Expanding fodoy's Tough Training of Tomorrow's Foresfers

wood's uses irom

(l fVE 'El,I DITCHES to dig. and wood \7 to chop. and dishes to wash. plenty to eat, and ample recreation, and intensive formal instruction in a Sierra setting, and you have the ideal formula for growth of discipline and development of professional men in forestry.

That, at least, has been the experience of the School of Forestry Summer Camp, held each year at Meadow Valley in northeastern California, seven miles west of Quincy. There, in the last 49 years, some 1,700 University of California forestry stu-

Students must have completed their preforestry courses because botany and basic civil engineering are required to carry them through their camp studies.

During the session, students receive instruction in fire control, ecology of {orests and associated wildlands, photography, soils. engineering, scaling, logging, milling, road location, mensuration, timber management, fish and wildlife, and management planning.

A member of the School o{ Forestry staff serves as camp director. Others on the school staff teach a few days to a couple o{ weeks in length during the camp period. A pair of graduate student assistants help with the teaching program, assist in instruction, and attend camp all summer.

Courses of instruction are concentrated, as the students receive an introduction at least to everything in which they will become fully proficient later in forestry. A good example is their course of fire control, a vital factor in natural resources manasement. V'hile learning. the students get the camp fire-proo{ed, and become members of tlFE HISI0RY of tree (left) is read in the tree rings of an increment core taken harmlessly from the tree bole-or stem-by this forestry student who is dents have received indoctrination into one of the most fascinating professions. a standby fire crew answerable to the Plumas National Forest, in which they are living and working. When they are called out. the1, get paid as fire crew members, the same as other forest {ire fighters, at ahout $2 per hour on a l2-hour shift.

They have learned, in Summer Camp, how vital {orestry can be; that it is more than brawny men in tin hats, or handsome voung men in uni{orms standing at park entrances handing out colorful brochures, and wishing campers a happy summer. They have come to understand that forestry is a business, a profession, requiring men of vision, of intelligence, capable of making the most of America's valuable natural resources.

Begun in 1915, just a year after the School of Forestry was founded, the camp has provided a memorable experience for forestry students who have sat at the feet of giant conifers and become imbued with the spirit of the woods, and the vitality of forestry as a way of life.

Basically, the camp is a school, a I0weeko l0-unit prerequisite for majors in the UC School of Forestry. But it is more than a school- for in the camp, the incoming students learn to live and work.

One of the highlights of the summer is "Side Camp," and it has been described by students as "an indescribable experience." The participants move into the woods in pairs, carrying on their backs everything they need for three days' work and subsistence. During the 72 hours, they must cruise a specific half-section of land, measuring it, and analyzing productive capacity. This primitive caml) experience is not necessarily a difficult or exhaustive one. and only an interview with the adventuresome lads who have gone the route will give an inkling of the spirit and sport of the outing.

The program of study in forestry, a profession as old as man's reliance on

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