Chapter 5.
Congress Authorizes Stations
A
lthough the Experiment Stations
were a fairly early creation within
the Forest Service, the first Stations were
much different than those that developed
later. The early Stations were minuscule
in both staffing and funding, and were
administratively part of a National
Forest District (now National Forest
System Region).
Even with the establishment of
experiment stations at a number of
western locations, research was almost
wholly submerged in the Forest
Service’s efforts to administer the
National Forests. Administration was
a huge task that started almost from
scratch because Interior had done little
with the forest reserves, so there was
no program to build on. Compared
to National Forest Administration,
Research was out of sight and out of
mind for most Forest Service people
(Storey 1975). Research faced another
big problem, according to Assistant
Chief Forester Earle Clapp. He wrote,
“That the national requirements for forest research have not been met during
the last decade is primarily because
sufficient men with the necessary
mental equipment and training have for
one reason or another been nonavailable.” Clapp also said the agency
routinely used Research as a dumping
ground for those who did not fit well in
Administration (Steen 1998).
Eight years of efforts by Clapp to
gain legislative recognition of the Forest
Service research organization paid off
in 1928 when the McSweeney-McNary
Act was passed as the organic act for
research. Congress authorized $3.575
million for research annually through
1938, in much the manner envisioned
by Clapp in 1926 when he proposed a
revamped and vastly expanded national
program. The authorization put research
funding at a ratio of 1:20 with other
Forest Service activities.
The McSweeney-McNary Act gave
the Branch of Research a more important place within the Forest Service.
It strengthened the ability to deal with
other agencies, dealt with nonfederal
research, and began to balance funding
for silvicultural and products research
(Steen 1998). The Act expanded the
areas of research responsibility, and
provided for funding by a specific
research budget line item. There was
no overnight transformation for the
Stations, however. The promise of the
Act for research was soon dampened by
a national economic downturn following
the stock market crash of 1929 and the
Great Depression, which lasted from the
early 1930s until World War II. Thus,
the flowering of the Forest Service
research program came many years later
than hoped for by the Forest Service
leadership.
The act followed Clapp’s national
program concept by authorizing a number of Experiment Stations, including
the Northern Rocky Mountain Station
already operating under that name, and
adding a Station for “the intermountain
region of Utah and adjoining States.”
It also provided $100,000 to USDA’s
Bureau of Plant Industry to study native
and naturalized diseases of forests
and forest products, including white
pine blister rust. Forest insect research
assigned to the Bureau of Entomology
fared better in funding because bark
beetles destroyed more timber than was
removed by fires and timber harvesting
combined.
McSweeney-McNary instituted a
nationwide survey of all forested areas,
a new program that would become important to the Northern Rocky Mountain
Station and later to the Intermountain
Station. It took a few years for the
program to develop.
Wildlife research was also authorized by the act—to be conducted by
USDA’s Biological Survey, not by
the Forest Service. Investigations of
weather related to forest fires also were
authorized. The Forest Service was to
do the research necessary to aid the U.S.
Weather Bureau in making forecasts of
forest fire hazards.
The McSweeney-McNary Act
was a tremendous benefit to Forest
Service research through expanding the
scope of the program, authorizing the
establishment of experiment stations,
and increasing the research budget. In
the first year following passage in 1928,
Forest Service research was funded at
$906,000; this increased to $2.6 million
by 1938. Part of this was in increase on
paper only, however. Appropriations
during the first decade of the act never
reached the levels authorized.
The first year, there were no funding increases at all. President Calvin
Coolidge had obtained a promise from
Congress that the research budget would
remain as it was for a year, so the 19291930 fiscal year was the first to include
McSweeney-McNary appropriation
increases. They totaled 20 percent.
Included in the bill was authorization
for the Intermountain Forest and Range
Experiment Station in Ogden. Of significance to the Northern Rocky Mountain
Station was $40,000 to begin the Forest
Survey (Steen 1998).
Twenty percent sounds like a big
hike, but the starting point was low.
For example, the Northern Rocky
Mountain Station in 1928 had only
a four-man technical staff, a female
clerk, and a budget of $22,254 One
staff person was the Station Ranger,
one covered forest management, one
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covered fire, and Station Director R.
H. Weidman handled supervision and
special projects (Wellner 1976). A plea
was made for more research help to (1)
work on fire control by detecting fires
more quickly and getting men to the fire
more quickly, (2) determine growth and
yield of western larch in Montana, and
(3) address the most important national
problem…leaving and maintaining
cut-over land in a productive condition.
No funds were available for grazing
research; yet grazing problems in the
District 1 National Forests were second
only to timber management problems.
Only $136,000 was being spent by all
agencies combined for research in the
Northern Rockies that year. The Station
and District 1 together spent $45,100.
By contrast, the Office of Blister Rust
Control spent $54,000.
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