another fire-related research unit at Riverside in 1988 was Fire Management 

Planning and Economics with Jim Davis as acting project leader (PSW 1988l). 

Richard Chase replaced him as project leader in 198955 (PSW 1989a). In early 

1990, one pressing Forest Service issue was the study of catastrophic fires and the 

environmental change that set the stage for such fires (PSW 1990l). In response, the 

RWU undertook research to develop a conceptual model for assessing fire risk in 

the wildland-urban interface. By May 1992, with the approval of the WO, the unit 

was terminated, and its personnel shifted to a new unit entitled Fire Management 

in the Wildland-Urban Interface (PSW 1992k). Chase served as project leader until 

May 1993, when he retired after 39 years of service (PSW 1993a). 

By the time Chase retired, the RWU staff was investigating two problem areas. 

In the first, they developed a computer model to assess the potential for structures 

to ignite from fire in wildland fuels based on the physics of combustion, heat transfer, and ignition characteristics of various external structural materials. They tested 

55 Twenty years earlier, Chase had come to the Forest Fire Laboratory at Riverside to work 

in the Fire Management Systems Research Unit, then led by Jim Davis. In 1972, Chase had 

helped manage the FIRESCOPE program headquartered at the Riverside Laboratory, but 

in 1975, when the program was transferred to Region 5 for implementation, he became its 

project leader and completed the program’s research phase there. Building on this experience, in 1980, Chase transferred to the Washington office, and became a national fireplanning specialist in the Fire and Aviation Management Staff (PSW 1989g, 1990m).

In early 1990, one 

pressing Forest Service 

issue was the study 

of catastrophic fires 

and the environmental 

change that set the 

stage for such fires. 
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

their theories on the San Jacinto Ranger District of the San Bernardino National 

Forest. In the second research area, RWU staff worked to improve information and 

decision-support systems for fire program planning and implementation. In this 

regard, the unit worked closely with Fujioka’s unit (USDA FS 1992, 1993, 1994).56

In 1982, a RWU was established at the Riverside Laboratory with prescribed 

fire research as its focus. Before 1993, it had been entitled Site Specific Fire Prescriptions for Chaparral and Associated Ecosystems, and headed by project leader 

Andrea “Andi” Koonce. From 1988 to 1993, the unit steadily researched a number 

of problems, such as gathering knowledge on prescribed fires and the effects of 

fire on ecosystem structure and function, and predicting prescribed fire effects on 

chaparral and associated vegetation in southern California (USDA FS 1992, 1993). 

However, in 1993, David R. Wiese took over as project leader and the unit was 

renamed Prescribed Fire Research. However, the new title and new leadership did 

not change the general focus of the unit. Most of the work of the unit continued to 

measure fire effects that occurred during and after a fire, including fuel consumption, soil heating, soil nutrient changes, plant responses (sprouting, growth, and 

morphological), species composition, invertebrate responses, and smoke emissions. 

However, their mission did expand from developing site-specific prescriptions 

for fire use in southern California chaparral country to studying ecosystems in 

the Southwestern United States, and to studies in Latin American, European, and 

Middle Eastern countries. By the close of 1994, the unit had seven permanent 

employees (five research foresters, a forest technician, and an ecologist). They 

managed the North Mountain Experimental Area located about 30 miles east of the 

laboratory, which was designated for research relating to fire suppression, prevention, and control. Project scientists also were involved with the SNEP and a large, 

stationwide interdisciplinary study, which was located within the Hayfork Adaptive 

Management Area in northern California (PSW 1995e).

Besides fire science research, another important research facet of forest protection research was insect research. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, basic research 

in the biochemistry, genetics, and biometry of forest insect populations formed the 

56 During the 1993 fire season, a series of devastating fires ravaged southern California 

early in November, burning more than 200,000 acres of land from Ventura County to 

the Mexican border, destroyed 1,200 homes, caused an estimated $1 billion in damage, 

and resulted in three deaths and 200 injuries. Furthermore, control of the fires required 

the efforts of more than 5,000 firefighters and nearly 800 engine companies. Following 

the fire season, the issue of fire at the urban-wildland interface was the subject of the 

“Biswell Symposium” that year, which was named after Harold Biswell of the University 

of California, Berkeley, a long-time advocate of prescribed fire use to manage fuels both in 

wildlands and at the interface (PSW 1993j).

Their mission 

did expand from 

developing sitespecific prescriptions 

for fire use in southern 

California chaparral 

country to studying 

ecosystems in the 

Southwestern United 

States, and to studies 

in Latin American, 

European, and Middle 

Eastern countries.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

mission of the Albany Station’s insect population research units, which was broken 

down into two related research units. The first RWU was Biology and Control of 

Insects Adversely Affecting Regeneration and Establishment of Western Forests, 

which was led by project leader Michael I. Haverty. During most of the years 

between 1988 and 1994, scientists, such as Haverty, Thomas W. Koerber and Patrick Shea, focused their work on basic research in the biology and control of insects 

affecting flowers, cones, and seeds, and insects affecting nursery stock and trees 

in young stands, with a few hours given over to research on termites in California 

and Hawaii. Their work produced sound research in these areas, as well as a steady 

stream of publications. However, in 1994, the unit was renamed Chemical Ecology 

and Management of Western Forest Insects. This change resulted from the Forest 

Service’s new emphasis on ecosystem management, which altered the direction 

of some insect research from evaluation of pest impacts to studying the beneficial 

roles insects played in maintaining a productive forest environment or ecosystem. 

For instance, it had long been suspected that when bark beetles altered forest stand 

structures and species diversity they also produced important bird refuges and 

wildlife habitats (USDA FS 1992, 1993, 1994). 

The second insect research RWU at the Albany Station was called Improved 

Technology for Integrated Management of Western Forest Insects. Jacqueline L. 

Robertson was the unit’s project leader, and remained so even after 1990 when 

the RWU was renamed Forest Insect Population Genetics and Biochemistry. 

The unit was responsible for developing integrated pest management strategies 

for managing forest defoliators over large and special-use areas, and much of its 

research emphasized insect pheromones, bark thickness, and tree size as important 

subjects for understanding why mountain pine beetles attack certain trees and not 

others. Robertson’s staff also analyzed spatial patterns of lodgepole pines to see if 

spatial distribution might provide a clue for predicting an outbreak. In addition to 

this research, the RWU defined statistical models to estimate effects upon insect 

populations exposed to a variety of pesticides, and developed models to forecast 

changes in insect population status independent of pesticide use (USDA FS 1992, 

1993, 1994). In doing so, unit researchers sought to isolate indicators of population 

changes from endemic to epidemic, and to determine when population increase 

management strategies could best be used to prevent epidemics from occurring 

(PSW 1993h). One captivating early project pertained to a novel pesticide delivery 

method, developed by PSW Research Station scientist Thomas Koerber in cooperation with Pacific Northwest Region forester Roger E. Sandquist. Relying on a recent 

development in the science of pesticide delivery, they discovered in field tests that 

genetically valuable Douglas-fir specimens could be protected from the ravages 
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

of the western spruce budworm by a dozen or so bullet-sized capsules implanted 

around the base of each tree. So dramatic were the results from this experiment that 

local foresters, who had cooperated in the trials, immediately expanded the scientific study to include several thousand Douglas-fir specimens they had selected 

as parent stock for reforestation efforts. Koerber and Sandquist’s decision to let 

potential users assist in the study showed how researchers and workers in the field 

could collaborate for useful ends to both parties. Koerber and Sandquist’s work was 

thought to be effective and economical, confounding the assumption that high-tech 

necessarily meant high cost (Pearce 1988b). 

Another interesting project came from 20 years of research by project leader 

Jackie Robertson. Called INSEX, this software program helped users of insecticides 

determine under what conditions control treatment was warranted, then helped 

them select the safest pesticide for that pest and environmental conditions. INSEX 

provided information on damage type, tree and insect species, infestation location, 

constraints on insecticide application, and recommendations. With research shifting 

from pesticides to a biochemical approach, the program served as an example of 

Forest Service technology transfer (PSW 1989c).

Pest Impact Assessment, later called Disease Pests of California Forests, faced 

troubling times after 1988. Since 1956, when the station created its own forest 

disease research division, forest disease research had been an important function 

of the PSW Research Station. However, in 1991, project leader Robert Scharpf 

retired after a long career of studying the plant pest western dwarf mistletoe (PSW 

1991k). Following Scharpf’s retirement, Mike Haverty was named acting project 

leader, but continued as project leader for Insect and Biological Control Research. 

Station Director Barbara Weber stated that the PSW Station intended to maintain 

the Forest Disease Research Unit as a separate RWU whose function would be 

root disease research, emphasizing annosus root rot.57 Furthermore, she added that 

the RWU would keep its separate identity, with distinct funding and management 

codes, and a permanent project leader would be recruited and appointed as soon as 

possible. Meanwhile, current Forest Disease Research Unit pathologists and biological technicians carried on (PSW 1991j). Although a Forest Disease Unit pathology 

laboratory was included in the new Albany facility, no project leader replacement 

was hired during Weber’s administration (PSW 1992n) because of major cuts in 

57 Research plant pathologist Bill Otrosina had been carrying out research in this area 

since 1985. According to Otrosina, root diseases were a highly underrated problem because 

often foresters do not see the dramatic effect on forests that is usually observed with insect 

attacks (PSW 1993c).

INSEX provided 

information on damage 

type, tree and insect 

species, infestation 

location, constraints 

on insecticide 

application, and 

recommendations.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

insect and disease research (18 percent) starting in fiscal year 1991 (PSW 1990l). 

This came about largely because of a freeze on hiring employees from outside the 

Forest Service, instituted in November 1992, that continued for several years (PSW 

1992h, 1993b).

Meanwhile, one other research focus at Riverside—atmospheric deposition— 

was considered under the rubric of forest protection research. Atmospheric Deposition on Montane Forests of the West was the formal title and mission of the RWU, 

which had a number of different project leaders during the period 1988 to 1994. 

They included Paul Dunn, David L. Peterson, Mark A. Poth, and lastly Paul R. 

Miller (PSW 1988k, 1988l). This research unit sought to answer two basic questions: What changes in forest productivity and biogeochemistry were being caused 

by increased levels of atmospheric deposition in montane forests? What were the 

responses of western forest tree species to atmospheric pollutants and environmental stresses that occurred sequentially or in combination? In 1993, in addition 

to the research carried out by its scientists—several plant physiologists, as well as 

an ecologist, a soil microbiologist, a chemist, and a statistician—the unit provided 

support activities for the entire Riverside facility, including a chemistry laboratory, 

health and safety coordination, and photographic services. The RWU maintained 

two field facilities. Since 1983, it had operated a wet deposition monitoring station 

at Tanbark Flats on the SDEF. The Riverside unit also maintained a field fumigation facility in Garner Valley, within the San Jacinto Ranger District of the San 

Bernardino National Forest, used mainly for long-term ozone fumigations (PSW 

1993f).

The unit conducted several important studies. Beginning in the 1970s, one 

long-term study had aimed at improving an understanding of the long-term ozone 

exposure effects on individual crowns of conifers and on the successional dynamics 

of forest stands. Cooperative experimental work in the San Bernardino Mountains 

with the California Air Resources Board focused on a multidisciplinary approach 

to understanding changes induced by air pollution and other stresses. Research 

investigated the possible combined effects of ozone, acidic air pollutants, and climate on annual changes in tree health, stand succession, and nutrient cycling (PSW 

1993f; USDA FS 1992, 1993, 1994). By early 1989, PSW Research Station scientists 

were briefing Congressman George E. Brown and the legislative representative for 

Senator Pete Wilson on the topic of Global Climate and Forestry. Project leader 

Dave Peterson proposed a research program in the Western United States to determine the consequences of increasing atmospheric ozone levels and acid deposition. 

Other project leaders were also present at these legislative briefings, such as Rowan 

Rowntree (Urban Forestry), who spoke on urban forestry issues and compared cities 

What were the 

responses of western 

forest tree species to 

atmospheric pollutants 

and environmental 

stresses that occurred 

sequentially or in 

combination?
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

to greenhouses, stating that urban forests could be used to reduce global warming, 

and Phil Riggan (Chaparral Ecology), who described his concerns about the effects 

of wildland and agricultural fires on global warming, and the need to monitor 

ecosystem changes that threatened forest survival. Congressman Brown thereafter 

stated that he expected that the station would become a “center of excellence for 

studying forest and fire-related issues in global climate changes” (PSW 1989m). 

In response to this encouragement, scientists began to look more closely at 

global warming to determine whether forest health and forest management practices (e.g., prescribed burning and timber harvesting) were a source, or sink, for 

greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitric oxide, and nitrous oxide. 

Monitoring studies were soon begun in southern California to better understand the 

flux of greenhouse gases there, which would be used to develop an overall global 

assessment for the Forest Service (PSW 1993f). The RWU staff also began attending and presenting papers at global warming workshops and conferences, a topic 

the Forest Service budgeted for and made a priority program starting in 1990. For 

instance, in 1992, the Forest Service announced global change program grants. Six 

PSW Station scientists received $150,000 for research, and in the same year, PSW 

Station scientists attended a United Nations conference on global warming held in 

California (PSW 1989j, 1990l, 1992f, 1992j).

Recreation Research, 1988 to 1994

In 1988, recreation research took place at the Riverside Laboratory and involved 

a combination of recreation and urban culture research. Known as Wildland Recreation and Urban Culture, RWU 4902 (PSW 1988l, 1989i) had gotten underway 

at the Riverside Laboratory in 1986 when research forester Art Magill transferred 

to the laboratory from station headquarters in Berkeley. Shortly afterwards, a 

number of cooperative studies were completed that addressed communication, 

land ethics, vandalism, and application of recreation policy in southern California. 

Then in 1988, Alan Ewert was named project leader, and the WO approved the 

unit. Research to develop effective visitor management strategies for high-use 

wildland recreation areas with emphasis on cultural and user groups was its stated 

mission. Much of the focus of its research was outdoor recreation sites in southern 

California, which were being impacted by many of the 15 million people living in 

the Los Angeles basin. Research was aimed at understanding the cultural groups 

using these recreation areas, and to learning about their activities and the satisfactions they derived from that use. Methods were also developed to reduce conflicts, 

increase satisfaction, and control vandalism while protecting natural resources 

(PSW 1993i). Workshops were held on various wildland recreation subjects, papers 

Scientists began to 

look more closely at 

global warming to 

determine whether 

forest health and forest 

management practices 

were a source, or sink, 

for greenhouse gases.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

were given at leisure research symposia, and articles were written for journals on 

wildland recreation and contemporary society. Many of the unit’s early studies 

were done under cooperative agreements with universities, such as the University 

of California, Irvine and University of California, Chico. Some studies identified 

depreciative behavior regarded as most serious by managers of federal, state, and 

county recreation areas, such as littering, damage or destruction of facilities, drug 

and alcohol abuses, off-road vehicles operated in unauthorized areas, and graffiti. 

For instance, cooperative research projects were undertaken with the California 

Department of Parks and Recreation and other interested stakeholders in 1989 

to develop standards for acceptable off-road vehicle use in southern California. 

Unfortunately, the best solutions to many problems were also the most expensive. 

They included visibility of park and recreation personnel, increased patrols, presence of hosts or volunteers at the sites, stricter enforcement of rules, increased 

user involvement, better communication of reasons behind rules, onsite education 

or interpretive programs, and incentives to users for proper behavior (PSW 1989f, 

1989h, 1989k, 1990d, 1993i). 

In 1991, research social scientist Deborah Chavez, who had joined the unit 

in 1989, became project leader when Ewert was transferred to the WO’s Forest 

Inventory, Economics, and Recreation Staff as a branch chief (PSW 1990o, 1991d). 

Chavez continued the work of the research unit along much the same path as her 

predecessor, including research on cultural differences in recreation use, especially 

Hispanic use. Studies indicated that Hispanic visitors were composed of three 

subcultures (Hispanics born in the United States, Hispanics born in Mexico, and 

Hispanics born in Central and South America), and that each subculture differed in 

perceptions of how the land should be used, rules and regulations, and satisfactions 

derived. Additional studies by the unit contrasted recreational use by Hispanics 

and Anglo populations and investigated trends by such users regarding mountain 

biking, four-wheel driving, hang-gliding, or eco-vacations. Additional studies 

examined social demographics, communication methods, user conflicts, and visitation history and patterns of visitors not just on Forest Service land, but also on 

Bureau of Land Management lands in California. Finally, starting in 1992, the unit 

held symposia on the social aspects of recreation research, which brought managers 

and scientists together to discuss their common problems and to distribute information about current research. By 1993, the culmination of much of the unit’s research 

came in a collection of 30 essays that explored a variety of interface issues and 

problems entitled Culture, Conflict, and Communication in the Wildland-Urban 

Interface that was edited by Ewert, Chavez, and Magill (Ewert et al. 1993, PSW 

1993i).
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End of An Era

On September 25, 1992, A. Everett Wieslander, a member of the first graduating 

class of the University of California School of Forestry, and the last surviving 

member of the original four-person staff who had been present at the California Station’s founding in 1926, died in Alameda, California, at the ripe age of 102 (PSW 

1992p). Wieslander’s passing marked the end of an era in forestry science and at the 

PSW Research Station.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Chapter 9: 1995–2000, Epilogue

According to Vice-President Al Gore’s 1994 National Performance Review, the 

task of “reinventing” the Forest Service and therefore the Pacific Southwest (PSW) 

Research Station1 fell to Station Directors James C. Space (1994–1997) and Harold R. Salwasser (1997–2000). The reinvention effort included restructuring and 

reducing the Forest Service from top to bottom, including “changing its culture, 

reengineering its work, achieving healthy ecosystems and vital communities, and 

creating an effective, multidisciplinary, multicultural organization” (PSW 1995g). 

Station Director Space was a member of the Forest Service’s Reinvention Team and 

succeeded Barbara Weber in May, 1994. Space had worked his way up through the 

Forest Service ranks2

 but he was not a research scientist, nor did he have a science 

background. His job was to provide “leadership” and “teamwork” style to the 

station and to work with personnel toward understanding, accepting, and supporting the mission, vision, guiding principles, and operating guidelines established 

nationally for the Forest Service and Research during the massive reorganization of 

the U.S. Department of Agriculture that began that year.3 His personal goal was 

to carry on, and if possible, to strengthen the tradition of excellence in science for 

which the PSW Research Station was recognized. In this regard, he focused the 

station’s research efforts on the “vital few” areas where he thought the station could 

make a significant difference. But he not only strove for incremental additions to

1

 Since 1990, PSW had called itself the “Pacific Southwest Research Station,” and not the 

“Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station,” which had been its official title 

since 1959. In 1997, under 36 Code of Federal Regulations 200.2d, all six Forest Service 

stations were now called “Research Stations” (PSW 1997b).

2

 Jim Space started his Forest Service career in 1958 as a GS-3 fire lookout, and from 

that time, he did everything, from making timber sales, to conducting forest inventories, 

to developing computer applications, to dealing with insect and disease problems. Upon 

receiving his Master of Forestry degree from Yale University, he joined the Forest Service, 

holding various positions in the Northern Region before transferring in 1972 to Atlanta, 

where he worked as a forestry inventory specialist in the Southeastern Area’s State and 

Private Forestry Staff. Upon transferring to the Washington office in 1974, he became 

Director of the Computer Applications Staff and then in 1980, Assistant Director of Cooperative Forestry. In 1981, Space transferred to the Pacific Northwest Region as Deputy 

Regional Forester for State and Private Forestry (PSW 1994n, 1997e).

3

 At this time, the 43 agencies of the USDA were reduced to 29, and the Agriculture 

Department was to cut at least 7,500 staff-years by the end of fiscal year 1999. However, 

the Forest Service continued as a separate agency and remained the largest in the Agriculture Department. Nonetheless, as part of this reorganization effort, the Intermountain 

Research Station was merged with the Rocky Mountain Station at Fort Collins, Colorado 

(1997), and the Southern Station was merged with the Southeastern Station at Asheville, 

North Carolina (PSW 1994l, 1997f). At the field headquarters level, a reduction of 600 fulltime equivalent employees was planned servicewide (PSW 1995g). Between March 1995 

and May 1998, the Washington office was restructured as well (PSW 1995l, 1997k 1998c).
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knowledge, he also confidently encouraged station scientists to seek true scientific 

breakthroughs or “revolutions” (PSW 1994m, 1994n, 1994o). 

Unlike James Space, Station Director Salwasser, who succeeded Space in 2000, 

was a scientist and the author of dozens of publications and popular articles.4 Upon 

his assignment to the PSW Research Station, Salwasser was struck by the ongoing need for research regarding California and Pacific island natural resources, 

and concerned about the resources available to meet those needs. The station also 

needed stronger capabilities, including increases in both budgets and staff, to 

address research and development demands. In the long run, Salwasser wanted to 

increase the station’s overall research and development capacity by strengthening 

the station’s complementary relationships with the PSW Region 5, other federal 

agencies, universities, states, industries, and conservation groups (PSW 1997a). 

The effects of the reorganization plan on the PSW Station were expected to 

be minimal in comparison to other stations, but in truth, there were important 

changes and significant hardships during both James Space and Hal Salwasser’s 

administrations. Declining budgets and staffing presented their greatest challenge. 

Fiscal year 1996, was remembered as one of the most difficult periods in its history, for in that year, the year of the station’s 70th anniversary, the PSW Research 

Station faced budget cuts totaling $2.8 million. These cuts equaled 12 percent of 

the budget, which translated into 43 positions that could not be filled at facilities 

at Albany, Placerville, Riverside, and in Hawaii. Reduction in funds by research 

work units (RWUs) were across the board and led to the disbanding of two RWUs 

(Forest Insect Population and Watershed/Inland Fisheries), both based at Albany 

headquarters. Of these positions, two actually underwent a reduction-in-force 

(RIF). Employees in the other 41 positions retired, resigned, transferred, or found

4

 By the time the position of PSW Research Station Director came open, Salwasser had 

been the Boone and Crockett Professor of Wildlife Conservation at the University of 

Montana (1992–95) and then the Regional Forester of the Northern Region (1995–1997). 

Apparently, Salwasser was assigned to the Northern Rocky region to repair relationships 

between the Forest Service and University over the Bitteroot controversy and the Bolle 

Report of 1970 (PSW 1997l). His reassignment to the PSW Research Station brought 

him back to an area where he had strong ties, for Hal Salwasser was reared in Fresno, 

California, had received his biology degree at the University of California, Fresno (1971) 

and his doctorate in wildland resources science at the University of California, Berkeley 

(1979). He began his Forest Service career as a wildlife ecologist with Region 5 in Nevada 

City, California, and thereafter served in succession as wildlife ecologist, Deputy Director 

of Wildlife and Fishery, and then Director of New Perspectives in the Washington office 

from 1982 to 1992 (PSW 1997o).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

alternative sources of funding. This was the first application of RIF at the PSW 

Research Station since 1982. By the end of 1996, the station had 63 permanent 

scientists, from 21 disciplines. In contrast, the scientific staff had peaked in 1980 

with 91 scientists5 (PSW 1995h, 1995h, 1995i; 1995j, 1995k; 1996b). Notwithstanding these many adverse changes, station scientists continued to make some major 

strides in their research.

With thinned ranks, the PSW Research Station tried to retain its ability and 

capacity to do innovative research, to assist resource managers in solving land management problems, and to help expand the frontiers of science in a positive way. 

Their accomplishments included work on the Congressionally mandated Sierra 

Nevada Ecosystem Project (SNEP),6 President Clinton’s Forest Plan for the Pacific 

Northwest,7 the Blacks Mountain Experimental Forest (BMEF) interdisciplinary

5

 The station’s total workforce in fiscal year 1996 stood at 419 employees, including 205 

permanent employees, 48 term appointees, seven postdoctoral appointees, 79 not-toexceed-1-year appointees, and 80 exempt employees. Nonpermanent employees increasingly made up the workforce, making up 51 percent in fiscal year 1996—an increase from 

42 percent 5 years earlier (PSW 1996b).

6

 During 1992 to 1995, PSW scientists had been studying the social, economic, and 

ecological conditions in the 400-mile-long Sierra Nevada Range. In August 1996, the 

station’s massive final reports of the SNEP, totaling 2,000 pages, were published. The PSW 

scientists writing chapters in the final assessment report included Bruce McGurk and Neil 

Berg (Sediment Production From Forest Management and Residual Development), Bruce 

McGurk and Maureen Davis (Chronology and Hydrologic Effects of Land Use Change), 

Kevin McKelvey and Kelly Busse (Evaluation of 20th Century Fire Patterns on Forest 

Service Lands in the Sierra Nevada), Connie Millar (Diversity Within Species: Significant 

Natural Areas, Tertiary History), Carl Skinner (Historical and Current Fire Regimes), Phil 

Weatherspoon (Fire and Fuels Relationship to Silviculture: Landscape-Level Strategies for 

Fuels Management), and Rowan Rowntree (co-author on the Sierra Nevada report’s human 

population section) (PSW 1995m).

7

 In April 1993, President Clinton fulfilled a campaign promise to convene a forest 

conference in Portland, Oregon, to address the gridlock over management of federal forest 

lands in the Pacific Northwest and the resulting effects on communities and the regional 

economy. A year later, the Clinton administration formally announced his Forest Plan for 

the Pacific Northwest, which called for a new approach to land management in that region 

to resolve the continuing controversy over forest management. From the beginning, PSW’s 

participation in carrying out the plan was highly significant and closely involved with 

research and other activities directly associated with the plan. Furthermore, for more than 

a decade, PSW scientists played a significant role in the plan’s evolution. They researched 

and published on the biology and behavior, population status, and habitat needs of the highprofile wildlife species—such as northern spotted owls, marbled murrelets, Pacific salmon, 

pine martens, and fishers—that drove Pacific Northwest issues. They also reported on the 

basic functions of hydrologic streams, disturbance factors and their effects, and on stream 

conditions in forest watersheds, including linkages between physical stream conditions in 

forested watersheds and aquatic habitat for fish and other stream inhabitants (PSW 1996e).
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study,8 the Kings River sustainable forest ecosystem study,9 conservation of the 

marbled murrelet10 (see “Scientific and Common Names” section) and furbearing 

animals, fire weather predictions, long-term soil productivity, ozone effects on 

forests, and introduced tree species (1996a, 1996b). To reach a wider audience with 

its research publications, the Station started full-fledged electronic publishing of 

station publications (PSW 1996c).11

8

 At Blacks Mountain, Kathy Harcksen continued to lead an interdisciplinary team of scientists in the study of effects of forest and range management on the diversity of plant and 

animal communities, including genetic and biological diversity, the ecosystem processes 

that were sensitive to disturbances and stress, the effects of restoration efforts, and the 

consequences of disturbance on biological productivity. The overall research goal was to 

better understand how forest structural complexity affects the health and vigor of east-side 

pine forest ecosystems, to quantify their resilience to natural and human-induced disturbances, and to determine how such ecosystems could be managed for sustained resource 

values (PSW 1997g).

9

 In the early 1990s, it became evident that a new direction was needed for managing forest 

lands in the western Sierra Nevada for multiple resources and values perspective. Therefore, in 1994, the Kings River Sustainable Forest Ecosystems Project began on two adjacent 

watersheds (Big Creek and Dinkey Creek) on the Sierra National Forest. On each watershed, a different management option was tested to identify its effect on forest resources and 

values. The aim on both options was to sustain on each watershed all key resources and 

functions of the ecosystem, while reducing the risks of catastrophic fire, promoting forest 

health, allowing significant levels of commodity extraction, and supporting recreational 

use by the public (PSW 1997m 1997h).

10 Limits had been placed on Pacific Northwest logging to protect the marbled murrelet, 

a threatened bird species. Much of what was known about the species was documented in 

a station General Technical Report, Ecology and Conservation of the Marbled Murrelet

(Ralph et al. 1995). This 420-page report described the ecology, biology, territory, habitat 

requirements, and distribution of the species (PSW 1997i).

11 In 1996, under the direction of Sara Garetz, the PSW Research Station library began 

its move from Albany to Mare Island, Vallejo, where the Forest Service PSW Regional 

Office would be moved by early 1998 (PSW 1996a). The move was completed in 1998. 

An estimated 30,000 books and technical reports and 130 journal titles were shipped from 

Albany to Mare Island. Space was the major consideration in relocating the library. The 

move was only the second since 1960, when it was founded as the first professional library 

in the agency, at station headquarters in Berkeley. At that time, Bruce Yerke was hired as 

the agency’s and station’s first professional librarian (PSW 1999m).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

In January 1997, Michael P. Dombeck12 was named the new Chief of the Forest Service, succeeding Jack Ward Thomas, who had only served a 3-year term.13 

Dombeck, the agency’s 14th chief, was a career appointee, who had been acting 

director of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Dombeck’s first priority was to build on the “tradition of working closely with local 

communities to restore and maintain productive, healthy, and diverse ecological 

systems,” and his appointment offered “vision, leadership, and professional resource 

management experience needed to guide the agency at a critical juncture in its history” (PSW 1996d). By March 1998, Chief Dombeck set the agency’s course for the 

21st century and emphasized four key areas in his Forest Service Natural Resources 

Agenda: watershed health and restoration, sustainable forest ecosystem management, forest roads, and recreation14 (PSW 1998a). In a speech entitled “Protecting 

and Restoring a Nation’s Land Health Legacy” given in February 1998 at Missoula, 

Montana, Dombeck recognized that many people ceased viewing national forests 

and grasslands as a warehouse of outputs to be brought to market and instead began 

to assign greater value to the positive outcomes of forest management. Wildlife and 

fish habitat, recreation, clean water, wilderness, and cultural and spiritual values

12 Michael P. Dombeck was reared in Wisconsin’s northern lake country. He earned his 

B.S. and M.S. degrees in biology from the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, another 

M.S. degree in zoology at the University of Minnesota, and a Ph.D. in fisheries biology 

at Iowa State University. In his Forest Service career, Dombeck was a fisheries biologist 

in Michigan and Wisconsin (1978–1985), and regional fisheries program manager with 

the PSW Region in San Francisco (1985–1987). In 1989, he became a science advisor for 

the BLM, acting assistant secretary and deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals 

management, chief of staff to the assistant secretary, and then acting BLM director (PSW 

1996d).

13 After his retirement, Thomas stated that the primary problems during his term were 

“lack of clear mission; operating under laws that mesh poorly with effects exacerbated by 

overlapping responsibilities of several agencies; and a wide range of sometimes confusing 

court decisions, micromanagement—in other words, politicization of agency activities by 

Congress and political appointees; continued downsizing with inadequate consideration of 

what is expected of the Forest Service; and demonization of the agency by extremes in the 

debate over public land management” (PSW 1997n).

14 Under Dombeck’s agenda, maintaining and restoring the health of the ecosystems and 

watersheds of the national forests were the agency’s first priority and an overriding concern 

to be addressed in all future forest plans. Dombeck’s second priority was sustainable forest 

ecosystem management. He wanted the agency to develop policies that encouraged longterm investments in forests and discouraged their conversion to other uses, and to increase 

the number of private forest landowners that completed long-term forest stewardship plans. 

His agenda also emphasized management of the forest road system, which was an essential 

part of the transportation system in many rural parts of the country. The final element of 

the agenda was recognition that recreation was the fastest growing use of national forests 

and grasslands and the need to improve the quality and quantity of information about 

recreation opportunities on national forests (PSW 1998a).

Wildlife and fish 

habitat, recreation, 

clean water, wilderness, 

and cultural and 

spiritual values 

became more and more 

important as national 

goals. 
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

became more and more important as national goals. He emphasized the fact that 

forest management had shifted from commodity timber sales to management 

activities to meet stewardship objectives in response to shifting social values, public 

demand, and ever-evolving understanding of how to best manage for ecological 

sustainability15 (PSW 1999a, 1999b, 1999c).

Recognizing that current budgets had dwindled, Dombeck, on a visit to the 

PSW Research Station in 1997, predicted that they would rise again in the future 

(PSW 1997c). Nonetheless, the station faced continuing tight budgets, which resulted in important changes. For instance, to consolidate units and services, over 

the next 5 years the station relocated most of its scientists in forest genetics, insect 

chemical ecology, and western forest management at Albany and Redding to the 

University of California, Davis campus. The space vacated by PSW on the second 

floor at Albany was returned to the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS). 

The PSW already had a contingent at Davis (Urban Forestry RWU), and the purpose of the move was to get scientists back into a university atmosphere where they 

could maintain closer contact with colleagues in natural resources research (PSW 

1997j). As another example, in 1999 the station’s Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry (IPIF) relocated its headquarters from Honolulu to the University of Hawaii 

at Hilo. There, IPIF continued its research on reforestation, control of nonnative 

species, and forested wetlands and watersheds (PSW 1999e). Meanwhile, Station 

Director Salwasser and his staff focused their program and budget to take advantage of administration priority research areas: threatened and endangered species, 

global change, climate change technology, national forest system planning, nonnative invasive species, forest health monitoring, fire science, recreation research, and 

ecosystem management (PSW 1999g).

“Research values” became the key phrase at the PSW Research Station and 

was reflected in the 14 RWUs in California and the western Pacific. Twelve were 

in California and located at forest science laboratories in Albany, Arcata, Davis, 

Fresno, Placerville, Redding, and Riverside.16 The remaining RWUs were in

15 In early 1999, a committee of USDA scientists appointed by Agriculture Secretary Dan 

Glickman concluded that sustainability should be the focus of the Forest Service in the next 

century. This meant less emphasis on production and more on the preservation of plants, 

animals, and habitats whenever management decisions were made (PSW 1999d).

16 In 1998, they included Institute of Forest Genetics; Ecology and Management of Western 

Forests; Wildlife Communities and Key Ecosystem Linkages in Montane Forests; Timber 

Management/Wildlife Habitats Interactions in Northern California; Forest Management 

Effects on Hillslope Processes and Fisheries; Meteorology for Forest and Brushland Management; Wildland Fire Management Research, Development, and Application Program; 

Prescribed Fire and Fire Effects; Air Pollution and Global Change Impacts; Chemical 

Ecology and Management of Forest Insects; Wildland Recreation and Urban Culture; and 

Effects of Urbanization on Forest Ecosystems (USDA FS 1998).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Honolulu, Hawaii (IPIF) with small field offices in Hilo and Volcano (Island of 

Hawaii), and Yap (Federated States of Micronesia). To understand the relationships of the many components of forest ecosystems and to further the influences 

of proposed land production, long-term productivity, and ecosystem sustainability, 

Station Director Salwasser believed that science must inform these choices, driven 

by needs, values, financial capabilities, and aspirations. The station’s role was to 

provide basic data, knowledge of how things work and are related to one another, 

information syntheses, decision-support systems, analyses of the potential consequences of options, and new technologies (Gill and Hildreth 1998).

Accomplishments during the Salwasser administration were many. For 

instance, they included active work in the Sierra Nevada, as station scientists 

worked closely with their colleagues in the National Forest System and State and 

Private Forestry, as well as other agencies and institutions, to craft an interagency 

conservation strategy that built upon the superb work done on SNEP. Together, they 

developed the Sierra Nevada Conservation Framework (SNCF), based upon the 

work that was done on SNEP and Region 5’s revised draft environmental impact 

statement (RDEIS). The SNCF addressed the management of the California spotted 

owl habitat and associated resources in forests of the Sierra Nevada as well as the 

overall goal of sustaining the health, productivity, and resilience of Sierra Nevada 

ecosystems. Furthermore, it did this while meeting the needs of people and communities whose well-being depended in various ways on the Sierra Nevada, including 

water and riparian areas, forest fuels management and forest health, late-succession 

forests, wildlife associated with old forests, native biodiversity, sustainable production of natural resources, roads and roadless area management,17 and community 

vitality. In the future, PSW, the University of California, and other institutions used 

these research, educational, and monitoring objectives to identify priority projects 

(PSW 1998b). The station also worked well with its colleagues in Hawaii and the 

Pacific Islands in continuing to increase the relevance and value of Forest Service 

programs in those places (PSW 1997d). 

Just as Station Director Salwasser had started to make progress in leading 

a revitalized PSW Research Station, he announced that in July 2000 he would be 

moving on to become Dean of the College of Forestry at Oregon State University 

17 In October 1999, President Clinton directed the Forest Service to develop a proposal to 

protect more than 40 million acres of inventoried roadless areas on its 155 national forests 

and 20 grasslands. Logging and mining would be prohibited in these areas, including 

4 million acres in California. Road building was also severely restricted on these areas as 

well (PSW 1999i).

The Sierra Nevada 

Conservation 

Framework addressed 

the management of the 

California spotted owl 

habitat and associated 

resources in forests of 

the Sierra Nevada.
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(PSW 1999h). Salwasser’s announcement came at the same time as the news of the 

deaths of key “old guard” scientists, such as August L. “Gus” Hormay, who pioneered the concept of rest-rotation for managing rangelands, and Robert V. Bega,18

who was widely known for his research on root diseases, mainly those in tree 

nurseries (PSW 1999j, 1999k). Retirements of long-term key scientists and staff 

happened as well, including entomologist Patrick Shea,19 whose career was devoted 

to the study of western bark beetles and research on developing pheromone-based 

management systems; geneticist M. Thompson Conkle,20 who focused his research 

on developing molecular markers for forest trees; Philip S. Aune,21 who managed 

the station’s vegetation management alternatives for regeneration of California’s 

conifer research and development program at Redding; wildlife biologist Jared 

Verner,22 who oversaw sensitive species research and wildlife population monitoring research at the station’s Fresno Laboratory; and research forester Philip M. 

McDonald,23 whose work centered on California hardwoods and on vegetation

18 Robert V. Bega had served as project leader for forest disease research at PSW for more 

than 20 years. Bega earned his B.S. (1955) and Ph.D. (1957) degrees at the University of 

California at Berkeley. In 1955, he worked for the station on a grant before formally joining 

the research staff in 1955. He was appointed project leader in 1962 and retired in 1984 after 

more than 30 years of federal service (PSW 1999k).

19 Patrick Shea received his B.S. (1966) and M.S. (1967) degrees in entomology from the 

University of California at Berkeley and his Ph.D. (1988) from the University of California 

at Davis. He joined the Forest Service and the station in 1967 as a biological technician 

working in the Insecticide Evaluation Research Unit (PSW 1999l).

20 M. Thompson “Tom” Conkle earned his B.S. degree in forestry at Michigan State 

University, his M.S. degree in forest genetics at North Carolina State University, and his 

Ph.D. degree in forest genetics at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1962, when he 

arrived at the Institute of Forest Genetics, he was the first summer student at the Placerville 

facility. In 1966, he joined the PSW staff as a research geneticist, working at the Berkeley 

laboratory, and in 1990 became project leader for forest genetics research at Berkeley and 

later at Albany (PSW 1999l).

21 Philip S. Aune started his Forest Service career in 1962 as a temporary employee, earning a forestry degree from Humboldt State University 3 years later. Aune joined the station 

staff in 1987 after having served the previous 23 years on four California national forests 

(Shasta-Trinity, Sequoia, Six Rivers, and Tahoe) as a forestry technician, forester, and 

district and forest silviculturalist (PSW 1999n).

22 Jared “Jerry” Verner left academia in 1976 to join the Forest Service, where he was 

assigned to the Fresno Laboratory as project leader. There, he became involved in most 

of the controversial issues of the day, including research on California condors, mountain 

lions, and finally the spotted owl. He earned his B.S. degree (1957) in wildlife management at Washington State University, an M.S. degree (1959) in zoology at Louisiana State 

University, and a doctorate in zoology (1963) at the University of California at Berkeley 

(PSW 1999n).

23 Long-time PSW scientist Philip M. McDonald joined the Forest Service in 1961 as a 

snow researcher at the station’s Central Sierra Snow Laboratory (CSSL). His research was 

reported in more than 135 publications, largely as serials aimed at providing information 

that was interesting and worthwhile for scientists and practitioners. McDonald earned 

his forestry degree at Washington State University (1960), his master of forestry degree 

at Duke University (1961), and his doctorate in forest science at Oregon State University 

(1978) (PSW 2000).
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

management at the Challenge Experimental Forest (CEF) and later at the station’s 

Redding facility. Key staff retirements included Cynthia K. Jacobs, who during 

her 37-year career with PSW watched the station’s fortunes as the secretary for 

five directors, and Roxanne Orly, who occupied many positions in management at 

PSW for 30 years. Because of her personal interest in seeing that all station historical documents were preserved, she became the station’s ex-officio historian (PSW 

1999l, 1999n, 2000a).

One year after Station Director Salwasser left, the station celebrated its 75th

anniversary, but was leaderless. Pending selection of a permanent director, Assistant Station Director Garland N. Mason had served as Acting Station Director since 

July 2, 2001. From its modest beginnings in 1926 in four rooms in Hilgard Hall on 

the campus of the University of California at Berkeley, and from its six-person staff 

headed by its first Station Director, Edward I. Kotok, the station had gone through 

four name changes, enlarged its area of responsibility from California to include 

Hawaii and the United States-affiliated Pacific islands, seen a dramatic growth in 

the scope and complexity of its research programs, and now entered the 21st century 

with advances in cutting-edge research and technology. With budgets less than 

$33,000 a year during its founding period, the station peaked in the late 1970s with 

$20 million in funding and a staff of more than 350 full- and part-time employees. 

This growth was reflected in the changes in station headquarters and growing 

research opportunities at the station’s field facilities (Arcata, Davis, Fresno, Placerville, Redding, and Riverside in California and Honolulu and Hilo in Hawaii) and 

experimental forests and ranges that served as outdoor research laboratories.

Research staff specialties were once largely in forestry, entomology, genetics, 

and pathology. That pattern evolved and expanded to such fields as wildlife biology, 

hydrology, sociology, fire ecology, fish biology, and others to allow a more balanced 

perspective in resource management. In its 75-year history, according to Acting Station Director Mason, “Station scientists mapped California’s vegetation types and 

soils and provided the foundation for timber-related research, including studies of 

tree and site quality classification and built upon the mosaic pattern of plant growth 

in forests. They pioneered work on the biochemistry of the turpentines of pines and 

helped clarify the genetic relationships among the genus Pinus. They developed 

methods for species hybridization and techniques for rating tree hazards. They surveyed the forest resources of Hawaii and other western Pacific islands. They studied 

factors influencing soil erosion and water runoff and yield, and developed procedures for conducting watershed assessments. In their work, they evaluated insecticides, and investigated alternatives to DDT. In fire research, they pioneered studies 

From its modest 

beginnings in 1926 

the station had gone 

through four name 

changes, enlarged its 

area of responsibility 

from California to 

include Hawaii and the 

United States-affiliated 

Pacific islands, seen 

a dramatic growth 

in the scope and 

complexity of its 

research programs, and 

now entered the 21st

century.
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

on fire behavior and helped develop new fire management techniques, including 

air attack, fire retardants, fuelbreaks, fire safety, escaped wildfires, and especially 

the incident command system, now used worldwide. Station scientists also explored 

the relationships among timber, harvest, livestock grazing, and wildlife. They 

developed a rest-rotation system for cattle grazing on California’s national forests, 

and developed guides to the viability and habitat requirements of the California 

spotted owl. Their recreation research enabled resource managers to apply the 

principles of landscape architecture to land-use planning, such as at Nacio, and they 

developed models to evaluate the benefits and costs of urban forests. Further, they 

completed the first comprehensive evaluation of the natural resources of the Sierra 

Nevada. All of the above work and other important studies and investigations were 

documented by station scientists in more than 7,000 publications, whose spectrum 

ranged from the mapping of forest ecoregions to the mapping of the forest vegetation genes (PSW 2001a).

The PSW Research Station’s accomplishments over three-quarters of a century 

helped bring status and credibility to the whole Forest Service research organization, and earned for the station an outstanding reputation in research and technological development. Some of the best scientists, technicians, administrators, and 

support staff made their way through the station. A few station directors, such as 

Edward Kotok, George Jemison, and Keith Arnold, went on to serve in higher positions in the research organization of the Washington office of the Forest Service, 

and one former director, John R. McGuire, became Chief of the Forest Service. But 

the station’s history is best demonstrated by its service to the people of California, 

Hawaii, and the western Pacific islands, making a difference in the quality of their 

lives, and in conservation, use, and protection of their natural resources. No doubt, 

this tradition will grow and progress as the station moves forward to the next 25 

years of accomplishments and toward its 100th anniversary.
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Scientific and Common Names

Common names Scientific names

Plants:

Acacia Acacia Mill.

Ash Fraxinus spp.

Asian raspberry Rubus ellipticus Sm.

Australian saltbush Atriplex semibaccata R. Br.

Austrian pine Pinus nigra Arnold

Banana poka Passiflora mollissima (Kunth) L.H. Bailey

Bear clover Chamaebatia foliolosa Benth.

Bishop pine Pinus muricata D. Don

Bitterbrush Purshia tridentata (Pursh) DC.

Blue gum Eucalyptus globulus Labill.

Bristlecone pine Pinus aristata Engelm.

California black oak Quercus kelloggii Newberry

California poppy Eschscholzia californica Cham.

California red fir Abies magnifica A. Murray

Catalpa Catalpa spp.

Chamise Adenostoma fasciculatum Hook. & Arn.

Cinchona Cinchona spp.

Common iceplant Mesembryanthemum crystallinum L.

Cork oak Quercus suber L.

Coulter pine Pinus coulteri D. Don

Currant Ribes spp.

Desert false indigo Amorpha fruticosa L.

Digger pine (gray pine) Pinus sabiniana Douglas ex Douglas

Douglas-fir Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco

Faya-tree Myrica faya Aiton

Four-leaf pine Pinus quadrifolia Parl.

Gorse Ulex europaeus L.

Gray pine Pinus sabiniana Douglas ex Douglas

Guayule Parthenium argentatum A. Gray

Hemlock Tsuga spp.

Hemp Cannabis spp.

Hickory Carya spp.

Incense-cedar Calocedrus decurrens (Torr.) Florin

Indian hemp Apocynum cannabinum L.

Indigo bush Amorpha californica Nutt.

Interior live oak Quercus wislizeni A. DC.

Jeffrey pine Pinus jeffreyi Balf.

Knobcone pine Pinus attenuata Lemmon

Koa Acacia koa A. Gray

Koster’s curse Clidemia hirta (L.) D. Don

Larkspur Delphinium spp.

Loblolly pine Pinus taeda L.

Locust Robinia spp.
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Longleaf pine Pinus palustris Mill.

Madrone Arbutus spp.

Mamane (mamani) Sophora chrysophylla (Salisb.) Seem.

Monterey cypress Cupressus macrocarpa Hartw. ex Gord.

Monterey pine Pinus radiata D. Don

Ohia lehua Metrosideros collina J.R. Forst. & G. Forst.

 (Metrosideros polymorpha Gaudich.)

Ponderosa pine Pinus ponderosa C. Lawson

Pyrethrum Chrysanthemum cinerariifolium (Trevir.) Vis.

Rabbitbrush Chrysothamnus spp.

Redcedar Thuja plicata Donn ex D. Don

Red fir Abies magnifica A. Murray

Red gum Eucalyptus spp. 

Redwood Sequoia sempervirens (Lamb. ex D. Don) Endl.

Sandalwood Santalum album L.

Scotch pine Pinus sylvestris L.

Sequoia Sequoiadendron giganteum (Lindl.) J. Buchholz

Shasta red fir Abies × shatensis (Lemmon) Lemmon 

Silktassel Garrya spp.

Slash pine Pinus elliottii Engelm.

Strawberry guava Psidium cattleianum Sabine

Sugar pine Pinus lambertiana Dougl.

Swampmahogany Eucalyptus robusta Sm. 

Swiss stone pine Pinus cembra L.

Tanbark oak (tanoak) Lithocarpus densiflorus (Hook. & Arn.) Rehder

Torrey pine Pinus torreyana Parry ex Carrière

True fir Abies spp.

Walnut Juglans spp.

Western hemlock Tsuga heterophylla (Raf.) Sarg.

Western yellow pine 

 (ponderosa pine) Pinus ponderosa C. Lawson

White fir Abies concolor (Gord. & Glend.) Lindl. ex Hildebr.

White pine Pinus monticola Douglas ex D. Don

Willow Salix spp.

Yucca Yucca spp.

Diseases

Annosus root rot Heterobasidion annosum

Western dwarf mistletoe Arceuthobium campylopodum

Western gall rust Endocronartium harknessii

White pine blister rust Cronartium ribicola

Insects

California five-spined Ips paraconfusus Lanier

 engraver

California flatheaded borer Melanophila californica Van Dyke

Douglas-fir bark beetle Dendroctonus pseudotsugae Hopk.

Douglas-fir tussock moth Orgyia pseudotsuga McDunnough

Gypsy moth Lymantria dispar Linnaeus
445

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Ips beetle Ips spp.

Jeffrey pine beetle Dendroctonus jeffreyi Hopk.

Lodgepole needle-miner Coleotechnites milleri Busck

Mountain pine beetle Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopk.

Southern pine beetle Dendroctonus frontalis Zimmerman

Spider mite Tetranychidae family

Spruce budworm Choristoneura occidentalis Freeman

Termite Isoptera order

Western pine beetle Dendroctonus brevicomis Le Conte

Birds

Bald eagle (see southern Haliaeetus leucocephalus

bald eagle)

California condor Gymnogyps californianus

California spotted owl Strix occidentalis occidentalis

Horned owl Bubo virginianus

Marbled murrelet Brachyramphus marmoratus

Northern spotted owl Strix occidentalis caurina

Palila Loxioides bailleui

Peregrine falcon Falco peregrinus

Southern bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus leucocephalus

Yellow-headed blackbird Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus

Mammals

Alpine chipmunk Tamias alpinus

Fisher Martes pennanti

Meadow vole Microtus pennsylvanicus

Mountain lion Puma concolor

Mule deer Odocoileus hemionus

Pine marten Martes americana
446

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829–830.

Journal of Forestry. 1940. Forest research and next thirty years. 38(February): 

79, 164–188.

Journal of Forestry. 1941. Edward I. Kotok named Assistant Chief of U.S. Forest 

Service Divisions. 39(January): 66.

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43(February): 140.

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developed. California Countryman. 12(December): 7, 25. 
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Kotok, E.I. 1930. Research work in forestry by the United States Forest Service. 

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Edward I. Kotok, Box 22451, Accession No. 95-51-D0151, Federal Records 

Center, San Bruno, CA.

Kotok, E.I. 1932. Solving the forest and water riddle: recent results of widely 

conducted experiments are providing abundant facts to show the beneficial 

effects of forest and other plant cover upon streamflow and water conservation. 

American Forests. 38(September): 488–491.

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17th annual conference of Pacific Coast Economic Association. Santa Clara, CA: 

Pacific Coast Economic Association: 90–95.

Kotok, E.I. 1948. Organization of research in the U.S. Forest Service. Unasylva. 

2(March-April): 69–76.

Kraebel, C.J. 1932. The denudation of mountains and the water supply. Talk 

given at Forestry and Wild Life Committee of the Commonwealth Club of San 

Francisco. 26 April 1932. On file with: Edward I. Kotok, Box 22451, Accession 

No. 95-51-D0151, Federal Records Center, San Bruno, CA.

Kraebel, C.J.; Kellogg, L.F. 1938. The forest guardians of our watersheds. Journal 

of Forestry. 36(September): 858–860.

LeMaster, D.C. 1984. Decade of change: the remaking of Forest Service statutory 

authority during the 1970s. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. 

Lemmon, J.G.; Lemmon, S.A.P. 1902. How to tell the trees and forest endowment 

of Pacific slope. Oakland, CA: [Publisher unknown]. http://www.archive.org/

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Region. On file with: USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Region Archives, 

Vallejo, CA.
461

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Lowdermilk, W.C. 1929. Function of the California Forest Experiment Station: 

water supply problems. On file with: W.C. Lowdermilk, Box 22451, Accession 

No. 95-51-D0151, Federal Records Center, San Bruno, CA.

Lowdermilk, W.C. 1933. Forests and streamflow: discussion of the Hoyt-Troxell 

Report. Journal of Forestry. 3(3): 296–307.

Lowdermilk, W.C.; Hamilton, E.L. 1933. Large lysimeter installation to measure transpiration loss of chaparral forest. On file with: W.C. Lowdermilk,

Boxes 7611-47-761158, Accession No. 95-59-0744, Federal Records Center, 

San Bruno, CA.

MacCleery, D.W. 1993. American forests: a history of resiliency and recovery. 

Durham, NC: Forest History Society. 

Magill, A.W.; Leiser, A.T. 1967. New help for worn out campgrounds. Berkeley, 

CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Forest 

and Range Experiment Station.

Marsh, G.P. 1864. Man and nature: or, physical geography as modified by human 

action. New York: Charles Scribner. 560 p.

Mastrantonio, J.L. 1989. Saving Hawaii’s native forests. Forestry Research 

West. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific 

Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1989(October): 13–16.

Mastrantonio, J.L. 1990. Lessons from the lysimeters. Forestry Research West. 

Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific 

Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1990(December): 7–9.

May, R.H. 1953a. A century of lumber production in California and Nevada. 

Forest Survey Release No. 20. Berkeley, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 

Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 33 p. 

May, R.H. 1953b. Early history of the redwood lumber industry. Bulletin, 15th

annual redwood regional logging conference and equipment show: 8–9. On file 

with: Pacific Southwest Research Station archives, Albany, CA.

McArdle, R.E. 1955. The Forest Service’s first fifty years. Journal of Forestry. 

53(February): 99–106.

McCulley, R.D. [N.d.]. Biographical sketch of Robert D. McCulley. On file with: 

Station Directors’ resumes, Box 7, Pacific Southwest Research Station Archives, 

Albany, CA.
462

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McDonald, J.K. 1979. Searching for safe insecticides. Forestry Research West. 

Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific 

Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1979(May): 1–4.

McDonald, J.K. 1983. Chaparral R&D Program...catalyst for action. Forestry 

Research West. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest 

Service, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1983(March): 

11–16.

McDonald, J.K. 1985. A brief overview of the Pacific Southwest Station. Forestry 

Research West. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest 

Service, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1985(October): 

16–21.

McDonald, P.M.; Huber, D.W. 1995. California’s hardwood resource: managing 

for wildlife, water, pleasing scenery, and wood products. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSWGTR-154. Albany, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific 

Southwest Research Station. 23 p. 

McGuire, J.R. 1976. Memo to Director, PSW with enclosure, Revision number 

two to establishment report on Swain Mountain Experimental Forest. On file 

with: Box 1, Pacific Southwest Research Station Archives, Albany, CA.

Meinecke, E.P. 1914. Forest tree diseases common in California and Nevada. Bull. 

799. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. 67 p.

Meinecke, E.P. 1916. Forest pathology in forest regulation. Bull. 275. Washington, 

DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture. 63 p. 

Meinecke, E.P. 1929. Effect of excessive tourist travel on the California Redwood 

Parks. Sacramento, CA: California State Printing Office. 

Meinecke, E.P. 1935 (5 April). Letter to Dr. Haven Metcalf. The trailer menace. 

On file: Forest History Society, Durham, NC.

Michaux, A. 1803. Flora boreali-americana sistens caracteres plantarum quas in 

America septentrionali collegit et detexit Andreas Michaux. 2 vol. Parisiis et 

Argentorati: apud fratres Levrault. On file with: Library, New York Botanical 

Garden.

Michaux, F.A. 1819. The North American sylva, or, a description of the forest trees 

of the United States, Canada and Nova Scotia. Translated from the French. Paris: 

C. d’Hautel.

Miller, D.C. 1963. Persistence and the pine. American Forests. 69(January): 16–19.
463

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Miller, D.R.; Kimmey, J.W. 1958. White pine blister rust in the Western United 

States. On file with: Alphabetical author’s publications: Boxes 1232521-1232526, 

Accession No. 95-63-0532, Federal Records Center, San Bruno, CA.

Miller, J.M. 1912. How the insect control problem compares with the fire problem 

on national forests in District 5. Forestry Quarterly. 10(June): 208–214.

Miller, J.M.; Keen, F.P. 1960. Biology and control of the western pine beetle, a 

summary of the first fifty years of research. Misc. Publ. 800. Washington, DC: 

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. 381 p.

Miller, P. 1985. The impacts of air pollution on forest resources. Forestry Research 

West. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific 

Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1985(August): 1–5.

Mirov, N.T. 1934. California botany covers more than a century. California Ranger. 

5(51): 1.

Mirov, N.T. 1939. Forest genetics: present status and outlook for the future. 

Proceedings, sixth Pacific science congress. Berkeley, CA. 4: 727–730.

Mirov, N.T. 1961. Composition of gum turpentines of pines. Tech. Bull. 1239. 

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Mirov, N.T.; Kraebel, C.J. 1937. Collecting and propagating the seeds of 

California wild plants. Res. Note 18. Berkeley, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, California Forest and Range Experiment Station. 27 p.

Munns, E.N. 1913. Reforestation in southern California. On file with: Box 1: 

Historical Manuscripts, 1902–1913, Record Group 95, National Archive Record 

Center, San Bruno, CA.

Munns, E.N. 1923. Erosion and flood problems in California. Sacramento, CA: 

California State Board of Forestry.

Murphy, E.W. 1928. What passage of the McNary-McSweeney Bill means to 

California. California Journal of Development. 18(1): 26–27.

Nelson, R.E. 1989. The USDA Forest Service in Hawaii: the first 20 years

(1957–1977). Berkeley, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, 

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 

Nelson, R.H. 2000. Rethinking scientific management: brand-new alternatives 

for century-old agency. In: Sedjo, R.A., ed. A vision for the U.S. Forest Service: 

goals for its next century. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future: 57–74. 
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Nutall, T. 1865. North American Sylva, or, a description of the forest trees of the 

United States, Canada, and Nova Scotia not described in the work of F. Andrew 

Michaux, and containing all the forest trees discovered in the Rocky Mountains, 

the territory of Oregon, down to the shores of the Pacific, etc. Philadelphia, PA: 

Smith & Wister. 3 vols. 

Oakland Tribune. 1940. Expert added to forestry faculty. 26 July.

Olberding, S.D. 2000. Fort Valley: the beginnings of forest research. Forest 

History Today. (Spring 2000): 9–15.

Olmsted, F.E. 1902. Tests on the physical properties of timber. In: Agriculture 

yearbook. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture: 533–538.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1966a. A night 

test of helicopters. What’s New in Research? 1966(November): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1966b. A talk 

with Julius Hyman. What’s New in Research? 1966(August): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1967a.

Astronauts to help. What’s New in Research? 1967(March): 8.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1967b.

Sensing by satellite. What’s New in Research? 1967(March): 4.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1967c. Soils 

that won’t “wet up.” What’s New in Research? 1967(August): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1967d. The 

trouble with tree fern. What’s New in Research? 1967(March): 3.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1968a. Bark 

beetles “turn.” What’s New in Research? 1968(November): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1968b.

Blister rust found in central Sierra Nevada. What’s New in Research? 

1968(November): 5.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1968c.

Designing a super molecule: a symplastic systemic insecticide. What’s New in 

Research? 1968(November): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1968d. Fire 

dispatching by computer. What’s New in Research? 1968(November): 7.
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Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1968e. Nicasio, 

U.S.A. What’s New in Research? 1968(November): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1968f. Smog 

disease...no cure in sight. What’s New in Research? 1968(February): 6–8.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1968g. Smog 

disease in ponderosa pine. What’s New in Research? 1968(November): 5.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1969a. 

Cattle grazing: Can it improve winter deer range? What’s New in Research? 

1969(December): 9–10

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1969b. Forestry 

research in the 50th state.” What’s New in Research? 1969(December): 1–4.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1969c.

Growing redwoods... What’s New in Research? 1969(July): 2–4.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1969d. Soils 

that won’t “wet up.” What’s New in Research? 1969(July): 6–8.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1970a.

Nationwide forest survey from space. What’s New in Research? 1970(March): 

1–3.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1970b. The 

Santa Ana: it’s an ill wind. What’s New in Research? 1970(August): 7–8.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1971. Worst 

fires in history. What’s New in Research? 1971(March): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1972a. Forest 

trees: decoding their genetic structure. What’s New in Research? 1972(July): 6–7.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1972b. One of 

the oldest insecticides known to man. What’s New in Research? 1972(July): 1–5.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1972c.

Profiling the snowpack. What’s New in Research? 1972(April): 2–3.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1973.

Limonene...Is it important? Forestry Research: What’s New in the West. 

1973(Fall): 6–7.
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Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1974a. Library 

network aids California foresters. Forestry Research: What’s New in the West. 

1974(August): 1–3, 12.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1974b. Night 

helicopter operations for fighting wildfires. Forestry Research: What’s New in 

the West. 1974(August): [N.p.].

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1974c. A 

virus that kills tussock moths. Forestry Research: What’s New in the West. 

1974(August): 4–5, 12–13.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1975a. Pilots 

try night helitack. Forestry Research: What’s New in the West 1975(July): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1975b.

Planners look ahead with VIEWIT. Forestry Research: What’s New in the West. 

1975(February): 6–7, 15.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1976. Robert Z. 

Callaham is PSW’s new Director. For Your Information. 1976(8 November): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1978.

Ponderosa pine studied. Forestry Research: What’s New in the West. 

1978(July): 20.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1979a. 

Helping the California condor. Forestry Research West. 1979(January): 11.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1979b. 

Measuring snow water content in restricted areas. Forestry Research West. 

1979(November): 15.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1980a. Fire and 

chaparral soils. Forestry Research West. 1980(August): 20.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1980b.

Landscape inventory system developed. Forestry Research West. 

1980(May): 14.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1980c. Measuring chaparral moisture content. Forestry Research West. 1980(August): 18.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1981a. Federal judge 

approves consent decree. For Your Information. 1981(11 May): 1.
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Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1981b. Federal judge 

approves consent decree. For Your Information. 1981(13 July): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1981c. Oak 

woodlands summary issued. Forestry Research West. 1981(June): 19.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1981d. 

Plantation success—timing is the key. Forestry Research West. 1981(June): 20.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1981e.

Prescribed burning reviewed in report. Forestry Research West. 

1981(September): 20.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1982a. Changes 

underway in Hawaii program. For Your Information. 1982(10 May): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1982b. Fiscal year 1982 

budget update. For Your Information. 1982(18 January): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1982c.

Forest fuels—gauging how much is on the ground. Forestry Research West. 

1982(June): 18.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1982d.

Genetics research technique reviewed. Forestry Research West. 

1982(February): 17.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1982e.

POLO2 expands options of insecticide tests. Forestry Research West. 

1982(September): 19.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1982f. UC 

professor to study young spotted owls. For Your Information. 1982(18 July): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1982g. Urban 

forestry unit receives new charter. For Your Information. 1982(28 June): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1983a.

Classifying mountain meadow sites. Forestry Research West. 1983(June): 14.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1983b. Director 

and Deputy Director to retire April 29. For Your Information. 1983(11 April): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1983c. Dwarf 

mistletoe in California firs. Forestry Research West. 1983(June): 16.
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Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1983d. Goats 

for brush control. Forestry Research West. 1983(January): 16.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1983e. Identifying bald eagles through voice prints. Forestry Research West. 1983(June): 12.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1983f. Roger 

Bay named Director of PSW. For Your Information. 1983(20 June): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1984a. Acid 

rain in California. For Your Information. 1984(25 June): 2.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW].

1984b. Administrative studies being reviewed. For Your Information.

1984(24 September): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1984c. Bega, 

Botsko to retire on December 21. For Your Information. 1984(17 December): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW].

1984d. Changes in research units announced. For Your Information.

1984(26 November): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1984e.

Clearcutting and natural regeneration...northern Sierra Nevada. Forestry 

Research West. 1984(June): 11.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1984f. Consent 

action plan accepted by WO. For Your Information. 1984(18 June): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1984g. Consent 

decree training for supervisors. For Your Information. 1984(20 August): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1984h. Crowell 

testifies on 1985 budget. For Your Information. 1984(27 February): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1984i. Director 

on consent decree. For Your Information. 1984(11 June): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1984j. FS 

announces research accomplishments. For Your Information. 1984(27 August): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1984k. Funding 

for acid rain research. For Your Information. 1984(30 January): 2.
469

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1984l.

Growth classification systems for red fir and white fir. Forestry Research West. 

1984(June): 12.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1984m. Guide 

to identification and post-fire management of five California oaks. Forestry 

Research West. 1984(June): 12.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1984n.

Highlights of Chief’s remarks. For Your Information. 1984(13 February): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1984o. More

on acid rain. For Your Information. 1984(7 May): 2.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1984p. 

President’s Forest Service budget. For Your Information. 1984(20 February): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW].

1984q. Prescribed burn set for San Dimas Forest. For Your Information.

1984(29 October): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1984r. PSW 

scientists at acid rain workshop. For Your Information. 1984(16 January): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW].

1984s. PSW/R-5 consent decree liaisons selected. For Your Information.

1984(25 June): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW].

1984t. Riverside holds acid precipitation meeting. For Your Information.

1984(17 December): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1984u. Roy 

retires after 41 years’ service. For Your Information. 1984(1 October): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1984v. Shared 

services: PSW Operations Group/R-5. For Your Information. 1984(18 June): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985a. 

“Accomplishments” reports on station research. For Your Information.

1985(23 September): 1

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985b. Awards 

presented at San Dimas anniversary. For Your Information. 1985(8 July): 1
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985c. Brush 

reduces growth of ponderosa pine. Forestry Research West. 1985(January): 16.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985d.

Classifying vegetation in Hawaii. Forestry Research West. 1985(January): 22.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985e.

Computing costs of fire suppression. Forestry Research West. 1985(January): 18.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985f. Conard 

appointed project leader of new unit. For Your Information. 1985(21 October): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985g.

Dunn appointed project leader of new unit. For Your Information.

1985(12 November): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985h.

Fire management planning. Forestry Research West. 1985(October): 24. 

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985i. Genetics 

Institute marks 60th anniversary. For Your Information. 1985(23 December): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985j. Larson 

named first woman forest supervisor. For Your Information. 1985(21 January): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985k. Lux 

launches off on career pathing program. For Your Information. 1985(29 July): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985l. New 

career pathing program launched. For Your Information. 1985(4 March): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985m. 

Prescribed burns completed by fire scientists. For Your Information.

1985(2 December): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985n. PSW 

queries employees on “early retirement.” For Your Information. 1985(10 June): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985o. 

Regeneration of Douglas-fir. Forestry Research West. 1985(October): 25. 

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985p. Robert 

L. Neal retires at Redding. For Your Information. 1985(18 February): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985q.

San Dimas Forest to celebrate 50th anniversary. For Your Information.

1985(17 June): 1.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985r. San 

Joaquin Range marks 50th anniversary. For Your Information. 1985(22 April): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985s.

Spada, McDonald, Ryan, Skolmen to retire. For Your Information.

1985(30 December): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985t. Station 

issues early retirement notices. For Your Information. 1985(25 November): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985u. Station 

launches career pathing program. For Your Information. 1985(1 April): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985v.

Two researchers awarded competitive grants. For Your Information.

1985(15 October): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1985w. Two 

selected for career pathing program. For Your Information. 1985(10 June): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986a. Bergen, 

Schaefer, Schelton, Sundahl retire. For Your Information. 1986(3 February): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986b. 

Buckman pays farewell visit to station. For Your Information.

1986(21 January): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986c. Career 

pathing program directive issued. For Your Information. 1986(21 January): 2.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986d. Clarke, 

Maxwell, Roederer to retire. For Your Information. 1986(27 January): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986e. Consent 

decree training report issued. For Your Information. 1986(6 October): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986f. Everett 

Wieslander—the person. For Your Information. 1986(18 August): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986g.

Finding the optimum fire management program level. Forestry Research West. 

1986(November): 21.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986h.

FIRECAST handbook available for estimating fire behavior. Forestry Research 

West. 1986(November): 25. 
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general technical report psw-gtr-233

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986i. Fire lab 

scheduled to gain 12 new employees. For Your Information. 1986(21 July): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986j.

First awards in internal competitive grants. For Your Information.

1986(15 September): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986k.

Guidelines available for testing insecticides on coniferous forest defoliators. 

Forestry Research West. 1986(November): 24. (Anon 1986c dup of Anon 1986f)

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986l. Major 

changes in fire research announced. For Your Information. 1986(14 July): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986m. New

to PSW. For Your Information. 1986(29 December): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986n. 

“Outstanding scientist” awardee: Ray Rice. For Your Information.

1986(8 December): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986o. Pilot 

test...progress report. For Your Information. 1986(12 May): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW].

1986p. PSW among winners of competitive grants. For Your Information.

1986(24 October): 2.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986q.

“Research Accomplishments” cites work at PSW. For Your Information.

1986(8 December): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986r. 

Robertson: a woman scientist’s rise to the top. For Your Information.

1986(23 June): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986s. Station 

is 60 years old this Wednesday. For Your Information. 1986(30 June): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986t. Study 

shows how to predict effects of thinning and overstory removal on red fir 

advance regeneration. Forestry Research West. 1986(November): 22. 

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986u. 

Wieslander hails 60th anniversary of station. For Your Information.

1986(28 July): 1.
473

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW].

1986v. Weislander: working with station directors. For Your Information.

1986(4 August): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1986w.

Logo Adopted to Mark Station’s Anniversary. For Your Information. 

1986(31 March): 1. 

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1987a. Chief 

approves PSW/R-5 location study. For Your Information. 1987(12 January): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1987b. Chief’s 

watchword: “continuity.” For Your Information. 1987(2 March): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1987c. 

Competitive grants program renewed. For Your Information. 1987(23 March): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1987d. Consent 

decree hearing set for January 16. For Your Information. 1987(5 January): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1987e.

De La Toree heads ARS study. For Your Information. 1987(19 January): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1987f. Director 

Bay reviews FY87’s progress. For Your Information. 1987(2 November): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1987g. 

Landscape research unit relocated. For Your Information. 1987(1 June): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1987h. Mays 

spotted owl program manager. For Your Information. 1987(16 March): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1987i. Moore 

assumes assistant director duties. For Your Information. 1987(16 March): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1987j. Pacific 

Islands Research Unit renamed. For Your Information. 1987(26 May): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW].

1987k. Robertson succeeds Peterson as Chief. For Your Information.

1987(26 January): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1987l. 

Temporary employees: part of PSW. For Your Information. 1987(15 June): 1.
474

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW].

1988a. Congress approves funds for PSW move. For Your Information.

1988(11 January): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1988b. Director 

Bay’s farewell to employees. For Your Information. 1988(21 March): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1988c.

Director Stewart reviews progress in FY 1988. For Your Information.

1988(14 November): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1988d. Effects 

of ryegrass seeding on post-fire erosion and succession. Forestry Research West. 

1988(June): 27.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1988e.

Emergency ryegrass seeding to revegetate chaparral burns. Forestry Research 

West. 1988(June): 26.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1988f. Federal 

judge extends consent decree. For Your Information. 1988(16 May): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1988g. IFG 

honored as national historic site. For Your Information. 1988(8 August): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1988h. IFG 

hosts national genetics workshop. For Your Information. 1988(22 August): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1988i. Lux is 

career pathing’s first “graduate.” For Your Information. 1988(17 October): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1988j. MaSS 

exodus after 26 years. For Your Information. 1988(19 September): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1988k. Peterson named 

project leader. For Your Information. 1988(28 November): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1988l. 

Research work units listed. For Your Information. 1988(6 September): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1988m. 

Riverside Fire Lab celebrates 25 years. For Your Information. 1988(31 May): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1988n. Special 

publications mark anniversary. For Your Information. 1988(7 June): 1.
475

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1988o. Station 

Director Bay to retire March 31. For Your Information. 1987(7 March): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1988p. Station 

priorities set at managers meeting. For Your Information. 1988(2 May): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1988q. Stewart 

appointed Station Director. For Your Information. 1988(4 April): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1988r. Stewart: 

“We can surmount any obstacles.” For Your Information. 1988(4 April): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1989a. Chase 

selected as fire project leader. For Your Information. 1989(6 February): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1989b. CR/

consent decree group reorganized. For Your Information. 1989(24 July): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1989c. INSEX: 

a new way to select insecticides. For Your Information. 1989(26 June): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW].

1989d. Jenkinson receives state’s Raymond award. For Your Information.

1989(6 March): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1989e. 

Jenkinson wins USDA award. For Your Information. 1989(12 June): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW].

1989f. Meetings/conferences/seminars attended. For Your Information.

1989(11 December): 2.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1989g.

New to PSW. For Your Information. 1989(17 April): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1989h. 

Recreation unit holds workshops. For Your Information. 1989(1 May): 2.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1989i. Recreation workshop held at Riverside. For Your Information. 1989(9 January): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1989j. Rice 

receives state’s Raymond award. For Your Information. 1989(26 December): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1989k. Rice to 

retire on May 3. For Your Information. 1989(1 May): 1.
476

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1989l. 

Riverside hosts acid deposition review. For Your Information. 1989(30 May): 1.

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station [PSW]. 1989m. 

Scientists brief Congressman Brown. For Your Information. 1989(3 April): 1

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1990a. 50th anniversary celebration. 

For Your Information. 1990(19 November): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1990b. Aune to coordinate PSW 

“New Perspectives.” For Your Information. 1990(20 August): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1990c. The Bedford Canyon Burn: 

first-hand report. For Your Information. 1990(20 August): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1990d. Ewert guest-edits Trends 

journal. For Your Information. 1990(5 February): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1990e. Former Directors: Where are 

they? R. Keith Arnold. For Your Information. 1990(6 August): 1–2

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1990f. Former Directors: Where are 

they? Roger R. Bay. For Your Information. 1990(11 June): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1990g. Former Directors: Where are 

they? Robert Z. Callaham. For Your Information. 1990(4 September): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1990h. Former Directors: Where are 

they? Harry W. Camp. For Your Information. 1990(25 June): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1990i. Former Directors: Where are 

they? Robert W. Harris. For Your Information. 1990(24 July): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1990j. Former Directors: Where are 

they now? John R. McGuire. For Your Information. 1990(9 July): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1990k. Former PSW Directors: 

Where are they? George Jemison. For Your Information. 1990(29 May): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1990l. FY91 budget addresses 

pressing issues. For Your Information. 1990(20 February): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1990m. Management team/staff. For 

Your Information. 1990(8 January): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1990n. National Hispanic Heritage 

Month. For Your Information. 1990(1 October): 1–2.
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The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1990o. New to PSW. For Your 

Information. 1990(8 January): 2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1990p. Riverside laboratory 

spotlighted. For Your Information. 1990(22 January): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1990q. Stewart leaves PSW for 

regional forester position. For Your Information. 1990(17 December): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1990r. Update: consent decree 

training. For Your Information. 1990(22 January): 2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1990s. Women in FS—Have they 

progressed? For Your Information. 1990(2 April).

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1991a. Albany move: an update. For 

Your Information. 1991(29 July): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1991b. Albany move: update. For 

Your Information. 1991(21 October): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1991c. Albany move: update. For 

Your Information. 1991(4 November): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1991d. Chavez named recreation 

project leader. For Your Information. 1991(15 July): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1991e. Consent decree: from “denial” 

to “adoption.” For Your Information. 1991(25 March): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1991f. Consent decree hearing set for 

June 28. For Your Information. 1991(10 June): 2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1991g. Consent decree reaches 

milestone. For Your Information. 1991(20 May): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1991h. Court extends CD for FS 

Region 5. For Your Information. 1991(15 July): 2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1991i. Decade does make difference 

at PSW. For Your Information. 1991(9 September): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1991j. Haverty Acting PL for forest 

disease unit. For Your Information. 1991(23 September): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1991k. Millar wins $150,000 Pew 

Scholars Grant. For Your Information. 1991(15 July): 1–2.
478

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1991l. Station Director’s message. For 

Your Information. 1991(16 December): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1991m. Verner to assess California 

spotted owl. For Your Information. 1991(29 July): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1991n. Weber announces priorities at 

meeting. For Your Information. 1991(11 March): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1991o. Weber assumes duties as 

acting director. For Your Information. 1991(11 February): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1992a. Albany move: update. For 

Your Information. 1992(10 February): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1992b. Albany move: it’s bye, bye 

Berkeley. For Your Information. 1992(28 February): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1992c. Albany move: update. For 

Your Information. 1992(30 March): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1992d. Blacks Mountain research 

team formed. For Your Information. 1992(13 January): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1992e. Conard profiled as FS research 

leader. For Your Information. 1992(30 November): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1992f. Conferences/meetings/

seminars. For Your Information. 1992(19 October): 2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1992g. A. Everette Wieslander dies. 

For Your Information. 1992(16 November): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1992h. Freeze on hiring employees 

outside FS. For Your Information. 1992(16 November): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1992i. FS releases final EIS on 

spotted owl. For Your Information. 1992(10 February): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station. 1992j. Global change program grants 

announced. For Your Information. 1992(8 June): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1992k. New description approved for 

research unit. For Your Information. 1992(26 May): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1992l. Outstanding scientist: Millar. 

For Your Information. 1992(28 December): 1–2.
479

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1992m. PSW headquarters move to 

Albany. For Your Information. 1992(16 March): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1992n. State of the labs at PSW, 

Albany. For Your Information. 1992(27 April): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1992o. Station budget up slightly in 

FY 1993. For Your Information. 1992(5 October): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1992p. A. Everette Wieslander dies.

For Your Information. 1992(16 November): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1993a. Chase to retire on June 3. For 

Your Information. 1993(17 May): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1993b. Organization downsizing: the 

shrink is on. For Your Information. 1993(15 November): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1993c. Ostroina tracks “unseen 

killer.” For Your Information. 1993(22 February): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1993d. President proposes increases 

in FS research. For Your Information. 1993(14 June): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1993e. PSW no longer considering 

relocation. For Your Information. 1993(13 September): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1993f. RWUs in review: air 

deposition research. For Your Information. 1993(23 August): 1–2

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1993g. RWUs in review: aquatics 

ecosystems research. For Your Information. 1993(13 September): 1–2

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1993h. For Your Information. RWUs 

in peview: insect population research. 1993(26 July): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1993i. RWUs in review: recreation 

research. For Your Information. 1993(9 August): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1993j. Southland Fires: rebuilding, 

restudying. For Your Information. 1993(15 November): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1993k. Station projects no unfunded 

staff positions. For Your Information. 1993(8 March): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1993l. Station to study Sierra Nevada 

ecosystem. For Your Information. 1993(13 September): 1.
480

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1993m. Supply of “spotted owl” 

publication exhausted. For Your Information. 1993(12 October): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1993n. Thomas appointed new Forest 

Service Chief. For Your Information. 1993(29 November): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1993o. Thomas calls for new 

leadership in FS. For Your Information. 1993(13 December): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1994a. Change in station directorship 

announced. For Your Information. 1994(14 February): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1994b. FS annual report spotlights 

PSW research. For Your Information. 1994(5 December): 1. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1994c. Mid-July set for Mare Island 

decision. For Your Information. 1994(13 June): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1994d. PSW headquarters to remain 

at Albany site. For Your Information. 1994(22 August): 1. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1994e. PSW’s Vegetation R&D 

Program commended. For Your Information. 1994(3 January): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1994f. RWUs in review: conifer 

silviculture. For Your Information. 1994(22 August): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1994g. RWUs in review: forest 

regeneration research. For Your Information.1994(3 January): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1994h. RWUs on review: wildlife 

ecosystem research. For Your Information. 1994(14 February): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1994i. Station regains fiscal services. 

For Your Information. 1994(18 January): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1994j. Task force presents plan to 

Hawaii Governor. For Your Information. 1994(19 September): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1994k. Thomas speaks about role of 

science. For Your Information. 1994(25 April): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1994l. USDA reorganization 

launched. For Your Information. 1994(24 Oct.): 1–2. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1994m. Director’s message. For 

Your Information 1994(11 July) 1. 
481

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1994n. Jim Space named Station 

Director of PSW. For Your Information. 1994(28 Feb.): 1–2. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1994o. Director’s message. For Your 

Information. 1994(25 July): 1–2. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1995a. RWU in review: Hawaii unit 

under change. For Your Information. 1995(1 May): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1995b. RWUs in review: Hawaii 

units under change. For Your Information. 1995(15 May): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1995c. RWUs in review: Hawaii units 

under change. For Your Information. 1995(30 May): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1995d. RWUs in review: Hawaii 

units under change. For Your Information. 1995(12 June): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1995e. RWUs in review: prescribed 

fire research. For Your Information. 1995(23 January): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1995f. Space to chair Sierra Nevada 

conference. For Your Information. 1995(13 February): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1995g FS offers revised reorganization plan. For Your Information. 1995(26 June): 1–2. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1995h. Station budget cuts total 

$2.7 million. For Your Information. 1995(21 Aug.): 1. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1995i. “Unfunded” notices sent to 

employees. For Your Information. 1995(15 Sept.): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1995j. Appropriation bills in 

conference. For Your Information. 1995(23 Oct.): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1995k. Station Director’s message.

For Your Information. 1995(18 Dec.): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1995l. WO restructuring sent to 

Congress. For Your Information. 1995(20 March): 1–2. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1995m. PSW scientists in SNEP 

“final push.” For Your Information. 1995(23 Octobier): 1–2. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1996a. Station Director’s message.

For Your Information. 1996(9 Dec.): 2. 
482

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1996b. Year in review at PSW. For 

Your Information. 1996(12 Nov.): 3–4.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1996c. PSW publications launched 

online. For Your Information. 1996(25 Nov.): 2–3.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1996d. Dombeck appointed new FS 

Chief. For Your Information. 1996(23 Dec.): 3–4.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1996e. PSW contributes to 

President’s Forest Plan. For Your Information. 1996(12 Aug.): 2–3. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1997a. New Station Director offers 

views. For Your Information. 1997(18 Aug.): 1–2. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1997b. Station’s name becomes 

“official.” For Your Information. 1997(7 July): 1. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1997c. FS Chief Dombeck visits Bay 

Area. For Your Information. 1997(17 March): 1–2. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1997d. Holiday message from the 

Director. For Your Information. 1997(22 Dec.): 1. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1997e. Jim Space announces his 

retirement. For Your Information. 1997(4 Aug.): 1. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1997f. RM and INT Research 

Stations merge. For Your Information. 1997(27 May): 1. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1997g. Research in review: Blacks 

Mountain. For Your Information. 1997(31 March): 1–2. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1997h. Kings River runs in Forestry 

Research West. For Your Information. 1997(29 Sept.): 1. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1997i. Court decides in favor of 

marbled murrelet. For Your Information. 1997(3 March): 1. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1997j. Changes planned for Albany 

headquarters. For Your Information. 1997(28 April): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1997k. FS reorganizes the 

Washington office. For Your Information. 1997(7 July): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1997l. New station director offers 

views. For Your Information. 1997(18 August): 1–2.
483

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1997m. Research in review: Kings 

River study. For Your Information. 1997(27 May): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1997n. FS Chief, ex-Chief offer 

views. For Your Information. 1997(3 March): 1–2. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1998a. Chief sets agency’s course for 

21st century. For Your Information. 1998(16 March): 1–2. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1998b. Leaders form framework to 

manage Sierra. For Your Information. 1998(2 March): 1.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1998c. Chief announces restructuring 

of WO. For Your Information. 1998(11 May): 1–2. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1999a. Chief urges restoration of land 

health legacy. For Your Information. 1999(16 Feb.): 1–2. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1999b. Chief urges restoration of land 

health legacy. For Your Information. 1999(1 March): 1–2. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1999c. Chief urges restoration of land 

health legacy. For Your Information. 1999(16 March): 1–2. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1999d. USDA scientists report on 

Forest Service. For Your Information. 1999(29 March): 1. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1999e. Regents approve PSW as 

tenant at Hilo, Hawaii. For Your Information. 1999(26 April): 1. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1999f. Ziemer named Redwood 

Sciences Lab Director. For Your Information. 1999(26 April): 1. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1999g. PSW offers proposals for 

FY 2001 budget. For Your Information. 1999(16 March): 1. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1999h. Station Director’s message. 

For Your Information. 1999(20 Dec.): 1. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1999i. FS to implement President’s 

Roadless Initiative. For Your Information. 1999(18 Oct.): 1. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1999j. In memoriam. For Your 

Information. 1999(24 May): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1999k. In memoriam. For Your 

Information. 1999(28 June): 3.
484

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Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1999l. Retirements scheduled for 

year’s end. For Your Information. 1999(22 Nov.): 1–2. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1999m. PSW library starts move to 

Mare Island. For Your Information. 1999(25 Jan.): 1–2. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 1999n. More retirements at year’s 

end. For Your Information. 1999(20 Dec.): 1–2. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 2000. MacDonald, Page retire in new 

year. For Your Information. 2000(December): 1–2.

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 2001a. PSW Station celebrates 75th

anniversary on July 1. For Your Information. 2001(May/June): 1–2. 

Pacific Southwest Research Station [PSW]. 2001b. Alumni profile: Harry 

Fowells. Focus on Forestry. 2001(Winter 2001): various.

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Pearce, R.B. 1987b. Preharvest burning to control post-harvest vegetation. Forestry 

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Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1987(December): 11.

Pearce, R.B. 1987c. Shelterwood regeneration of true fir. Forestry Research West. 

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Pearce, R.B. 1988a. Common shrubs of chaparral and related ecosystems. Forestry 

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Pearce, R.B. 1988c. Where deer and cattle roam. Forestry Research West. 

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California Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1944. Annual 

report: California Forest and Range Experiment Station. Berkeley, CA: 

California Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1945. Departmental 

war records project, California Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1941–1945. 

On file with: Box 761134, Accession No. 95-57-0268, Federal Records Center, 

San Bruno, CA.
496

general technical report psw-gtr-233

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1946. Annual 

report: California Forest and Range Experiment Station. Berkeley, CA: 

California Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1947. Annual 

report: California Forest and Range Experiment Station. Berkeley, CA: 

California Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1948a. Annual 

report: California Forest and Range Experiment Station, Berkeley, CA: 

California Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1948b. Tree 

breeding at the Institute of Forest Genetics. Misc. Publ. 659. Washington DC.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1949a. Annual 

report: California Forest and Range Experiment Station, Berkeley, CA: 

California Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1949b. Reappraisal 

of research program of the California Forest and Range Experiment Station. On 

file with: Research Program General, 1939 to 1952, Box 25986, Accession No. 

95-59-B0496, Federal Records Center, San Bruno, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1950. The forest 

research program and summary. On file with: Research Program General, 1939 

to 1952, Box 25986, Accession No. 95-59-B0496, Federal Records Center, San 

Bruno, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1951a. Annual 

report: California Forest and Range Experiment Station, Berkeley, CA: 

California Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1951b. Cooperation 

in forest and range management research. On file: Research Program, General, 

1939–1952, Box 25986 Accession No. 95-59-B0496, Federal Records Center, San 

Bruno, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1951c. Reappraisal 

of research program of the California Forest and Range Experiment Station. 

September. On file: Research Program, General, 1939–1952, Box 25986 

Accession No. 95-59-B0496, Federal Records Center, San Bruno, CA.
497

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1951d. Research 

program conference. On file with: Research Program, Meetings, Annual 

Investigative, 1926–1952, Box 25986 Accession No. 95-59-B0496, Federal 

Records Center, San Bruno, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1951e. Visitors’ 

guide to the Institute of Forest Genetics. Misc. Pap. 5. Berkeley, CA: California 

Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1951f. The work 

of the California Forest and Range Experiment Station. On file with: Research 

Program, Meetings, Annual Investigative, 1926–1952, Box 25986 Accession No. 

95-59-B0496, Federal Records Center, San Bruno, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1951g. Cooperation 

in Forest and Range Management Research. Washington, DC: U.S. Department 

of Agriculture, Forest Service.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1952a. Annual 

report: California Forest and Range Experiment Station, Berkeley, CA: 

California Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1952b. The

work of the California Forest and Range Experiment Station. On file with: Loose 

material, Marilyn Hartley office. Pacific Southwest Research Station Archives, 

Albany, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1953. Annual 

report: California Forest and Range Experiment Station, Berkeley, CA: 

California Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1954a. Annual 

report: Forest Research in California. Berkeley, CA: California Forest and Range 

Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1954b. The

Harvey Valley Experimental Range. On file with: Pacific Southwest Region 

Archives, Vallejo, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1955a. Annual 

report: forest research in California. Berkeley, CA: California Forest and Range 

Experiment Station.
498

general technical report psw-gtr-233

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1955b. Biographical 

data for George M. Jemison. On file with: Box 7, Pacific Southwest Research 

Station Archives, Albany, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1955c. Forest 

statistics for California. Forest Resource Survey Report. Berkeley, CA: 

California Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1956. Annual 

report: forest research in California. Berkeley, CA: California Forest and Range 

Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1957a. Annual 

report: forest research in California. Berkeley, CA: California Forest and Range 

Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1957b. Report on 

proposed additions to the Challenge Experimental Forest. On file with: Box 1, 

Pacific Southwest Research Station Archives, Albany, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1958a. Annual 

report: cooperation in wildland research. Berkeley, CA: California Forest and 

Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1958b. Annual 

report supplement: a guide to the field laboratories of the California Forest 

and Range Experiment Station. Berkeley, CA: California Forest and Range 

Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1958c. Federal-state 

partnership in wildland research: projects, reports, facilities. On file with: Box 2, 

Pacific Southwest Research Station Archives, Albany, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS].1958d. Timber 

resources for America’s future. Res. Rep. 14. Washington, DC. 713 p.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1959a. Annual 

report: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. Berkeley, CA: 

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1959b. Guide to 

Susanville Research Center. Berkeley, CA: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range 

Experiment Station.
499

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. [Circa 1960].

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. [Pamphlet].

Berkeley, California. On file with: Box 7, Pacific Southwest Research Station 

Archives, Albany, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1960a. Annual 

report: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. Berkeley, CA: 

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1960b. Research 

at the San Joaquin Experimental Range. Berkeley, CA: Pacific Southwest Forest 

and Range Experiment Station. 

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1961. Annual 

report: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. Berkeley, CA: 

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1962. Annual 

report: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. Berkeley, CA: 

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1963. Annual 

report: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. Berkeley, CA: 

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1964a. Annual 

report: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. Berkeley, CA: 

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1964b. War disaster 

plan for Region 5 and Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 

Washington, DC.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1965a. Evaluation 

of chemicals for control of forest insects—a research and development project 

of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. Berkeley, CA: 

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1965b. Forestry 

research—a report from John R. McGuire, Director. Berkeley, CA: Pacific 

Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1965c. Research at 

the Institute of Forest Genetics: a bibliography, 1927–1965. Berkeley, CA: Pacific 

Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station.
500

general technical report psw-gtr-233

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1966a. Forestry 

research in 1966: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 

Berkeley, CA: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1966b. Stopping 

the big ones...through fire research. Berkeley, CA: Pacific Southwest Forest and 

Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1967. 1967 forestry 

research: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. Berkeley, CA: 

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1968a. Central 

Sierra Snow Laboratory. Berkeley, CA: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range 

Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1968b. Institute 

of Forest Genetics, Placerville, California. [Pamphlet]. Berkeley, CA: Pacific 

Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1968c. Research 

progress 1968: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. Berkeley, 

CA: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1968d. Zectran—

for control of spruce budworm. Berkeley, CA: Pacific Southwest Forest and 

Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1968e. Report of 

general integrating inspection: Pacific Southwest, June–July 1968. On file with: 

Pacific Southwest Region Archives, Vallejo, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1969a. Forest 

Service research program for the seventies. Washington, DC.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1969b. Research 

progress 1968: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. Berkeley, 

CA: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1970. Framework 

for the future: Forest Service objectives and policy guides. Washington, DC.
501

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1971. Forest 

fire research at the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 

[Pamphlet]. Berkeley, CA: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment 

Station

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1972a. Snow 

research in the Sierra Nevada, California. Berkeley, CA: Pacific Southwest Forest 

and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1972b. Welcome 

to the Institute of Forest Genetics, Placerville, California. Berkeley, CA: Pacific 

Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1974. FIRESCOPE: 

an action plan for the wildlands of southern California. [Pamphlet]. Berkeley, 

CA: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1977a. Hawaii 

forest insect and disease research. PSW-2207. On file with: Box 7, Pacific 

Southwest Research Station Archives, Albany, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1977b. Long range 

plan for the Teakettle Creek Experimental Forest. Unpublished manuscript. On 

file with: Box 1, Pacific Southwest Research Station Archives, Albany, CA. 

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1977c. Maintenance 

of native Hawaiian forest ecosystems. PSW-1752. On file with: Box 7, Pacific 

Southwest Research Station Archives, Albany, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1977d. Pacific 

Islands (Territories) forestry research. PSW-1252. On file with: Box 7, Pacific 

Southwest Research Station Archives, Albany, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1977e. Timber 

and watershed management research in Hawaii. PSW-1251. On file with: Box 7, 

Pacific Southwest Research Station Archives, Albany, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1977f. Urban 

Forestry Research Work Unit. PSW-1902. On file with: Box 7, Pacific Southwest 

Research Station Archives, Albany, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1978. Field evaluation of chemical insecticides. PSW-2206. On file with: Box 7, Pacific Southwest 

Research Station Archives, Albany, CA.
502

general technical report psw-gtr-233

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1980a. Genetics of 

western forest trees. PSW-1401. On file with: Box 7, Pacific Southwest Research 

Station Archives, Albany, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1980b. Pacific 

Islands (Territories) forestry research. PSW-1252. On file with: Box 7, Pacific 

Southwest Research Station Archives, Albany, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1984. Research 

for tomorrow’s forests: 1983 research accomplishments. Washington, DC: U.S. 

Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. 

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1985. Advancing 

knowledge of forests and rangelands: 1984 research accomplishments. 

Washington, DC. 

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1986a. Making 

our forests and rangelands more productive: 1985 research accomplishments. 

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. 177 p.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1986b. Central 

Sierra Snow Laboratory, Forest Service, USDA, Soda Springs, California. 

Marilyn Hartley office files (loose), Pacific Southwest Research Station Archives, 

Albany, CA. 

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1987.

Protecting and enhancing America’s forests and rangelands: 1986 research 

accomplishments. Washington, DC. 

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1992. Research 

attainment report: fiscal year 1992. On file with: Pacific Southwest Research 

Station Archives, Albany, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1993. Research 

attainment report: fiscal year 1993. Pacific Southwest Research Station Archives, 

Albany, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1994. Research 

attainment report: fiscal year 1994. Pacific Southwest Research Station Archives, 

Albany, CA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1995. Research 

attainment report: fiscal year 1995. Pacific Southwest Research Station Archives, 

Albany, CA.
503

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service [USDA FS]. 1998. Research 

attainment report: fiscal year 1997. Pacific Southwest Research Station Archives, 

Albany, CA.

Verner, J.; Boss, A.S., tech. coord. 1980. California wildlife and their habitats: 

Western Sierra Nevada. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-37. Berkeley, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range 

Experiment Station. 

Verner, J.; McKelvey, K.S.; Noon, B.R.; Gutiérrez, R.J.; Gould, G.I., Jr.; Beck, 

T.W., tech. coords. 1992. The California spotted owl: a technical assessment of 

its current status. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-133. Albany, CA: U.S. Department 

of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station. 285 p.

Vitas, G. 1966. General functional inspection (A&E) report: California Region and 

more briefly the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. On file 

with: Pacific Southwest Region Archives, Vallejo, CA.

Wagar, J.A. 1985. SOLPLOT: an aid to controlling sunlight and shade. Forestry 

Research West. 1985(April): 5–7.

Wallace, H. 1931. A national plan for American forestry. The report of the Forest 

Service of the Agricultural Department on the forest problem of the United 

States. 73rd Congress, 1st Session, Senate Doc. No. 12, 2 vol. Washington, DC: 

Government Printing Office. 1677 p.

Watts, L.F. 1951. Edward Norfolk Munns. Journal of Forestry. 49(November): 

798–799.

Watts, L.F.; Stewart, G.; Connaughton, C.; Palmer, L.J.; Talbot, M.W. 1936.

The management of range lands. In: The western range. Sen. Doc. 199, 74th

Congress, 2nd session. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office: 501–502.

Weeks, D.; Wieslander, A.E.; Hill, C.L. 1934. The utilization of Eldorado County 

land. University of California Bulletin 572. Berkeley, CA: Giannini Foundation. 

Whitney, J.D. 1869. The Yosemite book. New York: New York Lithographing, 

Engraving, and Printing Co. 

Wickman, B.E. 2005. Harry E. Burke and John M. Miller: pioneers in western 

forest entomology. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-638. Portland, OR: U.S. 

Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 

163 p.
504

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Wieslander, A.E. 1935. First steps of the forest survey in California. Journal of 

Forestry. 33(10): 877–884.

Wieslander, A.E. 1986. A.E. Wieslander, California forester: mapper of wildland 

vegetation and soils (an oral history conducted in 1985 by Ann Lange). Berkeley, 

CA: Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library, University of California. 

316 p.

Williams, M. 2000. The USDA Forest Service—the first century. Washington, DC: 

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service.

Williams, M. 2004. The origin and construction of knowledge. Environment and 

History. 10(May): 127–131.

Wilm, H.G. 1946. The status of watershed management concepts. Journal of 

Forestry. 44(November): 968–971.

Wilson, C.C. 1956. HELITACK. On file with: Alphabetical author’s publications: 

Boxes 1232521-1232526, Accession No. 95-63-0532, Federal Records Center, San 

Bruno, CA.

Wilson, C.C. 1957. A bird’s eye view of forest fire research in the United States. On 

file with: Alphabetical author’s publications: Boxes 1232521–1232526, Accession 

No. 95-63-0532, Federal Records Center, San Bruno, CA.

Wilson, C.C. 1958. Firefighting aircraft—the new look in forest fire control. On 

file with: Alphabetical author’s publications: Boxes 1232521–1232526, Accession 

No. 95-63-0532, Federal Records Center, San Bruno, CA.

Wilson, C.C. 1976. A semi-centennial almanac of forest fire research in California. 

On file with: Box 6. Pacific Southwest Research Station Archives, Pacific 

Southwest Research Station, Albany, CA.

Wilson, C.C. 1984. History of the development of the fire research program in 

California. On file with: Boxes 6 and 8. Pacific Southwest Research Station 

Archives, Albany, CA.

Wilson, C.C.; Davis, J.B. 1988. Forest Fire Laboratory at Riverside and fire 

research in California: past, present, and future. Berkeley, CA: U.S. Department 

of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment 

Station.

Wood, M. 1975a. Imagery may aid wildland inventory. Forestry Research: What’s 

New in the West. Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 

1975(September): 11–12.
505

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Wood, M. 1975b. Managing true fir in California. Forestry Research: What’s 

New in the West. Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 

1975(December): 4–6.

Wood, M. 1978a. Developing alternatives for California’s chaparral. Forestry 

Research: What’s New in the West. Pacific Southwest Forest and Range 

Experiment Station. 1978(October): 12–16. 

Wood, M. 1978b. Managing forests on unstable sands. Forestry Research: What’s 

New in the West. Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 

1978(July): 1–5.

Wood, M. 1979a. California researchers develop true fir management guidelines. 

Forestry Research West. Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 

1979(August): 10–13.

Wood, M. 1979b. Scientists “voiceprint” forest birds. Forestry Research West. 

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1979(November): 1–4.

Wood, M. 1979c. WESTFORNET aids wildland managers. Forestry Research 

West. Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1979(January): 

4–6.

Wood, M. 1980a. Forestry challenges in Hawaii and Micronesia. Forestry Research 

West. Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1980(February): 

8–11.

Wood, M. 1980b. Managing Sierra Nevada wildlife habitat. Forestry Research 

West. Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1980(May): 4–7. 

Wood, M. 1980c. Risk-rating systems developed for firs. Forestry Research

West. Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station.

1980(November): 12–14.

Wood, M. 1980d. Stopping seed and cone insects. Forestry Research West. Pacific 

Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1980(August): 8–11.

Wood, M. 1981a. Ozone-damaged forests studied in California. Forestry Research 

West. Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1981(June): 

10–13.

Wood, M. 1981b. Researchers evaluate insecticides. Forestry Research West. 

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1981(September): 1–5.

Wood, M. 1981c. Studies show strength of tree roots. Forestry Research West. 

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1981(March): 6–9.
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Wood, M. 1982a. Classifying plant communities—a new way. Forestry Research 

West. Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1982(June): 8–11.

Wood, M. 1982b. Is your fire management program “economically efficient?” 

Forestry Research West. Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 

1982(September): 5–9.

Wood, M. 1982c. Managing California’s young-growth forests. Forestry Research 

West. Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 1982(February): 

11–14.

Wood, M. 1983. Growing successful seedlings. Forestry Research West. 

1983(January): 1–4.

Woodbury, T.D. 1912. Yield and return of blue gum in California. Circular No. 

210. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. 

Woodbury, T.D. 1927. Summary of planting situation in District Five with 

recommendations for future work. On file with: T.D. Woodbury, Boxes 24721–

24726, Accession No. 95-54-760, Federal Records Center, San Bruno, CA.

Wyckoff, S.N. 1949. The work of the California Forest and Range Experiment 

Station. In: Neyman, J., ed. Proceedings of the Berkeley symposium on 

mathematical statistics and probability. Berkeley, CA: University of California 

Press: 459–463.

Zon, R. 1930. The search for forest facts. American Forests and Forest Life. 

36(July): 421–423, 482.
507

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Index of People

A

Abell, C.A., 205–206, 246, 249

Allen, Edward Tyson, 36, 36n, 49n

Allen, S.W., 58n

Amidon, Elliott L., 358, 388

Anderson, Henry W., 303, 351

Arnold, Richard Keith, 272–273, 273n, 273fig., 274–276, 276n, 277, 279n, 280, 282, 288,

304, 306n, 318, 323n, 331, 331n, 332, 335–336, 338, 338n, 339, 355, 359, 442

Ashe, W.W., 75

Aune, Philip S., 409n, 440, 440n

Austin, Lloyd, 163, 163n, 164–165, 179n, 184, 186, 186n, 187

Avakian, Annie M., 177

Ayers, Robert W. “Bummer,” 34n, 48, 48n, 65

B

Babcock, Ernest B., 162

Bacon, E.M., 332–334

Baker, F.S., 261n

Baker, Harold L., 294n

Barnes, John S., 163, 163n, 164

Barnes, William “Will” C., 34n, 78n

Barrett, L.A., 50fig.

Barrett, Reg, 397n

Barro, Sue, 385n

Bates, Carlos G., 42, 209n

Baxter, L.O., 114

Bay, Roger R., 383, 383n, 384, 384fig., 385–387, 389–391, 391n, 401

Bedard, William D., 348, 348n

Beeson, Russell W., 238

Bega, Robert V., 350, 370, 388, 388n, 440, 440n

Behre, C. Edward, 113n

Bell, Enoch, 403

Benedict, H.A., 72

Bennett, Hugh Hammond, 119n

Benson, Ezra Taft, 267

Bentley, Jay R., 225, 238, 250–251, 297–298

Berg, Neil H., 351, 393, 416, 421, 435n

Bernardi, Gene, 338, 339fig., 383

Betts, Howard S., 78, 78n, 79, 112

Biswell, Harold H., 225, 426n

Blanchard, R.K., 236

Boe, Kenneth N., 370

Boerker, Richard H., 64, 64n

Bongberg, Jack W., 191n, 232n

Bonner, Frank E., 50fig.

Boss, Allan S., 398 

Brewer, William H., 45n
508

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Brewster, Donald B., 42

Broido, A., 306n

Brown, A.A., 143, 206

Brown, George E., 429–430

Brown, J.D., 5

Bruce, N. Donald, 74, 89, 108n, 135, 135n, 205, 236

Brundage, M.R., 120, 124, 132, 206–208

Buck, Charles C., 204n, 206, 246, 249, 305, 307n

Buckman, Robert “Bob,” 339, 339n, 340fig., 342n, 344, 378, 389n

Burbank, Luther, 162, 163n, 185n

Burke, Harry E., 69, 69n

Burks, George F., 252, 294n

Burris, P., 60n

Bury, Richard L., 315

Bush, George H.W., 405

Busse, Kelly, 435n

C

Callaham, Robert Z., 288, 342, 342n, 343fig., 344, 346n, 362, 377–378, 384, 386, 391

Camp, Harry W., 275n, 317, 335, 335n, 336fig., 337–338, 339fig., 346n, 369n

Campbell, Fred M., 22

Campbell, W.W., 116fig.

Capper, Arthur, 90, 90n

Carson, Rachel, 2, 321, 321fig., 323, 323n, 346, 380

Carter, James “Jimmy,” 344

Cermak, Robert W., 37

Chamisso, Louis Charles de, 6

Chandler, Craig C., 307n

Chapline, W.R., 112

Charlton, R.H., 55, 65

Chase, Richard, 425, 425n

Chavez, Deborah, 431

Church, James E., 351

Clapp, Earle H., 76, 76n, 77–78, 87, 91–92, 94, 109, 111–112, 112n, 113, 113n, 114, 120, 

123, 144–145, 152, 159–160, 162, 165, 169, 169n, 172, 172n, 173–174, 174n, 

175–176, 179, 182–183, 199, 199n, 224, 236, 257, 264–265, 292, 315–316, 327–328

Clar, C. Raymond, 125, 125n

Clements, U.A., 60n

Clements, V.A., 124, 310n

Cliff, Edward P., 331

Cline, McGarvey, 43, 43n

Clinton, Bill, 435n, 439n

Clos, W.C., 34

Coffman, J.D., 65

Cole, Tom, 416

Colman, E.A., 300, 302n

Colver, Chuck, 385n

Colville, Frederick V., 14, 14n
509

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Colwell, Robert N., 366–367

Conard, Susan G., 385, 385n, 424, 424n

Conkle, M. Thompson, 366, 392n, 404, 409, 440, 440n

Connaughton, Charles A., 276, 328n, 381

Conrad, C. Eugene, 388, 400, 413–414

Conrad, Susan, 416, 423

Conti, Samuel, 383, 386, 401

Coolidge, Calvin, 103

Cooper, Albert W., 35–36

Cooper, F.R., 49, 49n

Copeland, Royal S., 169n

Cornelious, Donald R., 299

Cossitt, Floyd, 320

Countryman, Clive M., 307n, 354

Crafts, Edward C., 252, 273–275

Craighead, Frank C., 317

Crisp, Carl E., 347

Cronemiller, F.P., 152, 152n

Crowell, John B. Jr., 377–378, 387

Curry, John R., 143, 203, 203n, 206

Cutler, Rupert, 344

D

Dana, Samuel T., 93

Dassman, Raymond F., 323

Davis, James B., 354, 385n, 425, 425n

Davis, Maureen, 435n

Davis, Wendell E., 215

Dayton, William A., 45n, 128n

Deering, R.L., 50fig.

Demmon, E.L., 113n

Dickerman, Murlyn Bennet “Dick,” 338, 338n, 339, 339n

Dolph, Leroy, 409–410

Dombeck, Michael P., 437, 437n, 438

Dravnieks, Daina, 360n

Dubois, Coert, 49n, 51, 51n, 59–61, 65, 65n, 66fig., 82, 84, 98, 104, 140, 171n, 200

Dudley, W.R., 27

Duffield, John W., 289

Duffy, Paul, 319

Dunford, Earl G., 275n

Dunn, Paul H., 385n, 400n, 429

Dunning, Don A., 363

Dunning, Duncan, 60n, 82, 82n, 83fig., 93–94, 94n, 95–97, 97n, 106n, 114n, 124, 129,

188, 191n, 192, 193n, 194, 196–197, 248, 253, 253n, 275, 282–283, 369n

Dunston, C.E., 120–122, 205

Durgin, Philip B., 372

Dutton, W.L., 253, 253n, 254–256
510

general technical report psw-gtr-233

E

Eaton, Charles B., 310n

Eddy, James G., 162–163, 163n, 164, 267n, 292, 392n

Egleston, Nathaniel H., 11, 32, 38

Eisenhower, Dwight D., 267, 280, 315n

Elliott, M.B., 49n

Ellison, Lincoln, 316

Elsner, Gary, 358

Emersen, George B., 9, 9n

Engle, Clair, 309

Ericksen, L.N., 208, 235, 319

Eschscholtz, Ivan Ivanovith, 6

Ewell, Jack, 413

Ewell, Kathy, 416

Ewert, Alan, 430

F

Fairfield, Henry, 90

Fernow, Bernhard E., 12, 12n, 13, 13fig., 14n, 15, 15n, 16, 16n, 18, 23, 25–26, 29, 32,

37–38, 42n, 108n

Ferrell, George, 370, 411

Fiddler, Gary, 411

Fitch, Henry S., 226n

Flintham, B., 117n

Fons, Wallace L., 206, 307n

Forbes, R.D., 113n

Forsling, Clarence L., 113n, 173, 173n, 174–175, 175n, 209n, 242, 257n

Fowells, Harry A., 196, 196n, 231n, 287

Franklin, Jerry, 381

Friday, Katie, 413n

Friedman, Sharon, 408

Friesen, Rex, 414

Frothingham, Earl H., 113n, 170, 170n

Fujioka, Francis, 425–426

G

Gaines, Edward M., 354

Gallaher, W.H., 84

Gardner, W.J., 34

Garetz, Sara, 436n

Garland, Hereford, 252

Garlough, F.E., 159

Gisborne, Harry T., 99, 99n, 269n

Glading, Ben, 226n

Gleason, C.H., 236

Glickman, Dan, 438n

Godwin, David P., 65

Gordon, Aaron, 225

Gordon, Donald T., 369
511

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Gore, Al, 406, 433

Gould, Ernest M., Jr., 317

Gowen, George M., 143, 201, 203, 203n, 204n, 206

Graham, Charles A., 299, 363

Grant, Madison, 90n

Graves, Henry Solon, 34n, 59, 59n, 75, 76, 76fig., 77, 78n, 80

Gray, Asa, 9, 9n

Greeley, William Buckout, 92, 92n, 94, 95fig., 98, 98n, 102, 108, 110n, 165, 171n

Green, Lisle R., 354

Greenamyre, H.A., 60, 60n, 61

Griffith, E.M., 31

Groncki, Al, 360

Grosenbaugh, Lewis R., 289, 289n, 358

Guilbert, H.R., 225

H

Haddock, P.G., 60n

Hager, William A., 360n

Hall, Ansel, 122

Hall, Ralph C., 108n, 310n

Hall, William Hammond, 21

Hall, William L., 31, 31n

Hallin, William E., 198, 236, 283

Hamilton, Everett L., 215

Hanson, P.D., 206, 206n

Haraguchi, Janis, 414

Harcksen, Kathy, 409–410, 436n

Harper, Verne Lester, 262n, 264, 264n, 265, 265n, 266, 268, 271–272, 280–281, 281n,

292, 316–317, 324–325–328, 335–336, 344, 368

Harris, Robert W., 341, 341n, 342, 343fig., 346n

Hassel, Austin A., 60n, 124, 189, 289n

Hastings, A.B., 108n

Hatton, John H., 49, 49n, 70n, 71–72

Haverty, Michael I., 427–428

Headley, Roy, 64, 98–99

Heller, Robert, 367–368

Henry, A.J., 209n

Hilgard, Eugene W., 16, 16n, 17fig., 22, 37, 115fig.

Hill, Cary Leroy, 93–94, 96, 96n, 97, 108n, 120, 124, 136, 136n, 137, 137n, 139, 139fig.,

178, 207–208, 208n

Hill, L.W., 236

Hirsch, Ernest, 360n

Hirsch, Stan, 355

Hodge, William Churchill, Jr., 34, 34n, 35–36

Hodges, Charles S., 376, 387

Hogue, A.H., 101n

Homans, George M., 49, 49n

Hoover, Herbert, 103n, 110n

Hopkins, Andrew Delmar, 70, 70n
512

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Hopkins, Walter S., 318

Hormay, August “Gus” Ludwig, 60n, 126, 153, 225, 225n, 238, 251, 271, 297–299, 363, 440

Horn, E.E., 159–160, 229

Hornibrook, Ezra M., 366

Horton, J.S., 357

Hosmer, Ralph S., 31n, 36, 36n, 37, 53, 54fig., 54n, 82–83, 165

Hotchkiss, W.E., 136n

Hough, Franklin B., 8–9, 9fig., 10, 10n, 11, 21, 32, 38, 89–90

Houston, David F., 75, 78n

Howard, H.E. 332–334

Hoyt, W.G., 209n

Hubbard, Richard L., 364

Hubres, Robert, 360n

Hunt, Loren, 28

Hutchinson, C.B., 250

Hutchinson, Wallace I., 34n, 50fig.

Hyman, Julius, 347, 347n

I

Ilch, David M., 236, 300

Irwin, Bob, 355

J

Jacobs, Cynthia K., 441

Jardine, James Tertius, 44, 45, 45n, 72, 78n, 86, 103n, 117n

Jardine, William M., 103, 103n

Jemison, George M., 269, 269n, 270, 270fig., 271–272, 272n, 276, 280–282, 284–285, 302,

310, 327–328, 331, 335–336, 338n, 339, 344, 385n, 442

Jenkinson, James L., 369, 370n, 416n

Jensen, Herbert A., 245, 252

Jepson, Willis Linn, 37, 162n

Johnson, Hiram, 32n, 92, 92n, 102

Johnson, Lydon Baines, 378n

Johnston, William A., 147

Josephson, H.R., 178, 228, 228n, 229

Judd, Charles, 82–84

K

Keen, F. Paul, 310n

Keffer, Charles A., 25

Kelleter, Paul D., 35

Kelley, E.W., 65

Kellogg, Albert, 18, 18n

Kennedy, Gerald, 58n

Kie, John, 417, 419

Kimmey, James W., 313

Kinney, Abbott, 14, 14n, 16, 18–19, 22, 24, 24n, 37, 52n

Kirby, Malcolm W., 360n

Kirk, B.M., 236
513

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Kittredge, Joseph A., 60n, 94n, 146n, 261n

Klinger, Keith, 306n

Koerber, Thomas W., 427, 428

Koonce, Andrea “Andi,” 426

Kotok, Edward I., 81fig., 85, 85n, 86, 86fig., 94, 98–100, 102–104, 107, 113n, 114–115,

115n, 116fig., 116, 117n, 119–120, 122–126, 132, 137, 140–142, 142n, 143, 145–146,

149, 149n, 153, 155, 160, 162, 165, 169n, 170n, 175, 175n, 177–181, 183, 186–188, 

193n, 198–201, 203, 203n, 206, 210–211, 215–216, 222, 228–229, 237, 250, 257, 

262–263, 263n, 264, 292, 385n, 441–442

Kraebel, Charles J., 119, 119n, 124, 130, 131fig., 145, 187n, 195, 211, 215, 251, 300,

300n, 357

Krugman, Stanley L., 366

L

Laacke, Robert Jim, 372, 411

Lachmund, H.G., 82

Laner, Stephen, 360n

Langley, Philip G., 368

Larson, Geraldine “Geri” B., 385n

Laudenslayer, Bill, 419

Le Master, Dennis C., 379

Leavitt, Scott, 209n

LeBaron, Russell K., 283, 319

Ledig, F. Thomas, 366, 392, 392n, 408–409

Leen, Rosemary, 414

Lemmon, John G., 20, 20n, 36

Lemmon, Julia, 37

Lemmon, Sara Plummer, 20

Leonard, Rose, 409

Leonard, Walter, 411

Leopold, Aldo, 108n, 380, 380fig.

Lindquist, James L., 372

Lineberger, Walter F., 102

Linnaeus, Carolus, 14n

Little, Elbert L. Jr., 128n

Litton, R. Burton, Jr., 362, 395

Lord, Philip, 363

Loring, George B., 11

Loveridge, E.W., 253, 253n, 254–256

Lowdermilk, Walter C., 119, 119n, 124, 126, 126fig., 127, 146–147, 147n, 149, 151,

195, 209n, 211, 211n

Lukens, Theodore P., 52, 52n

Lull, George B, 49n, 52, 52n

Lumsden, H.M., 163, 163n, 164

Lux, Linda, 386n

Lynch, Donald W., 275n

Lyon, Harold, 83

Lyon, William S., 21
514

general technical report psw-gtr-233

M

Mace, Jim, 306n

Maddox, R.S., 59, 60n

Magill, Arthur W., 317, 430–431

Marcus, Leslie F., 317

Margolin, Louis, 50, 161n

Markin, George, 415

Marsh, George Perkins, 6–7, 7fig., 8

Marsh, Raymond E., 112, 173

Mason, Garland N., 441

Mason, I.J., 124

May, Richard H., 284

McArdle, Richard E., 272, 272n

McCarthy, E.F., 113

McCulley, Robert D., 330, 330n, 331fig., 332, 335, 346n

McDonald, John K., 337

McDonald, Philip M., 411–412, 440, 440n

McGuire, John R., 317, 324–326, 328, 328n, 329, 329fig., 330, 330n, 338, 346n, 354,

361, 368, 382n, 406n, 442

McGurk, Bruce, 435n

McKelvey, Kelvin, 418, 435n

McKennan, Russell B., 273–275

McKinley, William, 26, 32

McMahon, James A., 381

McMasters, A.W., 306n

Meinecke, Emilio Pepe Michael, 14n, 50fig., 66, 67, 67fig., 68n, 82, 158, 160, 160n, 316

Merriam, John C., 90n

Merrill, E.D., 116fig. 

Michaux, Andre, 5, 167

Michaux, Francois Andre, 5

Millar, Connie, 408, 435n

Miller, Joaquin, 20

Miller, John M., 68, 68n, 69fig., 101, 157–158, 231, 310n

Miller, L.C., 34, 34n

Miller, Paul R., 350, 429

Mirov, Nicholas T., 184, 184n, 186n, 187, 187n, 235, 242, 243fig., 275n, 289, 291

Mitchell, J.A., 81–82

Mohr, Charles, 14

Moore, Arthur D., 347

Moore, Shirley A., 385

Morrow, Earl A., 124, 204n

Muir, John, 9n

Mulford, Walter, 73, 73n, 74, 103, 103n, 114–115, 115n, 124n, 133n, 162, 165, 261, 261n

Munger, Thorton T., 113n

Munns, Edward Norfolk, 58, 58n, 60n, 82, 94, 94n, 108n, 112, 117n, 130, 144–145, 149,

209n, 210n

Murphy, James L, 307n, 354
515

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

N

Naparst, Stanley, 358

Neal, Don, 364, 417

Neal, Robert L. Jr., 370, 388

Nelson, Jesse W., 50fig., 152, 224, 250

Nelson, R.F., 60n

Nelson, Robert E., 276, 318–319, 373, 375

Neuns, Alva G., 299

Newby, Floyd L., 362

Newell, Len, 413

Newman, Tom, 364

Nixon, Richard M., 330, 335

Noon, Barry R., 382, 416, 418–419

Noyes, D.K., 60–61

Nuttall, Thomas, 6

O

Offord, H.R., 299

Ohman, John H., 389n

Oliveira, Ronald A., 362

Oliver, William W., 372, 409–410

Olmsted, Frederick E., 28, 28n, 49, 49n, 51, 51n, 59, 61, 65n, 70n, 171n

Olson, David, 388

Orly, Roxanne, 441

Osborne, Henry Z., 92

Otrosina, Bill, 428n

P

Pack, Charles Lathrop, 109, 109n, 183n

Pardee, George Cooper, 32, 32n, 33, 33fig.

Patterson, John E., 232

Paysen, Tim, 400

Pearce, Richard B., 337

Pearson, G.A., 42, 113n, 152

Peavey, George, 49, 49n

Person, Hubert L., 133, 133n, 134, 178, 197–199, 231n, 248n, 284

Peterson, David L., 429

Peterson, R. Max, 382n, 387, 388fig.

Pickford, Gerald D., 319

Pirskoon, Arthur R., 307n

Pinchot, Gifford, 14n, 18, 22n, 24–25, 25 fig., 26, 26n, 28, 28n, 29, 30–36, 36n, 37–39, 41,

42n, 43–44, 48, 54n, 59n, 81n, 85n, 108n, 110n, 162n, 264, 324, 406

Piper, R.U., 5

Plumb, Timothy R., 299

Poli, Adon, 294n

Poth, Mark A., 385n, 429

Potter, Albert F., 34, 34n, 35, 78n, 101–102

Powers, Bob, 409–410

Price, Jay, 142
516

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Q

R

Rachford, Christopher E., 49n, 101, 101n, 102

Rains, Michael, 413n

Ralston, Robert A., 335

Ratliff, Ray, 419

Reagan, Ronald, 3, 355, 377, 379, 383, 386–387, 391, 393, 401, 405

Redington, Paul G., 50fig., 65, 65n, 93, 96, 98, 100–102

Reinke, L.H., 124, 135

Renner, Frederic G., 220n

Renner, F.G., 126, 153

Rice, Raymond M., 303, 352, 372, 396, 396n, 416n

Richards, Lucille G., 303

Richie, Martin, 411

Rider, W.P., 65

Riggan, Phil, 430

Righter, “Pete” Frances, 164, 164n, 184, 186, 186n, 187, 247, 247n, 289

Robertson, F. Dale, 382, 382n, 383fig., 402, 406

Robertson, Jacqueline “Jackie” L., 385, 385n, 427–428

Rogers, D.H., 236

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 144, 166–167, 169, 175–176, 180, 230, 236n

Roosevelt, Theodore, 32, 32n, 109n

Ross, Eldon, 407

Roth, Filibert, 15, 15n

Rowe, P.B., 127, 210

Rowntree, Rowan, 429, 435n

Roy, Douglass F., 284, 284n, 287–288, 368, 388, 409

S

Salman, Kenneth “Ken” A., 191n, 232, 232n

Salwasser, Harold “Hal,” 382, 433–434, 434n, 438–441

Sampson, Arthur W., 45, 45n, 46fig., 89, 116fig., 225, 250, 261n

Sanderson, H. Reed, 363

Sanderson, William, 363

Sandquist, Roger E., 427–428

Sargent, Charles S., 10, 10n

Scharpf, Robert F., 370, 388n, 394, 428

Schrenk, Hermann Von, 27, 27n, 46n

Schroeder, Mark J., 307n, 354, 357n

Schubert, Gilbert H., 196, 287–288, 299

Schwarzbart, Gideon, 360n

Scowcroft, Paul 414

Sederoff, Ronald, 392, 392n

Sesco, Jerry, 389n

Sharpnack, David A., 358

Shea, Patrick J., 348, 427, 440, 440n
517

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Show, Stuart Bevier “S.B.,” 50fig., 60n, 61n, 78n, 81, 81fig., 81n, 82, 84, 85–87, 93–94,

94n, 97–102, 104–106, 106n, 107, 108n, 112n, 113, 113n, 114–115, 119n, 122–123, 

129–130, 134n, 140–142, 142n, 143, 155, 155n, 169n, 170n, 172, 172n, 175, 

179–180, 189, 192, 193n, 199, 199n, 201, 203, 203n, 206, 219n, 230, 235, 309

Siggins, Howard W., 60n, 93, 114, 130n, 187

Silcox, Ferdinand A., 171, 171n, 172, 175–176, 210–211, 228, 230n

Simontachhi, A., 236

Sinclair, J.Donald, 127, 211, 211n, 215

Skinner, Carl, 435n

Skolmen, Roger G., 319, 373n, 376

Smith, A.W., 50fig.

Smith, C. Stowell, 49, 61, 62n, 63, 84, 227n

Smith, James L., 351

Smith, Richard H., 310, 348n

Smith, Zane, 390

Space, James C., 404n, 407, 433, 433n, 434

Spillman, W.J., 44n

Stanford, Leland, 22, 22n

Starr, Frederic, 7–8

Steger, George, 417

Stennis, John, 281n

Stevens, Robert E., 310n

Stewart, Ronald E., 333n, 382, 391, 401, 401n, 402, 402fig., 407, 417

Stockwell, Palmer, 184, 184n, 247, 247n

Stone, Edward C., 288

Storey, Herbert, 215

Strothman, Rudolph O., 372

Struble, George R., 133, 133n, 158, 310n, 347

Stuart, Robert Y., 110, 110n, 111fig., 171, 171n

Sudworth, George Bishop, 14, 14n, 26, 108n, 128n

Sundling, H.L., 124

Sutro, Adoph, 20

Swingle, Charles Fletcher, 132, 132n

T

Tagawa, Tom K., 318

Talbot, Murrell “Tally” W., 126, 153–154, 183, 183n, 220–221, 221fig., 222, 225, 224n,

235, 237, 242, 246, 250, 254, 385n

Taylor, R.W., 60n

Tetlow, Robert J., 395

Thomas, Frederick, 58n

Thomas, Jack Ward, 404n, 406, 406n, 407, 437, 437n

Tilden, Paul E., 348

Toumey, James W., 88, 88n, 91

Troxell, H.C., 209n

Tugwell, Rexford, 171n

Turner, Spence D., 117n

Twiss, Robert H., 361
518

general technical report psw-gtr-233

U

V

Valfer, Ernst, 360n

Vanderbilt, George, 26

Verner, Jared “Jerry,” 365, 398, 416–419, 440, 440n

Vinther, Dagmar, 114

Vischer, Hubert, 19–20

Vitas, George, 329

W

Wagar, J. Alan, 362

Wagnon, Kenneth A., 225

Wagoner, Luther, 19–20

Wahlenberg, W.G., 164, 164n

Waihee, John, 413

Walker, Clyde, 266

Wallace, Henry C., 90, 169

Warner Mountains Forest Reserve, 33

Watts, Frederick, 8

Watts, Lyle Ford, 225n, 257

Weatherspoon, Charles “Phil,” 411, 435n

Weaver, Roscoe B., 117

Weber, Barbara C., 402, 402n, 403, 403fig., 405, 405n, 406–407, 412, 428, 433

Weeks, David, 207

Wegner, Dwain C., 360n

Weidman, R.H, 113n, 237

Weis, Howard F., 44, 78, 78n, 79

Wells, Wade, 385n

West, A.S., Jr., 232n

West, Allen J., 303

Westcom, Robert, 413n

Wheeler, Benjamin Ide, 37

White, Stewart Edward, 100, 100n, 101

Whitesell, Craig D., 373n, 413, 416

Whiteside, Jack, 232n

Whitney, Josiah D., 9, 9n

Whitten, Jamie Lloyd, 262n

Wickard, Claude R., 235

Wickman, Boyd E., 310n

Wickson, E.J., 37

Wiese, David R., 426

Wieslander, Albert Everett, 73, 73n, 74fig., 114, 114n, 120–122, 124–125, 127, 155, 155n,

177, 188, 205, 207, 222, 242, 252, 259, 385n, 432

Wiggins, G.H., 61

Willen, Donald W., 351

Wilm, H.G., 215

Wilson, Carlisle “Cap” P., 275n, 307n, 354, 357, 385n

Wilson, R.C., 198, 294n
519

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Wilson, Pete, 429

Wohlgemuth, Pete, 385n

Wong, Peter, 360n

Wood, David L., 348n

Wood, Hulton B. “Hutch,” 423

Wood, Marcia, 337

Woodbury, T.D., 49, 49n, 50fig., 57–58, 95, 129, 192

Wyckoff, Stephen B., 158, 183n, 256, 258, 258n, 259fig., 260–262, 262n, 263, 269, 271,

282–283, 309, 385n

X

Y

Yerke, Bruce, 360

Z

Zabel, Cynthia J., 419

Ziemer, Robert R., 372, 416, 422

Zon, Raphael, 42, 42n, 43fig., 44, 59, 78, 79, 108n, 113n

Zschotte, T.C., 61
520

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Index of Subjects

A

Adirondack Experiment Station, 175

Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), 238, 240

Agricultural War Board, 240

air pollution and/or smog, 3, 323, 327, 327n, 332, 334, 334n, 346, 350, 350n, 367, 396n,

399, 400n, 423, 429

Alameda County, 20, 246

Alleghany Experiment Station, 113n

Amador County, 19

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 8, 8n, 16n, 77

American Breeders Association, 162n

American Forestry Association (AFA), 12n, 87–88, 92, 109, 109n, 157n

American Forestry Association of California, 14n

American Samoa forestry research, 374, 374n, 376, 413n

American Tree Association, 109, 109n

Amherst Experiment Station, 92–93

Angeles Forest Protective Association, 117n

Angeles National Forest, 18, 52n, 55, 57–58, 58n, 65, 87, 117n, 130, 144, 155, 181,

211n, 355n

Appalachian Experiment Station, 113n, 170n, 173n, 269n, 272n

applied or practical science studies, 2–3, 5, 13, 15, 78–79, 95fig., 99, 105, 186n, 263, 274,

279, 280, 280n, 282, 290, 307, 335

Arbor Day, 20, 20n

Arnold Arboretum, 10n

Arrowhead Reservoir Company, 27

Ashville Experiment Station, 92

Audubon Society, 365n

B

Badger Wells Research Unit, 181

Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act (1985), 388

Bald Mountain fire lookout, 35

Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act (1937), 173, 173n

basic, pure, theoretical and/or fundamental science, 5, 14–15, 74, 78, 87–89, 93, 95fig., 99,

177, 179, 186n, 280, 280n, 282, 288–289, 291, 299, 307, 314, 328, 335, 426–427

Bass Lake Work Center, 251

Biltmore Forest School, 49n

Blacks Mountain Station and Experimental Forest (BMEF), 1–2, 180, 188–189, 190fig.,

191, 191fig., 192–194, 197, 208, 226, 240, 248, 252, 254, 254n, 255, 260, 267, 270,

278, 283, 310, 345n, 369, 369n, 395, 409–410, 435, 436n

Budget Impoundment and Reform Act (1974), 378, 378n

Burgess Springs Experimental Range (BSER), 1–2, 181, 226–227, 250–251, 260, 267, 271,

278, 297

Butte County, 35

Butterfly Valley Research Unit, 181

Buttermilk Game-Browse Area, 299, 315
521

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

C

Calaveras County, 19

California Agricultural Experimental Station, 16n

California (see also individual forest reserves and national forests)

Board of Agricultural Transactions, 7

Board of Air Resources, 429

Board of Forestry (CBF), 12, 12n, 14n, 16, 18–21, 21n, 22, 23–24, 24n, 37, 39, 53, 85,

 92n, 101n, 115n, 119n, 125, 125n, 130, 269, 272n, 279, 287, 370n, 416n

Board of Trade, 24

Board of Water Resources, 327n

Department of Natural Resources, 161, 262, 295

 Division of Beaches and Parks, 274

 Division of Fish and Game, 225, 278

 Division of Forestry, 161, 161n, 279, 294, 298, 300, 304–306, 307n, 308, 310, 355, 

 360, 397

Department of Fish and Game, 279, 298, 364, 365n, 417

Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, 354n, 356, 391, 396, 400, 424

Department of Parks and Recreation, 431

Department of Water Resources, 274, 279, 302, 305

State Emergency Relief Administration (SERA), 211, 236

California Development Association (CDA), 111

California Economic Research Council (CERC), 136, 136n, 155, 178

California Environmental Quality Act (1970) (CEQA), 330, 331fig.

California Federation of Women’s Clubs, 37

California Forest and Range Experiment Station (CFRES) (see also individual research

fields), 1, 73n, 82, 83fig., 86fig., 127, 132, 138–147, 151–152, 154–154, 156, 158–159,

161, 165–166, 169, 176n, 178–179, 181, 181n, 183, 183n, 184, 187–189, 192, 194–196, 

198–201, 203, 203n, 204n, 206–207, 207n, 210, 210n, 211, 211n, 212, 214, 220, 222, 

224, 224n, 225, 227–229, 231, 235–237, 239–249 (passim), 251, 254–255, 257–259,

262n, 267, 275, 282–284, 296, 299, 301–302, 309, 313

administrative reorganization, 2

anniversaries, 266–267

appropriations, budgets, and funding, 2, 145–146, 169, 177, 189, 193, 233, 236–237,

 254, 260–261, 269–270, 274n, 289

experimental stations and forests (see also individual stations and forests), 180

Forest Problems of California, 182, 182n

facilities and locations, 233, 261

Forest Utilization Service (FUS), 267, 292–294, 319

founding, 126

General Integrated Inspection Reports (GII), 253–256, 260, 272–275, 290

Institute of Forest Genetics acquisition, 179

intensive management, 271, 271n, 285

library, 177–178

mission statements, 26

name change, 276, 276n

new divisions, 268, 303, 310, 313

new research attitude, 137

personnel, 1, 177, 196n, 236, 272, 275, 275n, 285

reorganization, 175–176
522

general technical report psw-gtr-233

statistical services section, 178

visitors, 178

California forest and vegetative conditions and forestry practices, 7, 19, 24, 39, 45n 

California Forest Experiment Station (CFES), 1, 31, 41, 73n, 85, 96, 104–105, 108, 110,

113n, 117n, 136, 136n, 138, 152, 154, 432

amalgamation with District 5’s Office of Forest Products, 112

anniversary, 385, 385n

appropriations and budget, 112, 114, 123–124

buildings, 114, 124, 124n, 125fig.

forestry students, 115n, 125, 165, 177

founding, 102–103

personnel, 165, 177

regional unification, 120

research natural areas (RNAs) (see individual RNAs), 121–123

substations (see also individual substations and nurseries), 116–117

California Forest Pest Control Council (CFPCC), 309

California Forest Protection Act (1905), 36–37

California Forest Protection Association (CFPA), 263

California Insect Eradication Law (1923), 100

California Institute of Technology, 278, 288

California National Forest, 65

California Polytechnic State University, 353

California Professional Foresters Licensing Act, 370n

California Redwood Association (CRA), 61, 198, 198n, 207, 263

California Society for Conserving Waters and Protecting Forests (CSCWPF), 24

California State Forest Practices Act, 416n

California State University at Fresno, 326n, 434n

Forestry Sciences Laboratory, 344, 389, 397, 418, 438, 440, 440n, 441

Methods and Guidelines for Monitoring Wildlife Populations RWU, 416, 418

Protection and Management of Sensitive Species RWU, 398

Wildlife/Range Population Monitoring RWU, 397, 405, 411

California Water and Forest Association, 24

California Water Plan (CWP), 301–303

Capper Resolution and Report (1920), 90-91, 127n, 169n

Carnegie Foundation, 179

Central Arizona Project (CAP), 151, 151n

Central, Pacific, and Northern Pacific Railroad, 22n

Cerro Alto nursery, 57

Challenge Experimental Forest (CEF), 2, 121n, 240 278, 285–286, 286n, 287, 287fig., 345n,

365n, 369, 369n, 395, 409–410, 441

Chico Creek Experiment Planting Station, 21, 21n, 23, 23n

Civil Rights Act (1964), 338

Civil War, 6–7

Civilian Public Service (CPS), 236, 236n, 237, 250–251, 253, 259–260, 300

Civil Service Commission (CSC), 265n

Clarke-McNary Act (1924), 90n, 161, 161n, 162, 276

Clean Air Acts (1967) (1970), 327n

Cleveland National Forest, 52, 57, 71, 244, 309, 355

Coconino National Forest, 42, 42n
523

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Committee for Planning National Goals, 280

Commonwealth of the Northern Mariannas, 413n

Contra Costa County, 246

Converse Flats Experiment Station and nursery, 58, 58n, 65, 80, 82, 94n, 130, 144–145

cooperative forestry research and funding, 13, 52, 55, 262, 276, 279, 324, 331, 333, 431

Copeland Report (see National Plan for American Forestry)

Cornell University and School of Forestry, 16, 22, 29, 34n, 42, 52n, 73n, 76, 164n

Craig’s Creek Research Natural Area, 123fig.

D

Dartmouth University, 65n

Del Norte County, 123fig., 134, 198–199, 284

dendrology science and research, 38, 47–48, 128

Devil Canyon Station and nursery, 117, 118fig., 120, 125, 127, 130–131, 131 fig., 144–147,

156, 165, 181, 187n, 210, 243–245, 251

Devils Garden RNA, 156

Diamond Match Lumber Company, 35, 68n

Diamond Mountain Forest Reserve, 47n, 71n

Diamond Mountain National Forest, 71

Doyle Game-Browse Area, 299, 315

Duke University, 264, 269n, 440n

E

Earhart Plant Research Laboratory, 288

Ecological Institute of America, 353

ecological studies, 105, 128

ecosystems and ecosystem management, 3, 378–382, 383n, 399–400, 409–410, 413–415,

427, 436n, 437, 437n, 438–439

Eddy Tree Breeding Station, 129, 162–165, 365

Eldorado County, 207

Eldorado National Forest, 65, 67, 72, 85, 85n, 156, 398, 410

Environmental Defense Fund, 393n

environmental movement and era, 2–3, 321, 323–324, 327, 330–331, 331n, 332–334, 362, 

374, 377, 379–380, 382, 418n

environmental research, 350

equal opportunity and affirmative action issues, 2, 333, 333n, 336n, 342, 386

Gene Bernardi et al. v. Earl Butz, 2, 338

Bernardi Consent Decree, 338, 339fig., 383–384, 384fig., 385–386, 391, 391n, 401–402,

402fig., 403–404

minorities, 342, 343fig., 405

women, 338, 342, 343fig., 384, 384fig., 386, 402, 402n, 405

experiment stations and system (see also individual stations), 10–11, 18, 20, 23, 42, 77, 80,

87, 90–93, 105, 113, 113n, 167, 170n, 174, 179–181

experimental forest and range system (see also individual forests and ranges), 120

experimental forests (see also individual experimental forests), 10, 156, 233

F

Feather River Experiment Station and nursery, 58–61, 66fig., 80–82, 82n, 84–85, 94n, 95,

116, 121, 124–125, 129–130, 156, 165, 184n, 187n, 188, 193, 194fig., 195, 253, 267,

267n
524

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Feather River Experimental Forest (FREF), 121, 121n, 180, 193, 194–195, 197, 255

Feather River Lumber Company, 59

Federal Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act, 216, 216n

Fern Canyon Research Natural Area, 353

Flathead National Forest, 383n

Flukey Spring Game-Browse Area, 298–299, 315

Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Research Act (1978) (F&RRRA), 112, 329fig.,

340fig., 341, 341n, 344, 389, 389n

Forest and Rangeland Resources Planning Act (1974) (RPA), 340, 340n, 341, 341n, 342,

344–345

forest economics research and studies, 1, 52, 76, 80, 96, 104, 111, 116, 119, 133, 136, 

154–156, 165, 172, 174, 177, 179, 227–229, 207, 208n, 227–229, 233, 252, 259, 268, 

275, 294–296, 345–346

taxation and public finance, 228

forest engineering, 268, 324

forest entomology research and studies, 30, 51, 65–70, 93, 100–101, 231–232, 367

forest influences research and studies (water supply, floods, and erosion control), 1, 15, 38,

51–52, 60, 104, 119, 123, 126–127, 144–151, 165, 172, 174, 177, 179, 181, 209–218 

(passim), 233, 236–237, 251–252, 257, 260, 260n, 268, 323, 396

watershed management, protection, storage, and rehabilitation (see also San Dimas

Experimental Forest), 2, 18, 30–31, 52n, 58n, 84, 106–108, 126, 126fig., 129–130,

152–153, 155, 174, 182n, 200, 225, 229, 255, 269, 271, 274–275, 295, 300–305 

(passim), 308, 319, 324, 345–346, 350–353, 389, 397, 421–422, 434, 435n, 436n, 437

 acid rain, 393, 393n

Central Sierra Snow Laboratory (CSSL), 269, 278, 300, 302, 302n, 303, 304fig., 344,

 350–352, 393, 421, 440n

Cumulative Effects of Resource Management on Forest Watersheds, Aquatic

 Ecosystems, and Fish Communities, 421

Environmental Hydrology of the California Snow Zone RWU, 393, 416

Nuclear Profiling Snow Gage, 351

Snow Hydrology RWU, 386n

erosion and streamflow control studies, 11n, 65, 111, 117, 120, 126–127, 145, 149,

 211, 211n, 212, 212n, 215, 221, 227, 346, 353, 422

hydrophobic soils, 352, 353fig.

lysimeter studies, 147, 148fig., 148–149, 151, 212, 214–215, 300–301, 423–424

Operation WET BLANKET, 302, 302n

 quality and pollution, 327, 327n, 334

Sierra Ecology Project, 351–352

Snow Zone Hydrologic RWU, 352

snow zone management and research, 302–303, 350, 352, 393

Wagon Wheel Gap study, 209n

watershed research (see also San Dimas Experimental Forest), 3, 34, 45n, 58, 65,

 127, 146, 181, 212, 212n, 214n, 252n, 300–301

forest management (silvics, silviculture, and mensuration) research and studies, 1, 47, 93,

105–106, 111, 123, 128–135, 165, 181, 184–206 (passim), 247–253 (passim), 260, 266,

268, 275, 282–289 (passim), 326, 368–372, 412, 435n, 436n

chaparral and brush lands research, 34–35, 59, 65n, 120–121, 129–131, 135, 140–141, 

 144–145, 147, 181, 205, 210–211, 212n, 214n, 247, 255, 266, 274, 282, 295–296, 

 298, 303–304, 316, 344, 345n, 352–354, 357, 385n, 395, 398–399, 424, 426
525

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

harvest cutting methods and practices, 42, 47, 52, 59, 76n, 95, 105, 129, 132, 135, 137,

 188–189, 191, 193–194, 196, 208, 237, 248, 280, 283–284, 287, 372, 382, 405n

mensuration studies (growth, volume, and yield studies) 58–59, 89, 95, 104–105, 125,

 129, 135, 184n, 237, 274, 282, 284, 288–289, 367–368, 409

permanent, sample and temporary plots, 42, 81, 94, 130, 132, 145, 184n, 189, 193, 196, 

 223, 224n, 244, 255, 288, 296, 316

prescribed burning, 283, 358, 358n, 395, 398–399, 411, 424, 426, 426n

public and private management of forests, 182, 182n, 248

silvics, 128–129, 172, 177, 184–189, 247

silvicultural science, research, and studies, 29, 38, 42, 51–63, 65, 70n, 74–75, 81–84, 

91, 94–96, 104, 129–135, 187–199 (passim), 207, 237, 282–287 (passim), 368–369

thinning, 29, 42, 74, 135, 188–189, 283, 358, 370–372, 410

Unit Area Control (UAC), 266, 282, 282n, 283

windthrow, 132, 285

working plans, 42

forest pathology, 51, 65–68, 68n, 69–70, 80, 93, 213–232

forest protection (disease, fires, and insects), 116, 117n, 139–144, 165, 172, 267, 399

disease research, 3, 38, 46, 46n, 68, 71, 78, 94, 104, 113, 128, 139, 182n, 231, 237, 268, 

 274n, 275, 280, 295, 312–315, 324, 327, 345–346, 366, 391, 409n, 411n, 428

blister rust, 47, 47n, 48fig., 113n, 158–159, 159n, 186, 186n, 231, 258, 258n, 268,

 313–315, 366, 392

 Forest Disease RWU, 386n, 388n, 393, 428

fungi and fungicides, 314

 heart rot disease, 314–315

 herbicides, 299, 299n, 314, 345n, 358, 415n

 mistletoes, 46, 66, 139, 314, 314n, 315, 369–370, 394

mycology (fungi), 66

 root diseases, 394, 440

western gall rust, 366, 392

fire control, detection, prevention, protection, and suppression, 1, 18, 34–36, 38, 51,

52n, 63–64, 66fig., 76, 85, 98–99, 104–107, 123, 135, 139–143, 161, 174, 182n,

192, 200–206 (passim), 237, 270n, 274, 280, 308–309, 319–320, 332, 354, 357n

1970 fire season, 355, 355n, 357–358

1987 fire season, 424, 424n

1993 fire season, 426n

air attack program, 307, 307n, 329, 354

 Bailiff Fire, 345n

cooperative fire protection, 85

fire danger rating (FDR) system, 204, 204n, 249–250, 255n, 305, 308

firebreaks, 188, 204, 204n, 205fig., 250

 Fork Fire, 355n

lookout system, 201, 201n, 202fig., 203, 250

forest fuel hazard modification, 20, 357–358, 358n

 Ham Station Fire, 85

 Inaja Fire, 309

 Johnstone Fire, 305, 308, 352

Laguna Fire, 355

 Matilija Fire, 203

 Milestone Blaze, Idaho, 64
526

general technical report psw-gtr-233

 Mount Baldy Fire, 306n

 Rattlesnake Fire, 306n

 retardants, 307–308

 Waterman Canyon Fire, 64, 144

fire management and research (see also individual fire research laboratories), 3, 26–27,

 35, 63–65, 80–81, 84–86, 97–100, 104, 119, 124–128, 139–143, 161, 179, 181, 233, 

 237, 249–250, 252n, 255, 255n, 260, 268, 270. 272n, 273, 275, 284, 295, 301, 

 305–309, 324–325, 327, 345–346, 354–358, 389, 389n, 399–400, 424–426, 438, 

 441–442

 Barranca Burn Study, 145

defense against nuclear attacks, 306, 306n

fire danger rating system, 98–99, 99n

fire ecology, 140

fuelbreak program, 333, 354, 358, 359n

 “hour of control” policy, 141, 204n

 human-caused, 141–142

 incendiarism, 141–142

large-fire behavior, 249–250, 305, 354, 442

 “let burn” policy, 98, 141

light burning, 19, 19n, 63–64, 84, 97, 100, 101n, 134n, 140, 358

lightning caused, 97, 99, 142

Mather Field Fire Conference, 98, 98fig.

 Operation FIRECAST, 400, 400n

 Operation FIRESCOPE, 3, 342, 356–357, 357n, 425n

 Operation FIRESTOP, 249n, 270, 272–273, 306n, 307–308, 355

 Operation FUELBREAK, 271, 308

 Operation HELITACK, 307, 307n

 Project FLAMBEAU, 354

 Project FOCUS, 357n

Project INFORMAP, 354

 statistical analysis, 140–141

insect control research, 3, 38, 44, 47, 66, 68, 68n, 78, 94, 104, 128, 133, 139, 157, 

 157n, 158, 182n, 193, 208n, 231–232, 237, 240n, 242, 242n, 275, 280, 295, 309–312, 

 324–325, 327, 345–347, 348n, 349–350, 366, 391, 411n, 426–427

3-Bug Program (1974), 338, 348

artificial sex attractants, 347–348, 349fig., 440

bark beetles including western pine beetle, 47, 69fig., 71fig., 100–101, 113n,

 157–158, 158n, 191–192, 232, 254–255, 283, 310, 311–312, 346, 348, 348n, 367, 

394fig., 427, 440

Biology and Control of Insects Adversely Affecting Regeneration and Establishment

 of Western Forests RWU, 427

Chemical Ecology and Management of Western Forest Insects RWU, 427

 Disease Pests of California Forests RWU, 428

five-spined engraver, 312

flatheaded borer, 312

 Forest Insect Population Genetics and Biochemistry RWU, 427, 434

Forest Pest Management RWU, 393–394

gypsy moth, 339
527

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Improved Technology for Integrated Management of Western Forest Insects RWU,

 427

Insect and Biological Control RWU, 428

 insecticides and pesticides, 310, 311n, 329, 329n, 332–333, 339, 339n, 346–347, 

 347n, 394–395, 441

 Insecticide Evaluation RWU, 385n

INSEX, 428

lodgepole needle-miner, 310, 310n, 311, 347

 Pest Impact Assessment RWU, 428

 pyrethrins, 347, 347n

 residual-type sprays, 310, 310n, 311

 San Joaquin Project, 100–101, 101n

 southern pine beetle, 339

 spruce bud worm, 346–347, 349, 395, 428

tussock moth, 310, 310n, 339, 339n, 346, 347n, 348–349, 394, 394fig.

 virus and bacterial treatments, 347

forest range management research and science (forage, animal husbandry, and carrying

capacity), 1, 3, 34n, 126, 44–46, 51, 70–73, 86–87, 91, 94, 101–102, 104, 107, 116,

151–154, 165, 172, 174, 177, 179, 182n, 183n, 219–227 (passim), 233, 237–238,

 250–251, 255, 260, 266, 275, 280, 295–299, 315, 325–327, 345–346, 363–364, 397, 

 422, 436n

Annual-Plant and Related Ranges RWU, 364

aquatic ecosystems, 421

cattle-deer interactions, 364, 417

classification of range types, 72

commercial fertilizers, 296–298, 364, 398, 411

driveways, 70n

erosion-streamflow and flood control studies, 45, 73, 107, 130, 135, 144, 238, 250–251,

 269, 284, 300–301, 332, 372

experimental range improvements, 72, 398

foothill-range management, 153–154, 296–297

grazing industry and research, 35, 44, 45n, 70n, 78, 105–106, 123, 125–126, 274n

Harvey Valley Experimental Range (HVER), 271, 297, 299, 363

mountain-land range management, 296–297

overgrazing, 27, 45, 45n, 71, 73, 126, 135, 219n

Perennial Grass Ranges RWU, 364

Pine-Range project, 154

poisonous plant eradication, 45, 87, 152

range conditions and capacity, 71, 73, 104

reconnaissance surveys, 45, 72, 86

rest-rotation grazing, 297, 299, 363, 440, 442

winter range, 298

Forest Reserve Act (1891), 16n, 18, 24

Forest Resources Survey (FRS), 127, 127n, 154n, 155, 174, 237, 248, 252, 259, 259n,

293–294, 294n, 295–296, 318, 365–368

remote sensing research, 366–368

Remote Sensing of the Forest Environment RWU, 366–367

forestry movement and education, 6, 37–40

Forestry Omnibus Bill, 208
528

general technical report psw-gtr-233

forestry science and national research, 5, 13, 18, 22, 38–39, 41–47, 77, 103, 261, 261n, 328, 

331–332, 432

Fort Valley Experiment Station, 42, 92

Fremont Experiment Station, 42, 42n

Fresno County, 12, 27

Fruit Growers’ Supply Company, 132

G

genetics research (see also Institute of Forest Genetics), 1, 3, 128–129, 162–166, 179, 179n,

185, 233, 237, 242, 247, 267, 274n, 275, 289–292, 342n, 345–346, 365–366, 387, 389, 

391–393, 436n, 438, 441

hybridization, 289–290, 325, 365, 365n, 366, 441

isozyme analysis and use, 392, 392n, 408, 408n

reproductive characteristics of pine, 291–292

starch gel electrophoresis, 366, 366n, 367fig.

Giannini Foundation, 207, 228

global warming and climate change, 429–430, 438

Golden Gate Park, 144

Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act (1985), 388

Granger-Thye Act (1950), 262n, 279n

Great Basin Experiment Station, 45n, 75, 102, 107, 113n, 151n, 173n

Great Depression, 112–113, 117, 127n, 155, 164, 166, 169

Great Plains Forest Experiment Station, 174, 174n

Griffith Park, 30, 53, 53n

Guam forestry research, 2–3, 374, 374n, 376, 413n

H

H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, 380

Hackamore Field Laboratory, 232, 232n

Harrison, Benjamin, 16n

Harvard University and Forestry School, 36n, 54

Harvey Valley Experimental Range, 2, 271, 271n, 278

Hat Creek Insect Laboratory, 2, 232, 278, 311

Hatch Act (1877), 10n

Hawaii Territory, State and Government, 31–32, 83–84, 104, 161, 276, 318, 342, 344, 361, 

386, 427, 434, 439, 441–442

Board of Agriculture and Forestry, 31, 318, 

Bureau of Forestry, 31n

Department of Lands and Natural Resources, 401

Department of Social Services, 344

Division of Forestry, 54fig., 318, 320, 344n, 374–375, 401

Waiakea Arboretum, 344n

Hawaiian forest conditions, 36n, 54n, 318–319

Hawaiian forestry research, 2–3, 31, 53–54, 82–84, 161, 161n, 276, 276n, 318–320, 332, 

373, 373n, 374–377, 387, 401, 412–416, 438

American/Pacific Island Forestry RWU, 412, 412n, 413, 416

Control of Invasive, Nonindigenous Weeds RWR, 413–414

fire research, 374–377

forest economics, 373

forest products and marketing, 373, 373n
529

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Forest Protection RWU, 387

Forested Wetlands RWU, 413, 416

Hawaii Experimental Tropical Forest, 412

Hawaii Forest Insect and Disease RWU, 375–376

Hawaii Forest Management RWU, 401, 413

insect and disease research, 373, 373n, 374

Institute of the Pacific Islands Forestry (IPIF), 344, 373–376, 401, 411, 413–415,

 438–439

Institute of Tropical Islands Forestry, 271

Maintenance of Native Hawaii Forest Ecosystems RWU, 375–376

noxious weeds and other plants, 374–375, 401, 413, 415

Pacific Islands (Territories) RWU, 375, 412n

range management, 373n

recreation management, 373n

Restoration of Ecosystem Processes RWU, 413

Timber and Watershed Management RWU, 376–377

Timber/Wildlife RWU, 405

timber management, 373, 389

 banana poka, 415, 415n

 faytree, 415, 415n

gorse, 415, 415n, 416

 koa forests, 376, 400, 413, 415

 Koster’s curse, 415, 415n

 mamane forests, 375–376

 ohia lehua forests, 375–376, 413

 reforestation, 161, 373n, 377

strawberry guava, 415, 415n

watershed management, 373, 373n, 377

Watershed Management RWU, 387n

wildlife, 374

 feral animals, 374–375

 palilas, 375

Hawaii Tropical Forestry Recovery Act (HTFRA), 412–413

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, 36n, 54n, 415n

Hawaiian Planters Association, 83

Henninger Flats nursery, 30–31, 52–53, 55

Hesperia Experiment Planting Station, 21, 23

Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, 380

Humboldt County, 134, 182, 312, 326fig.

Humboldt State College, 325, 325n, 370, 440n

Hyman Laboratories, 347n

I

Indiana Summit RNA, 156, 157fig., 157n

Institute of Forest Genetics (IFG), 1–2, 164n, 165, 177, 179, 184, 184n, 185, 185fig., 186,

186n, 187, 235–237, 247n, 253, 255, 263, 267, 267n, 271, 278, 281n, 289–290, 292, 

314, 325, 332, 344, 359, 365–366, 386, 387n, 392, 392n, 408–409, 438, 438n, 440n, 441

Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, 113n, 173n, 175n, 316, 337, 341n,

342n, 383n, 433n
530

general technical report psw-gtr-233

international forestry, 341, 341n

International Forestry Cooperation Act (IFCA), 412

Inyo County, 12n, 315

Inyo National Forest, 72, 122, 157, 157fig.

Izaak Walton League, 90, 90n

J

Jackson State Forest, 372

John Hopkins Medical School, 242

Joint Congressional Committee on Forestry (JCCF), 175–176, 176n, 182, 199, 262

Jornada Experiment Range, 113n, 173n

Jornada Range Reserve, 75, 75n, 86, 102, 107, 151–152

K

Kamuela nursery, 320

Kansas Pacific Railroad, 20

Kern County, 12n

Kings River Branch Station, 181, 210, 216–217, 217fig., 218, 218fig., 251, 253

Big Creek Unit, 2, 181, 216, 251, 278

Teakettle Creek Experiment Forest and Unit, 2, 181, 216, 218, 218n, 219fig., 251, 269,

 278, 300, 302, 302n, 303, 345n, 350, 352, 419

Klamath Forest Reserve, 47n

Klamath National Forest, 65, 67–68, 70, 99, 101

Knutson-Vandenberg Act (1930), 117, 117n

Korean War, 339n

L

Lake Bigler [Tahoe] Forestry Commission (1883), 11–12

Lake States Forest Experiment Station, 113n, 338n, 339n

Lake Tahoe region, 35

Lassen Peak Forest Reserve, 47n

Lassen National Forest, 64, 72, 73n, 94, 114n, 121–122, 152, 156, 180–181, 188–189, 206n,

220, 226, 232, 271n, 297, 311, 315, 363, 369n, 395, 408

Lava Beds RNA, 156

Livermore Experiment Planting Station, 21, 23

livestock industry (cattle, goats, and sheep) (see also forest range management), 24, 27,

44n, 72, 153, 226n, 238, 364, 411, 414

Los Angeles Basin, 332

Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 117n, 147

Los Angeles County, 12n, 14, 19, 274, 306n, 355, 391, 424

Fire Department, 304–306, 308, 354n

Forestry Department, 147

Los Padres National Forest, 198, 229, 244, 355n, 365n

Los Prietos nursery, 57

lumber industry and production, 24, 35, 73, 76, 106, 227n, 239, 295, 325n

Lytle Creek nursery, 55

M

Madera County, 222, 225

Marcos Pass nursery, 53, 55
531

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Marin County, 335

Mariposa County, 12n, 19

McCloud Company cooperative fire control study, 35

McIntire-Stennis Cooperative Forestry Research Act (1962), 10n, 281, 321

McSweeney-McNary Forest Research Act (1928), 1, 76n, 109–114, 124–15, 127, 133,

136n, 137, 140–141, 152, 154, 157n, 158, 166–167, 170n, 172–174. 174n, 175, 259n, 

341, 341n

Mendocino County, 134, 182, 198

Mendocino National Forest, 202fig., 306n

Merced County, 225

Merced Experiment Planting Station, 21, 23

Merrick Canyon nursery, 57

Miami Insect Laboratory, 2, 232, 278, 311–312, 348, 348n

mining and minerals, 24, 345n

Mississippi Valley Laboratory, 46n

Missoula Experiment Station, 92

Modoc County, 364

Modoc Forest Reserve, 33, 101n

Modoc National Forest, 101, 122, 152, 156–157, 181, 220, 226, 231–232, 232n, 297, 315

Mono County, 12n

Mono National Forest, 67, 122, 156

Monterey County, 35

Monterey Forest Reserve, 47n

Monterey National Forest, 53

Morrill Act (1862), 10n

Mount Hamilton Experiment Planting Station, 23n

Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, 381

N

National Conservation Congress, 109n

National Environmental Policy Act (1969) (NEPA), 330, 331fig., 382n

Nicasio, California study, 335

National Forest Management Act (1976) (NFMA), 329fig., 341, 341n, 344, 382n, 388fig.,

398, 410, 417

National Forest Reservation Commission, 171n, 198

National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), 168, 168n, 169, 178, 219n, 220

National Plan for American Forestry (Copeland Report), 169, 169n, 170–171, 171n, 172,

174–175, 200, 207, 220, 224, 227, 262, 265

National Program of Forest Research, 108–110, 112n, 144, 152, 159–160, 167, 315–316

National Science Foundation (NSF), 308

National War Garden Commission, 109n

naval stores industry, 30, 63

New Deal period and programs, 1, 142n, 144, 166–169, 171, 171n, 176, 180, 184n, 187n,

188, 197–198, 200–201, 211–212, 219, 227, 231, 233, 236

Civil Works Administration (CWA), 167–169, 210, 212, 220, 220n

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), 1, 144, 169, 180, 187n, 189, 191–192, 196, 199,

 201, 203, 204, 206, 212, 214, 218–219, 222, 222n, 226, 231–232

Emergency Conservation Work (ECW), 169, 196

Public Works Administration (PWA), 1, 169, 196, 220
532

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Works Progress Administration (WPA), 1, 168, 178–179, 189, 199, 212, 214, 216, 229,

 231, 236, 240, 259

New England Forest Emergency Project, 183, 183n, 269n

Norris-Doxey Cooperative Farm Forestry Act (1937), 173, 173n

North Central Experiment Station, 113n, 330n, 383n, 389, 402n

North Fork Experiment Station and Work Center, 147, 148fig., 251

North Mountain Experimental Area (NMEA), 345, 345n

Northeastern Forest Experiment Station, 113n, 175n, 179n, 194, 264, 316, 328n, 338n, 361

Northern Redwood Purchase Unit (NRPU), 198–199, 199n

Northern Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, 113n, 175n, 258n,

269n, 338

O

Oak Grove nursery, 57

Omnibus Flood Control Act (1936), 214n, 216, 300

Onion Creek Experimental Forest, 345n, 350, 350n, 352, 421

Orange County, 12n

Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station, 45n

Oregon State University, 401n, 423, 440n

Organic Act (Forest Service) (1897), 24

Orleans Insect Laboratory, 2, 278, 311–312

P

Pacific Northwest Forest (PNW) and Range Experiment Station, 113n, 256, 258n, 301n,

337, 341n, 348, 369n, 401n, 406n, 427, 433

Pacific Southwest Forest (PSW) and Range Experiment Station, 2–3, 41, 272n, 294, 317,

319, 321, 324–325, 327–328, 328n, 329–330, 330n, 335, 338, 341n, 342, 346–347, 

347n, 348, 351–352, 357–358, 358n, 359–360, 362, 368, 383n, 386–389, 391–393, 395, 

397, 397n, 403, 404n, 406–407, 407n, 408, 413, 417–418, 427–428, 432–433, 433n, 

434, 434n, 438, 441–442

achievements, 407n

administrative changes, 2, 328–329

anniversaries, 434, 441

annual reports, 280–281, 334, 337

attainment reporting system, 407–408

boundary extension, 318

budgets, 3, 277, 344, 359, 377–378, 378n, 386–387, 389–391, 405, 428–429, 434,

 438, 441

buildings and facilities, 277, 278fig., 335, 390, 390fig., 403fig., 404–405, 405n

CALFORNET (California Forest Research Information Network), 360–361

competitive grants, 3

computer use, 359–361, 405

ecosystem research and management, 382–383, 407–408

environmental studies, 3

employee union, 336fig., 337

facilities and locations, 330n, 343fig., 344, 387

functional divisions, 336, 336n

General Functional Inspection (GFI), 324, 329

General Integrated Inspection (GII), 324, 332–334
533

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

General Research Inspection (GRI), 324–326, 368, 391

Management Services Staff (MaSS), 359–360, 360n, 407n

name change, 276, 276n

nuclear attack preparation, 328n, 354n

PACFORNET (Pacific Coast Forest Research Information Network), 361, 361n

personnel issues and retirements, 3, 335, 337 343fig., 344–345, 385, 386–390, 405,

 428, 434–435, 435n, 440–441

publications, 2, 329, 337, 405, 436, 436n

relocation of headquarters, 3

reorganization, 325, 327–328, 434

research work units (RWUs) (see also individual RWUs), 2, 335–336, 345–346, 387,

 391–392, 405, 407n, 408, 434, 438–439, 439n

technology transfer, 335

utilization, marketing, and economics division, 294, 296, 317, 335n

WESTFORNET (West Forest Research Information Network), 361n

Pasadena nursery, 55

Permanente Metals Corporation, 239, 239n

Pilgrim Creek Fire Laboratory (see also Shasta Experimental Fire Forest), 2, 278, 308

Pilgrim Creek nursery, 57, 57n, 82

Pine Mountain Forest Reserve, 24

Pinnacles Forest Reserve, 47n

plants (non-indigenous) research, 3, 84

Plumas Forest Reserve, 47n

Plumas National Forest, 58–59, 71, 94, 94n, 121, 121n, 130, 156, 180–181, 193–194, 220,

226, 240, 267, 410

Pomona College, 353

Portland Experiment Station, 92

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, 326fig.

Prairie States Forestry Project, 183

Priest River Experiment Station, 42, 42n, 92, 99, 113n

Purdue University and Testing Laboratory, 28, 62n

Q

R

railroads and railroad ties, 27, 27n, 28, 55, 138fig.

Reagan Meadow RNA, 156

recreation management and land-use planning research, 3, 160, 182n, 200, 225, 230, 268,

274, 316–317, 317n, 320, 324, 335n, 345–346, 358, 361–362, 389, 430–431, 437, 437n 

 438, 442

Redding Silviculture Laboratory, 288, 288n, 325, 325n, 326, 329, 332, 344, 365, 368–369,

395, 409, 411, 438, 441

Effects of Forest Management on Hillslope Processes, Fishery Resources and Stream

Environments RWU, 416, 422

Forest Regeneration Research RWU, 411

Hillslopes Process/Fishery RWU, 416, 416n

Long Term Soil Productivity Cooperative Study (LTSP), 410

Silviculture of California Conifer Types RWU, 388, 409
534

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Timber Management/Wildlife Interactions in Northern California Forest Types RWU,

 416–417, 419

Vegetation Management Research and Development Program, 409, 409n, 411

Redwood Experimental Forest (REF), 344, 370–371

Redwood National Forest, 198

Redwood Sciences Laboratory, 286fig., 325n, 344, 365, 370–371, 371n, 371fig., 372, 387n,

389, 395–396, 396n, 396fig., 419, 438, 441

Sustained Wildlife Communities and Key Ecosystem Linkages in Montane Forests of

the Sierra Nevada RWU, 418

Timber/Wildlife Habitat RWU, 397

reforestation and regeneration research (see also nurseries), 11, 11n, 19–20, 29–31, 34,

38–39, 51–52, 52n, 53–55, 57–58, 76, 91, 94–95, 106, 108, 115, 117n, 120, 129, 132, 

134n, 171n, 182n, 188–189, 247, 274n, 280, 283, 287–288, 333, 370, 370n, 372, 411, 

428

artificial reseeding or direct seeding reproduction, 26, 30, 44n, 45, 52n, 57–58, 60, 79,

 104, 130, 134, 134n, 152, 162n, 187, 187n, 188, 196, 196n, 227, 244, 250–251, 255, 

 272n, 283, 287–288, 315

natural reproduction or regeneration, 26, 104, 129–130, 132, 134, 134n, 152, 162n, 187,

 198–199, 227, 285, 287–288, 298

nurseries (see also individual nurseries), 20–21, 39, 46, 80, 104, 129, 164, 319, 392

old-growth stands, 370, 383fig., 387, 397, 397n, 406n, 419

planting studies, 42, 74, 82, 105–106, 120, 193–194, 198, 231n, 255, 283, 287–288,

 290, 369n, 411–412

research natural areas (RNAs), 121–122, 156–157, 157n

Republic of the Marshall Islands, 413n

Resources for the Future, Inc., 291

Riverside Forest Fire Laboratory (RFL), 309, 332, 342, 344, 354, 356, 357n, 385n, 388–389,

 389n, 397–398, 399fig., 424, 424n, 425n, 426, 429–430, 438, 441

Atmospheric Deposition on Montane Forests of the West RWU, 400, 429

Chaparral Ecology and Fire Effects RWU, 385, 385n, 387n, 399

Chaparral Management RWU, 358

Chaparral Prescribed-Fire RWU, 400

Ecology and Fire Effects in Mediterranean Ecosystems RWU, 416, 423

Ecology of Chaparral and Associated Ecosystems RWU, 424

Fire Economics RWU, 400

Fire Management in the Wildland-Urban Interface RWU, 424–426, 426n

Fire Management Planning and Economics RWU, 424–425

Meteorology for Fire Severity Forecasting RWU, 424–425

Prescribed Fire Research RWU, 424, 426

Site-Specific Fire Prescriptions for Chaparral and Related Ecosytems RWU, 424

Urban Forestry/Landscape RWU, 389n, 395

Wildlife Prevention RWU, 388

Wildlife Recreation and Urban Culture RWU, 389n, 430

Rockefeller Foundation, 291

Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, 172, 175n, 272n, 337, 433

S

Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), 301

Sacramento Valley and River Basin, 182, 210, 226, 300, 372

Sagehen Experimental Watershed Research Area, 2, 278
535

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

San Benicito County, 224

San Benito County, 225

San Bernardino County, 12n, 14, 19

San Bernardino Forest Reserve, 12n, 24–35

San Bernardino National Forest, 53, 63–64, 144, 181, 211n, 350, 355n, 400, 400n, 426, 429

Lake Arrowhead area, 332, 350

San Diego County, 14, 19, 307, 309

San Dimas Experimental Forest (1934) (SDEF), 1–2, 147, 149, 150figs., 177, 181, 210–216

(passim), 236–237, 245, 250–252, 253, 255, 259, 263n, 267, 270, 272n, 278, 300–301,

303, 305, 308, 308n, 325, 345n, 352–353, 385n, 400, 423

Fire Ecology RWU, 424

Man and the Biosphere program, 353

San Dimas Water Company, 147, 211

San Gabriel Forest Reserve, 12n, 18, 24, 30, 35, 54

San Gabriel nursery, 55

San Jacinto Experiment Planting Station, 21, 23

San Jacinto Forest Reserve, 24, 35

San Joaquin Experimental Range (SJER), 2, 181–182, 220–226 (passim), 229, 236,

250–251, 253, 255, 260, 263, 267, 274, 278, 297, 299, 325–326, 326n, 344, 363, 398, 

419, 419n, 420figs.

San Joaquin Valley, 34, 153–154, 181, 210, 216, 218, 220–221, 225, 250, 259, 296

San Luis Obispo Forest Reserve, 47n

San Luis Obispo National Forest, 53, 57

Santa Barbara County, 355

Santa Barbara Forest Reserve, 24, 31, 35, 48, 53–54, 68n

Santa Barbara National Forest, 52n, 57, 101n, 198n, 203

Santa Barbara nursery, 55

Santa Catalina Research Natural Area, 121n

Santa Inez Forest Reserve, 24

Santa Monica Experimental Planting Station, 21, 21n, 23, 23n

Santa Rita Range Reserve, 75, 75n, 86, 102, 151n, 152

Save the Redwoods League, 89–90, 90n, 134, 285

Selective Training and Service Act (1940), 236n

Sequoia National Forest, 92n, 94, 153, 355n, 357n, 363, 440n

Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park, 101, 311, 418

Shasta County, 210n

Shasta Experimental Fire Forest (SEFF), 141–142, 142n, 143, 165, 180–181, 200–201,

202fig., 203–204, 250, 267, 278, 278n, 308

Shasta Forest Reserve, 47n

Shasta National Forest, 45n, 57, 57n, 65n, 67, 72, 81n, 82, 82n, 85, 85n, 94, 142, 181, 220,

226, 231, 255

Shasta-Trinity National Forest, 288n, 325, 440n

Sierra Club, 24, 285, 285n, 333

Sierra Forest Reserve, 12n, 24, 27, 47

Sierra National Forest, 67–68, 70, 70n, 72, 87, 94, 96n, 101, 147, 153, 157–158, 181, 208n,

216, 218, 222, 222n, 231n, 232, 251, 330n, 410, 418

King River Sustainable Forest Ecosystems Project, 435, 435n

Sierra Nevada Conservation Framework (SNCF), 439

Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Plan (SNEP), 406, 406n 421, 426, 435, 435n, 439
536

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Simpson Redwood Company, 284

Siskiyou County, 35

Six Rivers National Forest, 123, 344, 440n

Society of American Foresters (SAF), 28n, 36n, 49n, 54n, 78, 94, 108, 108n, 109, 144,

175, 266

Soil Conservation Service (SCS), 119n, 132n, 173, 210, 214n, 225, 238, 260n, 298, 300, 421

Soil Erosion Service, 179

soil management, 333, 410

Sonoma County, 134

Soper-Wheeler Company, 286

Southern California Academy of Sciences, 14n

Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, 269n, 433

Southern California Forest and Water Society, 14n

Southern California Pomological Society, 14n

Southern Forest Experiment Station, 92, 113n, 164n, 235, 263n, 264, 289n, 381

Southern Pacific Railroad, 20

Southern Redwood Purchase Unit (SRPU), 198

Southwestern Forest and Range Experiment Station, 113n, 175n, 152, 263n

St. Paul Experiment Station, 92

Stanford University, 22, 22n, 23, 33, 68, 69n, 81n, 184n, 242, 244

Stanislaus-Tuolumne Experimental Forest (SEF and STEF) 2, 180, 180n, 184n, 188, 195,

195fig., 196–197, 255, 263, 267, 278, 283, 345n, 409

Stanislaus Forest Reserve, 24

Stanislaus National Forest, 59n, 65, 67, 70, 70n, 71, 87, 94, 117, 121, 137–138, 153,

196–197, 231, 366, 417

Stony Creek Forest Reserve, 47n

Summit Camp RNA, 156

Susanville Research Center, 271, 297, 328–329

Susanville Station and nursery, 117, 117n

Swain Mountain Experimental Forest (SMEF), 2, 121, 122fig., 156, 165, 180, 188–189, 270,

278, 285, 303, 316, 345n, 350, 369, 369n, 395, 411

Sweetwater RNA, 156

Syracuse University, 341n

T

Tahoe Forest Reserve, 24

Tahoe National Forest, 67, 71–72, 84, 94, 220, 226, 316, 385n, 410, 440n

Tanbark Flats Station and nursery, 117n, 149, 213fig., 214, 215fig., 236, 300, 305, 332

423, 429

telegraph, telephone and power poles, 28, 48, 55, 62

Threatened and Endangered Species Act (1973), 382n, 383fig.

timber famine, shortage and/or depletion or exploitation, 5–6, 38, 88, 90–91, 137, 162, 228,

248, 293, 293n

timber management and research, 36, 182n, 266, 270, 274n, 295, 324, 342, 345, 346, 369,

387, 391

acacia trees, 11, 21, 23, 48

black oak, 63, 210n, 369n

cedar, 67, 208, 210n

chinchona, 11
537

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

clearcutting and cutover lands, 94, 134, 134n, 155, 193, 227n, 284–285, 333, 369, 371,

 381, 395

coniferous trees, 20

cork oak, 10, 243–244, 247

Douglas-fir studies, 208, 240n, 243, 258, 271, 283, 284n, 288, 310n, 312, 314n, 325,

 371n, 372, 427

even-age management, 285, 410

hardwood forest management and industry, 19–20, 57n, 412, 440

industrial forestry (tractor and truck logging), 106, 107fig., 121, 156, 197–198, 208,

 397–398

 road construction, 372, 396, 414, 437n

Jeffrey pine, 196, 208n, 210n, 218, 314

lodgepole pine, 218

logging damage and milling investigations, 132–134, 137, 156, 206–208, 369n, 371

madrone, 369n

marking practices and rules, 132, 137, 248

Monterey pine and cypress, 128

Pickering Lumber Company Study, 137–138

pine forest management and region research, 3, 28, 30, 106, 119, 123, 123n, 124–125,

 129, 132, 140, 147, 165, 171n, 179, 188, 192, 196–197, 203n, 207–208, 226, 227n, 

 233, 237, 239, 248, 258, 282–283, 288, 325, 359, 369

Ponderosa pine (see pine forest management and region research)

production, 225, 227, 258, 276

redwood forest management and region research, 3, 9n, 17fig., 19, 27, 30, 52, 61, 74,

 90n, 100n, 106, 123, 123n, 124–125, 133–134, 134n, 135, 171n, 178–179, 182, 

 184n, 197–199, 208, 227n, 231n, 233, 237, 239, 248n, 255, 258, 270–271, 283–286, 

286fig., 288, 324–325, 325n, 365, 370, 372

risk rating systems, 370

salvage or sanitation cutting, 67, 67n, 193, 254, 312n, 346

Scotch pine, 194

second-growth forests, 286, 286n, 293, 371

selection cutting, 371, 381

shelterwood removal, 287, 369

softwoods (red and white fir) 67, 180, 196, 207n, 208, 218, 243, 248, 252, 283, 285,

 310n, 314, 350n, 365, 369–370, 395

slash disposal, 286–287

sugar pine, 196–197, 227n, 231

sustained yield timber research, 192–193, 197–198, 228, 248, 282

tanoak, 369n

timber resource review (TRR), 293, 293n, 295

timber-stand improvement (TSI), 286–287

Torrey pine, 48, 350

True Fir Task Force (TFTF), 369–370

true-fir types and research, 188–189, 270, 285, 314n, 368, 410

yucca trees, 30

Trabuco Canon Forest Reserve, 12n, 24, 35

Trinity Forest Reserve, 47n

Trinity National Forest, 65, 70, 87, 99, 156, 199
538

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (Federated States of Micronesia) forestry research,

374, 374n, 376, 401, 413n

Tulare County, 12n, 22–23, 27

Tuolumne County, 19, 310n

U

United States, Army, 354n

United States, Army Air Force, 246

United States, Army Corps of Engineers, 244–245, 269, 300, 319

United States, Atomic Energy Commission, 351

United States, Department of Agriculture (USDA), 41, 50, 75, 86, 109, 114, 151, 168, 235,

262, 301n, 341, 383, 433, 433n

Agricultural Research Service (ARS), 268, 297, 390–391, 404, 438

Bureau of Agricultural Economics (BAE), 214, 260n

Bureau of Animal Husbandry (BAH), 44n, 71

Bureau of Biological Survey (BBS), 159, 170, 170n, 226, 229, 231, 231n

Bureau of Chemistry and Soils (BCS), 29–30, 170

Bureau of Entomology (BE), 30, 30n, 47, 68, 68n, 69, 69n, 70, 70n, 78n, 93, 100, 108,

 110n, 113n, 116n, 133, 133n, 139, 157–158, 170, 231n, 243, 244

Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine (BEPQ), 231, 231n, 232, 252, 268, 309

Bureau of Fisheries, 170

Bureau of Forestry, 26–34 (passim), 38, 40, 44n, 46n, 52n, 69n, 73n, 167

California-Bureau of Forestry Joint Forest Survey, 33, 33fig., 34–36, 38–39, 52n

Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI), 44, 44n, 46, 46n, 66, 75n, 78n, 86, 93, 108, 132n, 139,

 157–158, 170, 179, 225, 258, 316

Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, and Agricultural Engineering (BPISAE), 113, 231, 268

Division of Agrostology, 44n

Division of Botany, 44n

Division of Dendrology and Range Forage Investigations, 128n

Division of Entomology, 30n

Division of Forestry, 11–12, 16n, 18, 23, 25–26, 28, 29, 34n, 36n, 38, 49n, 50, 54n, 167

Division of Pathology, 268

Division of Soils, 36n, 54n

Forest Service, 38–44, 47, 77, 78n, 86, 91, 102, 108, 108n, 117n, 120, 127n, 128, 128n, 

130, 137, 144, 147, 151, 151n, 152, 155, 158n, 159–161, 161n, 162n, 167–168, 168n, 

169, 170, 170n, 171, 171n, 172, 174, 176, 184, 184n, 187, 191, 199, 199n, 203n, 204n, 

209, 209n, 210, 214n, 219–220, 229–230–232, 235, 241, 243fig., 252, 258n, 261, 262n,

263n, 274, 276, 279–280, 294, 302, 302n, 306n, 307n, 309, 316, 318, 320, 323, 325n, 

326–328, 330, 330n, 331, 335, 336fig., 337, 337n, 340, 340fig., 341n, 342, 346, 348,

355, 365–366, 367fig., 375, 380–381, 382, 382n, 383–385, 385n, 386–387, 389, 389n,

391, 396n, 398, 400n, 401n, 402n, 403, 406, 406n, 407, 407n, 408, 409n, 410–411, 

413n, 418, 421, 425, 429–431, 433, 433n, 434n, 437n, 438n, 439, 439n, 440n, 442

 Branch of Forest Products, 43, 62

Branch of Grazing, 44–45, 78n, 151

Branch of Research (BR), 59n, 75–77, 80–81, 87, 91, 112, 128, 128n, 151, 167, 169,

 170, 170n, 172–175, 224, 242, 262, 263, 263n, 264, 265, 265n, 266, 268, 268n, 

 280–281, 281n, 324, 330n, 331

Central Investigative Committee (CIC), 44, 59n, 60, 60n, 75, 144

 District 5, 28n, 34n, 43, 47, 49–50, 52, 57–58, 58n, 59–60, 63n, 65, 65n, 66, 72–73, 

 89, 94–95, 96n, 98–100, 101n, 102, 104, 116, 116n, 117, 141, 144–145, 151–152, 

 157, 193, 195, 208n, 227n, 337n
539

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

Branch of Grazing, 86

 Branch of Research, 105, 115, 129

Branch of Timber Management, 49n

 cooperative insect control work, 70

Division of Range Management, 224

experimental forest and range system (see also individual forests and ranges), 120,

 166, 259

investigative committee (D5-IC), 44, 115n, 116, 116n, 119–122, 132n, 136, 145,

 152, 160, 162, 164

Office of Fire Control, 156

Office of Forest Management, 156

Office of Forest Products, 62–63, 112, 120, 135–136, 136n

Office of Grazing, 107

Office of Range Management, 151–152, 156

research program, 93–94, 129

supervisors meetings, 50, 68, 76n, 85

 Division of Forest Economics Research, 173

Division of Forest Influences, 58n, 210

Division of Special Investigations, 42, 42n, 43fig.

 Division of State and Private Forestry, 183

 Division of Wood Products, 292

Forest Plan for the Pacific Northwest, 435, 435n

Forest Products Laboratory (FPL), 43n, 44, 51, 59, 63, 63n, 75–78, 78n, 79, 84, 87,

 91–92, 96, 113, 136, 136n, 137, 137n, 177, 206, 207n, 236, 236n, 237, 240n, 243, 

 280n, 292, 319, 340, 375

 Framework for the Future, 331

L-20 Regulations, 119–120, 197

Molecular Genetics Laboratory (MGL), 409

National Agricultural Library, 360

National Forest Genetics Electrophoresis (NFGEL), 408, 408n, 409

National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, 421

 New Perspectives in Forestry, 382

Office of Experiment Stations, 58n, 94n

Office of Forest Entomology, 157

Office of Forest Investigations, 76, 79

Office of Grazing Research, 151

Office of Industrial Investigations, 76

Office of Silvics, 76fig.

 Region 1 (Northern Region), 355n

 Region 3 (Southwest Region), 355n

Region 4 (Intermountain Region), 354

Region 5 (Pacific Southwest Region), 34n, 119n, 137, 141, 142n, 153, 158, 171n

 177–178, 181, 189, 194, 198, 200–201, 203, 203n, 204, 204n, 208, 219n, 221, 

 222n, 226, 227n, 229, 230, 230n, 231, 231n, 235–238, 238n, 243–245, 252–255, 

 255n, 258, 262, 267, 274, 274n, 275, 283, 285n, 295–297, 297n, 298, 307n, 310, 

 313, 315, 315n, 317n, 328n, 329, 332–334, 355, 360–361, 365, 367, 369–370, 

 381, 385, 385n, 386n, 387, 387n, 391–392, 399–400, 403, 404n, 405n, 411, 413n, 

 424, 425n, 434n, 439

Division of Forest Management, 49n

Division of Timber Management, 207
540

general technical report psw-gtr-233

Division of Range and Wildlife Management, 152n, 224, 315n

 Division of State and Private Forestry, 360

General Integrated Inspection (GII), 332

 Genetics Electrophoresis Laboratory, 411

Investigative Committee (R5-IC), 132, 132n, 137, 146, 267

Office of Fire Control, 156

Office of Forest Management, 156

Office of Range Management, 156

 reforestation plans, 119, 171n

research natural areas (RNAs) (see individual RNAs), 121–123, 198

 Silviculture Development Unit, 411

Region 6 (Pacific Northwest Region), 348, 354, 355n, 405n

Region 8 (Southern), 355n

 State and Private Forestry, 357n, 439

Office of Biological Survey, 113–114, 116n

Office of Blister Rust Control, 116n, 124n, 155, 158

Office of Grazing Studies, 173n

Office of Pathology (OP), 82, 116n, 136n, 157–158

Weather Bureau, 113–114, 116n, 146, 170, 170n, 204n, 300

United States, Department of Defense, 270n

Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, 273

Office of Civil Defense (OCD), 245–246, 249, 294n, 354

United States, Department of Interior, 38, 41, 50, 168, 173, 257n, 374n

Biological Survey, 225

Bureau of Land Management (BLM), 345n, 354, 419, 431, 437, 437n

Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), 351

Division of Grazing Service, 173, 257n

General Land Office (GLO), 12, 16n, 24, 30, 32, 47, 47n, 105, 171n

National Park Service (NPS), 116n, 119n, 122, 124n, 227n, 311, 363

United States, Department of War, 30, 57, 168

Chemical Warfare Service, 246

Presidio Military Reservation, 30

United States, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 357n

United States, Food and Drug Administration, 310n

United States, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 310n, 339n, 348, 348n, 349, 393

United States, General Accounting Office (GAO), 335

United States, General Services Administration (GSA), 277, 390

United States, Fish and Wildlife Service, 253, 315, 327n, 348, 375, 418n, 419

Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, 365n

United States, Geological Survey (USGS), 27, 49n, 146n, 155, 227n

United States, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 367

Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS), 368

United States, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), 408

United States, Patent Office, 30n

United States, Public Health Service, 350

University of Arizona, 152, 184n

University of California, Berkeley, 1–2, 16n, 22–23, 33, 37–38, 45n, 46fig., 48, 55, 61, 73,
541

The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926–2000

73n, 74, 82n, 83fig., 89, 103, 103n, 114–115, 115fig., 119n, 124, 124n, 125fig., 133,

133n, 134–135, 135n, 136n, 138, 146, 146n, 147, 148fig., 155, 162n, 163n, 178, 184n,

191n, 196n, 205, 207, 211n, 224, 225n, 226, 228, 228n, 231n, 232, 242–244, 244n, 252, 

256, 259fig., 261, 261n, 262, 264, 270, 273, 273n, 274n, 276–277, 277n, 279, 291, 295,

297–298, 311, 313n, 314, 325, 330n, 333, 338n, 342n, 348n, 360–363, 366, 383, 385n, 

386, 389, 395, 408, 426, 432, 434n, 439, 440n, 441

University of California, Chico, 431

University of California, Davis, 314, 344, 362, 385n, 386n, 417, 438, 440n, 441

Insect Chemical Ecology RWU, 411, 438

Urban Forestry RWU, 438

University of California, Irvine, 431

University of California, Richmond, 278, 308

University of California, Riverside, 333, 350, 423

University of Chicago, 347n

University of Hawaii, 401, 438

University of Idaho, 341n, 383

University of Michigan, 58n, 73n, 85n, 96n, 163n, 272n, 273n, 331n, 339n

University of Minnesota, 339n, 383, 437n

University of Missouri, 183

University of Nebraska, 173n

University of Pennsylvania, 328n

University of Southern California (USC), 22–23

utilization of wood and other forest products (see also forest economics), 1, 11, 14, 28, 32,

38, 43–44, 47–48, 51, 61–63, 74, 76, 84, 91, 96–97, 104, 111, 116, 123, 125, 135–139, 

165, 170n, 172, 174, 178–179, 182n, 206–209, 233, 236–237, 252, 275, 284, 292–294, 

319, 324, 346, 368

air drying and kiln seasoning processes, 57, 61, 79, 96, 136, 206, 208n, 240n, 292, 294

blue stain in lumber, 136, 136n

eucalyptus plantations and research, 10, 19–21, 23, 28, 34, 48, 52n, 55–56, 56fig.,

 57–58, 61, 82–83, 120, 161n, 319

extension work and product information, 47–48, 53, 139

heptane production study, 138–139, 139fig., 208n

lumber depreciation study, 138

marine wood borers and pilings, 55, 62, 62n, 96, 136, 136n, 206, 208n, 240

marketing, 268, 294, 324

nailing techniques, 292

pulpwood and paper, 62, 79, 96

saw filing system, 292

tannin and tanbark studies, 29–30, 48, 61

timber testing and physics, 13–14, 25, 27–28, 43, 61–62, 78n, 79

vegetation-soil survey mapping, 125, 127, 154–155, 222, 227n, 294, 294n, 295

wood chemistry, 62

wood fiber and residues, 252, 293

wood preservation, 27, 27n, 46, 48, 62–63, 63n, 79, 84, 96, 135–136, 206

urban forestry, 3, 332, 332n, 362, 392, 429, 442

V

Ventura County, 355, 426n

Vietnam War, 299n, 354, 378

Vilmorin Corporation, 162n
542

general technical report psw-gtr-233

W

Warner Forest Reserve, 101n

Washington State University, 69n, 440n

Weeks Act (1911), 85–86, 171n, 220

West Virginia Experiment Station, 70n

Western and Eastern Defense Command (EDC and WDC), 244, 245–246

Western Pine Association, 263

Western Range Survey, 262

Wilderness Society, 333

wildland management and research, 279–280, 295–296, 301, 309, 424n

wildlife habitat and management research, 159–160, 197, 225, 227, 229–230, 296, 315–316,

323, 327, 345–346, 362–365, 397–398, 435n, 437

feral animal research, 3, 31, 45, 414

Forest Recreation and Landscape Management RWU, 362

Land Use and Landscape Planning Methodology RWU, 362

Landscape Management and Urban Forestry RWU, 362, 395, 405

marbled murrelet, 435n, 436, 436n

spotted owl research and controversy, 3, 389, 397, 397n, 406n, 418, 418n, 419fig., 419,

 435n, 440n, 442

threatened and endangered species, 326n, 346, 365, 365n, 375, 382, 418, 418n, 438

VIEWIT, 358

World War I, 41, 49n, 58n, 73n, 79–80, 82, 84, 87–88, 91, 92, 94n, 98, 101–102, 105, 110n, 

117n, 227n

10th Engineers, 92n, 119n, 130, 135–136, 140, 145

20th Engineers, 171n

World War II, 1, 60, 176, 179, 182, 183n, 184n, 189, 193–194, 199, 205–206, 208, 220, 225, 

229–230, 230n, 232–233, 235–256 (passim), 257, 259, 259n, 260n, 263n, 264, 276, 280,

283, 285n, 286n, 287–288–289, 289n, 292, 294–296, 297n, 298, 299n, 300, 302, 305, 

306n, 310, 313, 320, 323, 328, 335, 338n, 339, 347n, 364

Guayule Emergency Rubber Project, 214, 241fig., 242–244, 252

Office of Price Administration (OPA), 239–240, 252, 338n

War Manpower Commission (WMC), 240, 252

War Production Board (WPB), 238–240, 252, 338n

X

Y

Yale University, Forestry School, and Testing Laboratory, 28n, 34, 36n, 49n, 54n, 59n, 62,

65n, 73n, 78n, 81n, 88, 88n, 92n, 110n, 269n, 273n, 289n, 328n, 433

Yosemite National Park, 68n, 122, 278, 311–312, 347

Yuba County, 365n

Yuba Forest Reserve, 47n

Yurok (Redwood) Branch and Experimental Forest (1940), 1–2, 199–200, 200fig., 255, 263,

270, 278, 284

Z

Zaca Lake Forest Reserve, 24



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