University of California . Berkley

University of California Bancroft Library/ Berkeley

Regional Oral History Office

WOODBRIDGE METCALF
EXTENSION FORESTER, 1926-1956

An Interview Conducted By
Evelyn Bonnie Falrburn

Berkeley 1969

Produced Under the Auspices of
Forest History Society

All uses of this manuscript are covered by an
agreement between Woodbridge Metcalf and the
Regents of the University of California and
the Forest History Society. The manuscript
is thereby made available for research purposes.
All literary rights in the manuscript, includ
ing the right to publish, are reserved to the
Bancroft Library of the University of California
at Berkeley and the Forest History Society. No
part of the manuscript may be quoted for publi
cation without the written permission of the
Director of the Bancroft Library of the Univer
sity of California at Berkeley or the Director
of the Forest History Society.

Requests for permission to quote for publication
should include identification of the specific
passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the
passages, and identification of the user. The
legal agreement with Woodbridge Metcalf requires
that he be notified of the request and allowed
thirty days in which to respond.

FOREWORD

This interview is part of a series produced by the
Regional Oral History Office of Bancroft Library, University of
California at Berkeley, under a grant from the Forest History
Society, whose funding was made possible by the Hill Family
Foundation .

Transcripts in the series consist of interviews with:
DeWitt Nelson, retired head of the Department of Natural Resources,
California; William R. Schofield, lobbyist for timber owners, Cal
ifornia Legislature; Rex Black, also lobbyist for timber owners,
California Legislature; Walter F. McCulIoch, retired Dean of the
School of Forestry, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon;
Thornton Munger, retired head of U.S. Forest Service Experiment
Station, Pacific Northwest Region; Leo Isaac, reti red, si I vi culture
research in the Forest Service Experiment Station, Pacific North
west Region; and Walter Lund, retired chief, Division of Timber
Management, Pacific Northwest Region of the Forest Service;
Richard Colgan, retired forester for Diamond Match Lumber Company;
Myron Krueger, professor of forestry, emeritus, U.C. Berkeley; and
Woodbridge Metcalf, retired extension forester, U.C. Berkeley.
Copies of the manuscripts are on deposit in the Bancroft Library,
University of California at Los Angeles; and the Forest History
Society, University of California at Santa Cruz.

Interviews done for the Forest History Society under other
auspices include: Emanuel Fritz, professor of forestry, Univer
sity of California, Berkeley, with funding from the California Red
wood Association; and a forest genetics series on the Eddy Tree
Breeding Station with tapes by W.C. Gumming, A.R. Liddicoet, N.T.
Mirov, Mrs. Lloyd Austin, Jack Carpender, and F.I. Righter, cur
rently funded by the Forest History Society Oral History Program.

The Regional Oral History Office was established to tape
record autobiographical interviews with persons prominent in the
history of the West. The Office is under the administrative
supervision of the Director of the Bancroft Library.

Wi I la Klug Baum, Head
Regional Oral History Office

Regional Oral History Office
Room 486 The Bancroft Library
University of California
Berkeley, Cal i fornia

INTRODUCTION

Woodbridge Metcalf at eighty is cheerful, optimistic, and
self-fulfilled — a state of euphoria that probably comes from his
thirty years (1926-1956) of work throughout California as one of the
nation's first extension foresters. Headquartered at the University
of California, whose School of Forestry he helped found, he promoted
forestry concepts by traveling constantly up and down the state giving
fire prevention demonstrations to clubs, schools, and other organiza
tions. He became nationally known as a 4-H Club organizer, spending
long hours In the summers visiting the camps, teaching fire protection
and general forestry concepts to the girls and boys, and singing with
the campers; in the winters, he helped to establish new camps.

While his major work was public education, he was also on the staff
of the School of Forestry for twelve years before he became an "Extension
Specialist" under Agricultural Extension. His academic reputation can be
said to be founded on his work in Eucalyptus, culminating in his appoint
ment as chairman of the delegation when he represented the United States
at the Eucalyptus Conference of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture
Organization, held in Rome in 1956. Not content to simply study the
species, he has urged the planting of thousands of miles of eucalyptus
windbreaks for the protection of citrus groves in southern California.
Often after a recording session, we would begin discussing the beauty
and the variety of the various sample species of eucalyptus sitting on
his desk awaiting his expert eye before they were added to the large
University Herbarium.

His extension work allowed him to pursue his natural interest in
tree identification, not only on the campus but in the San Francisco
Bay Area and probably over the entire state. A booklet is to be pub
lished soon of a series of walks which he designed to enable tree-lovers
to spot all the unusual trees growing on the Berkeley campus. Many of
these sport name plates which he was instrumental in having mounted. In
addition, he knows where the best and biggest spec I urn of each species
is located in California, and he has documented this in a large photo
graph file which also includes forest landscapes, fire demonstrations,
and 4-H activities.

As a California forester whose work was known throughout the United
States, Mr. Metcalf was never identified with any of the controversies
in which many other foresters participated. This is consistent with his
emphasis on "cooperation" between the various forestry organizations —
state, private, and -federal. Any time all was not running smoothly in
California forestry, he operated on the theory of his close friend and
supporter in Agricultural Extension, Director B. H. Crocheron: that
when there is a large problem, we must all work together to solve it.

Even whon he has seen some of his projects destroyed after his
retirement, such as the 4-H camping program, his attitude is that this
is a sign of progress and one must adjust to change. Always his comment
is, "That is just one of those things." He especially prides himself on
the lack of a "generation gap." While he sees the need for the younger
generation to show improved consideration for others and to manifest in
creased economic and social motivation, he feels that the older genera
tion should make an effort to understand the younger generation. In his
4-H work with California youth, his tremendous charm for children at
tracted them to him, according to J . B. Tippett, a retired extension ad
ministrator and long-time associate of Metcalf. "He knows how to talk
to them and how to teach them and really become a part of them,'1 Tippett
says. "But he was an inspiration to all age groups and to all types."

Within the concept of conservation, Mr. Metcalf is extremely prac
tical — one reason that he was concerned about fire prevention. As for
preservationists, he cannot understand why they do not support the
utilization of a forest for its greatest value or intended use. He
is worried about waste in government — local, state, and national. He
himself worked as a civil servant on a tight budget and got results.
Now when he detects wasted or unproductive activity, it is distressing
to him.

Unproducti vi ty is, even in his retirement years, an unknown in his
own life. While the interview focuses on his formal career as an ex
tension forester, his list of post-reti rement activities is impressive:
he has recently written a history of the first fifty years of the North
ern California Section of the Society of American Foresters; he continues
to advise and consult on any problem or planning attempts concerning the
growing and caring for trees — both ornamental and forest types; he has
conducted surveys in eight California cities (Walnut Creek, Livermore,
Hoi lister, Campbell, Santa Barbara, Ross, Dos Palos, and San Anselmo)*;
he is active in the Saratoga Horticultural Society, the California
Christmas Tree Growers' Association, the California Conservation Council,
the Descendants of the Mayflower, the San Francisco Yatch Club, and the
School of Forestry luncheon meetings each Monday, which he has attended
for the last fifty-four years.

Perhaps the activity for which he is most popularly known is his
singing, a hobby he has pursued since he was a student and one which has
thrown him into many a faculty musical function. He was a song leader
for the 4-H camping program, for the Boy Scouts, and for the School of
Forestry Alumni meetings. In addition, he has sung in several mens1 glee
clubs and the Congregational Church choir.

While in the Regional Oral History Office of the University of
California at Berkeley, helping in the editinq and indexinq of the Hill
Foundation manuscripts which were being done for the Forest History

^Surveys can be found in the Forestry Library, U.C.B.

i i

Society, this interviewer was assigned the production of a four-session
interview with Mr. Metcalf. Paul Casamajor, who compiled Forestry Educa-
tion at the University of California — the First Fifty Years, provided an
initial introduction to~~Mr. Metcalf in the form of a tape recording of
the extension forester's eightieth birthday party in June, 1968. On the
tape are reminiscences, anecdotes, testimonials, great camaraderie, and,
of course, singing. Robert Burton, a Santa Cruz County Supervisor, said,
"hie has taught the joy of living and the fun of doing good work with
people, and losing yourself to service to everybody." He added that Met
calf, if anybody, should be awarded the "Doctorate of Joyous Living."
Howard Neilson, president of the California Christmas Tree Growers Asso
ciation, which Mr. Metcalf helped to found, remembered, "At a meeting
f Metcalf! would stand and pound his cane on the wooden floor and say,
'If you want to be a good tree grower, you have to have the feel.'
Woodbridge has the feel for life." It seemed that here is a man who is
more cheerful than pessimistic, more outgoing than reticent.

Then we met in his office in Mulford Hall a few days later. The
windows of his office, appropriately enough, face the great eucalyptus
grove. On several of our interview dates it had been quite dark and
stormy, but, as if to match his enduring cheerfulness, the sun managed
to shine in his office windows during our morning sessions. We taped
four interviews during which he talked easily and pleasantly for several
hours, his usual exuberance subdued in a thoughtful, business-like
approach to the guest ions. After the transcript was typed and arranged
in chronological order, Mr. Metcalf spent hours carefully checking it
for accuracy of names and places and inserting answers to a few addi
tional questions which he was sent by the interviewer. He also gave a
morning of his time poring over his file of photographs in the library
in order to select a few pertinent pictures to illustrate the final
manuscri pt.

Metcalf had a very happy career, as he himself admits. He has

taught thousands to practice and appreciate good forestry. Indeed,

as Paul Casamajor said at Metcalf's birthday party, he is a true
"forestry ambassador."

Evelyn Bonnie Fairburn
I ntervi ewer-Ed i tor

Amel ia R. Fry

Series Director

January, 1969

i i i

CHRONOLOGY

i'OODBRIDGE HETCALF

oodbridge Metcalf , California conservationist and Extension Forester,
Emeritus, was born at Grosse Point, Michigan, June 23, 1888. He was
raised on a snail farm accessible to good schools, located on the snores
of Lake St. Claire. He attended the University of Michigan and graduated
in 1911. He received a master's degree in forestry from the same insti
tution in 1912.

He worked for a short time in the Snoqualnie national Forest in ashington,
and directed a planting crew in the reforestation of the Barlow Pass burn
in that area. Beginning January, 1913, he worked in Ontario and Nova Scotia
for the forestry branch of the Canadian Pacific Railroad making timber
surveys and fire damage appraisals.

In 191h he married Sorah Clements of Bale, Ontario. Their honeymoon trip
was to Berkeley, California, where he Joined the faculty of the University
of California. In 1926 he became Extension ''pecialist in Forestry with the
Agricultural Extension Service where he remained until his retirement in 1 56.

ith his teaching responsibilities, oody assumed charge of Jhltaker's Forest,
in the big tree country of Tulare County and two forest units near Santa
Monica and Chico. During uorld ar I oody taught military mapping in the
S.A.T.C. At the same time he assisted the State Extension Service in organ
izing 330 farm fire companies for the protection of forests, forage, and
food. This project was to lay the foundation for a nation-wide program
during orld War II.

Between the years of 1923 and 193)4 oody shared in initiating an intensive
campaign of rural fire prevention. Through this program more than 1$0,000
people have been taught fire prevention. During orld ar II he shouldered
the job of emergency farm fire leader and through his efforts over 2,300
farm fire fighting companies were organized and trained in prevention and
suppression of fires. It has been estimated that ten million dollars worth
of resources were saved by this project.

During orld war II oody was responsible for distributing potted cork oak
seedlings in the state's program to produce more cork.

oody enjoys tree and plant identification, particularly in the case of
eucalyptus, about which he is the nation's expert. Because of this know
ledge he was named head of the U.S. delegation to the .orld Eucalyptus
Conference in Pone in 1956. He has compiled a long list of outstanding
native and exotic trees in California. In recent years he has pioneered
the treatment of local woods with new preservatives for the use as fence
posts.

i V

oodbridge i etcalf

Conservation— as it applies to resources or human beings— and Metcalf are
inseparable in California. His friends all know him as a friendly man,
an ardent conservationist and a great teacher.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION i

CHRONOLOGY i v
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICE:

ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION I

Reqinninqs of Extension Forestry 2

Financinq Extension 3

Administration of Extension Forestry 7

AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICE: EXTENSION STAFF 9

COOPERATION WITH OTHER FORESTERS 16

Foresters From Private Industry 17

Working With Emanuel Fritz 18

State Forester Merritt Pratt 21

Working With the Lumber Industry 26

FIRE DEMONSTRATIONS: TEACHING FIRE PREVENTION AND PROTECTION 29

New Equipment 29

Presenting Fire Prevention Demonstrations 32

Establishinq Fire Protection in California 34

The Uses of Control Burning 40

PROJECTS OF THE EXTENSION FORESTER 42

Experimenting With Windbreaks 42

Working With Eucalyptus 44

The Eucalyptus Boom 46

Working With the WPA and CCC During the Depression 49

Organizing the 4-H Camp at Whi taker's Forest 52

Other 4-H Activities 55

The Cork Oak Project 58

Fence Post Dipping Project 62

California Christmas Tree Growers Association 63

Travel I ing 66

OTHER PROJECTS 69

California Conservation Council 69

vi

Radio Talks and Publications
Small Woodlands Council

FORFSTRY LFOI SLAT ION 76

COOPERATION WITH OTIIFR AGENCIES 79

United States Forest Service 79

Working With Fxperiment Station Personnel 81

Soil Conservation Service 82

Change at the University 85

PRESERVATION VS. CONSERVATION 87

CONCLUSIONS: ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF A CAREER 90

APPENDIX A 94

APPENDIX B 100

APPENDIX C 105

APPENDIX D 110

APPENDIX E 120

APPENDIX F 127

INDEX 136

vii

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICE:
ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION

Fair: Please tell me about your work with the Extension Service. My
notes say that your title was "Forestry Specialist."

WM: Well, I think that the Extension Service is one of the most in
teresting organizations that I know anything about. There isn't
anything else just like it anyplace. I imagine that it has changed
in the last few years, but we had stimulating leadership from
Director B. H. Crocheron.

We were stimulated to put out our own program and work with
the farm advisors in the different counties. We would go to the
counties and discuss local problems about land use in the counties
and the things that they were interested in, particularly the for
est lands, if there were any, what their attitude was toward these
lands, and their relation between grazing land and timberland and
agricultural cropland.

It was not an easy problem because most of these fellows, at
least in the early days when there were only one or two men in the
county, had so many problems coming to them from agricultural crop
people that it was a difficult thing for them to give much atten
tion to tree planting or forestry problems. We had to work with
groups sometimes from the Farm Bureau.

WM: One of the reasons I got interested so much in 4-H Club work
and did so much in connection with it was that it gave me an op
portunity to work with the boys and girls in conducting nature
study trips and tree identification trips, discussion of land use
and watershed protection and all of these things in connection with
the forest.

Beginnings of Extension Forestry

Fair: I would like to ask you about the beginnings of Extension Forestry,
Where and when did the idea originate?

WM: You mean having to do with the creation of the position of Exten
sion Forester?

Fair: Yes. Why was there a need at this time? Why do you feel that the
position was created?

WM: Well, it is along the same lines as Agricultural Extension. As

in almost any other part of human knowledge, it has been felt for
a long time that people should be informed and educated about the
various aspects of natural resources, both land and water, and
air, timber, grazing resources, and all of these things.

The Extension Service was set up originally to transmit the
findings of the agricultural experiment stations, and the various
colleges, out to the public, particularly the farmers, to inform
them of the latest information on the way that crops should be, or
could be, grown.

This was a saving of time and wasted energy by trying to grow
things in areas where they couldn't be grown. That all had to do
with the Soils Division which made analysis of lands in California
from the University: analyzing these things as to what would be
the most feasible crop and so on.

Well, of course it wasn't until 1924, with the passage of the
Cl arke-McNary Act, that the federal government had some money set
up to stimulate additional interest in extending information about
forest lands. And that, you see, followed the Agricultural Exten
sion program which came to California in 1913.

Fair: This was a provision of state funds in 1913?

WM: Yes, both state and federal funds. The Extension emphasis on for
estry and the better information about the use of forest lands,
soil conservation, and that sort of thing, didn't come about until
1924. So it was ten years later, you see.

Fair: Now how did you get involved in Extension Forestry?

WM: I was appointed in 1926, about a year and a half after the Clarke-
McNary Act became effective, and the relatively small appropria
tion of $1620.00 a year from the federal government was added to
by the University. But I had worked with the Extension people
quite a lot before that along the same lines, particularly during
World War One when in 1917 and '18, we set up volunteer rural fire
companies for the saving of resources of a I I kinds, things which
were important in the war effort. And those amounted to some three
hundred different rural fire companies throughout the state.

lair: You were just sorl of a natural to go into this position of Exten
sion Forester when it was created, or were there other people con
sidered?

WM: As I said, I knew the Extension people and had worked with them,
enjoyed working with them. They usually invited me to the annual
conference even before I was a member of the staff. I was in
volved in the programs, leading singing and that sort of thing,
which I continue to do, by the way.

Fair: I understand that is something that you enjoy very much.

WM: Yes, I just did so down there at a meeting today of the senior
citizens. I am the song leader for that group too.

Fair: Did you find Extension work a big switch from your teaching res-
ponsib i I it ies?

WM: Well, I enjoyed teaching very much and of course Extension is a
little different method of teaching, but I enjoy people also.
The older I have gotten and the more experience that I have had,
it seems to me that working with people is more important than
some other aspects of human endeavor.

Financing Extension

Fair: Yes, that is true. I am interested to know just how Extension
Forestry was financed.

WM: At the first when this money was set up by Congress under the

Clarke-McNary Act — I have forgotten what the amount was now — I don't
think it was as much as two thousand dollars a year, may have been
about $1620 that was allocated towards the salary of the Extension
Forester. And I got a check from Washington for some time each
month, which came from this fund. And then finally it was taken

WM: over in Agricultural Extension by the much larger appropriation
which Congress continued to make for other types of Extension.
So th i s initial way of starting the program was changed over so
that the money was incorporated into the regular amount of money
that the University received from the federal government for all
Extension work.

Fair: Now were these appropriations increased, say, every five years by

Congress in a set pattern, or did it just so happen that they would
be increased in various years by additional acts of Congress?

WM: Well, a number of different laws through the years were involved,
such as the Weeks law, Clarke-McNary law, Rankhead Jones law, and
so forth; and amendments wore added to them. The Clarke-McNary
law was only one of them.

fair: This was a nation-wide program, is that correct? All the univer
sities in all the states were provided funds for extension?

WM: Following the previous impetus which Congress gave to the land-
grant colleges, which were originally set up for the teaching of
mechanical arts, agriculture, and military science, more funds
were a I located.

They received in the beginning grants of land from Congress,
which through the years has amounted to many millions of dollars
of course. The original land grants involved sections sixteen and
thirty-six of every township. These were grants to states for
general educational purposes, not just agriculture or forestry.

Fair: It was given for education purposes and Congress added to it each
year?

WM: Yes, funds for agricultural experiment stations and then for agri
cultural extensions, through various laws providing for additional
support of certain programs by the land-grant colleges. And then
of course, one of the very large aspects of the Clarke-McNary law
was a much larger appropriation provided to the state for addi
tional forest fire protection. That money did not come to the
University of course, but to State Forestry in the different states.
There was also some money for growing forest nursery stock.

Fair: Now why did the University of California get the funds and not the
state colleges? I understand that the state colleges were also
the land-grant colleges here in California.

WM: No, no state colleges were land-grant colleges. There is only one
institution in each state which is a land-grant college, and here
it is the University of California.

We are very fortunate in California because we do not have, or

WM: have not had until recently, the conflict between state institu
tions. Washington, for example, where the University of Washinq-
ton in Seattle is not a land-grant college and Washington State
College in Pullman is, has a problem. The University of Washing
ton has the leading forestry school in Washington, but all the ex
tension work has been done from Pullman.

Fair: That makes it very difficult.

WM: Yes, it is a very difficult thing and a very great contest between
the two institutions. Minnesota and California are the most for
tunate states in that respect, for in both of them the land-grant
college is the University. Therefore, the federal funds come to
the University.

We had, I suppose, fewer problems in California than some of
the states did, although all of the states did have problems. We
had some, not any very serious ones. One thing of course was that
the Clarke-McNary appropriations for forestry were never increased
after the first appropriation was made. Therefore, this made up a
relatively small part of the millions of dollars that go into the
various types of forestry work in California and the various states.

Then there was a conflict of interest between different or
ganizations and questions of appropriations — state, county, local
fire district, and so forth, or authority on fires, or the adequate
training of volunteer personnel in upkeep of rural fire equipment
and in its most effective use. This was usually handled by local
training meetings and our demonstrations helped with this, as did
the Rural Fire Institutes and county-wide fire protection days.

Each county presented a somewhat different situation which
had to be ironed out by accommodation to personalities and even
tually by contracts between the Board of Supervisors and the State
Forester.

Fair: Now what about s trite funds. A portion of your salary is paid by
federal funds; now how much of it was paid by state funds?

WM: From the University, from the University budget.
Fa i r : Yes .

WM: A I I of the employees in Cal i forni a Extension are hired and paid
by the Regents of the University. In many of the other states,
which are not so fortunate financially as California, there have
been various combinations of finance. In some cases the county
Farm Bureaus paid a part of the farm advisor's salary, or the
county agent, as he is called in most other states.

Fair: Then the county gave no money toward the Extension Forester's
sa I ary?

WM: No, no money. In California the county supervisors have always
paid the cost of the local office and the transportation cost of
the farm advisors nnd their staff, and the University pays their
sa I ary .

f'nir: But the Extension Forester, as yourself, had no contact financially
with the county. Is that correct?

WM: Yes, that is correct. But here again you must realize that there

are wide variations between the various states, and the way in which
these things are set up. I think that it has been a very fortunate
thing that in California the local man was not dependent on the
county, except for his contacts with the county board of supervisors
as far as the annual appropriations was concerned. His job depended
on the Regents of the University.

Fair: Because the federal government did help finance the position of

Extension Forester, did they insist on playing a part in what you
accomplished? Did you have to write reports for them?

WM: Only by suggestion. They appointed at the same time, or a little
bit later, in the federal Extension office in Washington, one or
two U.S. Extension Foresters there.* They were supposed to stimu
late additional information on the part of the Extension Foresters
in the field, such as me, to call on them occasionally, which might
be once in two to five years in California, to find out what they
were doing, to keep informed of this, and to transmit anything
that was of particular interest in any of their departments to
others throughout the United States.

Now of course, the federal Department of Agriculture has
always maintained a financial supervision, in a way, of the money
that came from Washington to the University. I never knew any of
the details of this, but I know that there is an inspection offi
cer who has visited the campus, probably once a year, in order to
go over the way in which the federal money is spent.

I asked one of the regional foresters in the Lake States
why they allowed things to be done without reference to the State
Forester, the Division of Forestry or the Extension forester. They
said, well, we don't have any inspection of these people so we have
no particular interest in what they are doing. That could have
been said about California, but I don't think that it ever was

*The U.S. Extension Forestry was housed with the U.S. Forest
Service in Washington and reported to the U.S.D.A. Director of Ex
tension. The Annual Report of the Extension Forester and all other
Fxtension workers wns transmitted each year by the Extension Direc
tor to Washington, D.C. Comments were sometimes received from the
U.S. Extension Forester.

WM: because all of us realized the importance of understanding the

whole over-all program in the state and the necessity for effec
tive cooperation.

Fair: And so there really weren't any conflicts because you all worked
together.

WM: Very little conflicts of any kind. After all, the problems were
so large and the effort was so comparatively small that we could
do mostly what seemed best to us and as approved in the Annual
Plan of work.*

Fair: Did you ever find that any of your projects were held up or changed
in anyway because of federal interference?

WM: I don't think so.

Administration of Extension Forestry

Fair: The University then is the one whose policies you primarily had to
fol low.

WM: Yes. And of course, the Director of Extension is the directing
head of all the Extension Service. He's part of a three-fold
responsibility of the University Department of Agriculture: A,
teaching; B, Research; C, Extension. This has had its various
aspects during the years.

Now Extension is set up under a vice-president in charge of
agriculture, with the three men reporting to him, the director of
the Aqricu I tural Extension Service, director of the Agricultural
Fxperiment Station, and then the responsibility for teaching which
is under a dean on each of the campuses where agriculture is given.
At the present time, agriculture is only given on the Davis campus,
the Berkeley campus, and the Riverside campus.

I had to write an annual report and everyone in the Extension
Service had to write an annual report.* When these things are
stacked up, they are about that deep. They are on file at Univer
sity Hall and in the Forestry Library in Mulford Hall.

Fair: About two or three feet high.

WM: Presumably, after they were approved here, at least one copy was

*See Appendix A.
** See Appendix A

8

WM: sent to Washington for the information of the Extension Service

in Washington. Whether anyone read them or not, I don't know, but
we all had to make an annual report, following somewhat an outline
that was received from Washington from the U.S.D.A. Extension Ser
vice.

fair: Do you have copier, of these annual reports?

WM: These are all filf:d in tho forestry library, everyone of my annual
reports. The Director of Txtension CCrocheron ] was n man who
stimulated you to do your best job. He left things largely up to
you. Of course, you had to make out an annual program of work,
and all of these programs of work are on file over there in the
Agricultural Extension office, too.

The main advantage of the report was not the report to Wash
ington, but the discipline that you had in doing it, going over
the accomplishments of the year and writing up the places that
you had been, and the people you saw, and how many contacts you
made.

AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICE: EXTENSION STAFE

Enir: I was wondering what contacts you had with Crocheron and how you

worked with him. I know that he supported your 4-H programs. Did
you work closely with him in many of your programs?

WM: Naturally 1 reported to him. He was, I think, one of the outstand
ing Extension Directors in the United States. He was a very posi
tive person and he had some brilliant ideas. He was a dedicated
person to the Extension Service; the welfare of the men and women
who were in the Service, as far as tenure and salaries and all
that sort of thing, was something that he was always fighting for
in the Service.

Of course, he was a lonely person. He never was married; he
had no interest apparently except the Service. The Service was
his whole life. One could never imagine him in a retirement situa
tion; it was probably a very good thing for him that he died before
he had to retire. He had a yacht, one of the finest schooner
yachts on San Francisco Bay, but he rarely asked anyone to go out
with him, except for Glenn Waterhouse and me because we could help
with the sailing of the boat. But he was a man who did not know
how to relax, even on the water.

As I say, he was a strange personality; he was brilliant, ca
pable, but very lonesome. When he died, very strangely enough,
there wasn't anyone that you could write to, to say that you were
sorry.

Fair: Did he die suddenly?

WM: Yes, he had a heart attack and only lived a few days after. It
was one of those things.

You ask in the outline about building up a staff. I never had
any staff of any kind. I had a part-time secretary during the
twenty years that I had an office in Giannini Hall, after we moved
out of Hi Igard to Giannini. The main office of the Extension Ser
vice was in Giannini Hall. There was a steno pool there and 1 had
a part-time secretary, which was all I had until 1939, when Ralph
Waltz was appointed as my assistant. He served until he weiijt Into
the Navy in the spring of 1942. His place was taken by Rtt4di Gran
who served with me for a time until he went to Bolivia in the rub
ber industry program which was a very large war-time program.

Fair: You worked with Grah again later, didn't you, in the early I950's?

9

EXTENSION FORESTERS

1-r

Assistant Extension Forester Rudolf Grab

United States Extension Service Forester William Sowder

Extension Forester Woodbridge Metcalf

10

WM: Yes, he came back after the War was over and was appointed as as
sistant Extension Forester, I think in December, 1945, or January,
1946 — at the end of World War II. He served until he decided he
was going to the University of Michigan to get his doctor's degree.
I was alone for a year or something like that.

I was asked to stay one additional year after I was sixty-seven,
which was 1955. Ed Gilden was appointed during that year and I got
him started. Then I retired in 1956. My tenure was continued dur
ing that extra year.

Fair: Now you say that you were in Giannini Hall with the rest of Agri
cultural Extension specialists, is that correct?

WM: Some of the specialists have always been stationed at Davis and
some in southern California. Forestry was in there too, and so
was the Forest and Range Experiment Station. We were all in that
bui I di ng.

Now the School of Forestry and Conservation is a part of the
Department of Agricultural Sciences of the University. The Forest
and Range Experiment Station is a separate entity — U.S. Forest
Service. But as I said the other day, all of these outfits worked
together pretty closely.

Fair: What about the United States Forest Service Forest and Range Ex
periment Station — what did you do with them? Where was this
located?

WM: Its first location was in Hilgard Hall, then in Giannini Hall,
then in 1947, in Mu I f ord Hall, and later, on Milvia Street in
Berkeley.

Fair: This is the Forest Service one?

WM: Yes, and then when we moved into Giannini Hall, that was 1927, and
a portion of it was assigned to the Forest and Range Experiment
Station. And they were there, and the Extension Service offices
were on the first floor and the specialist offices were right
around that downstairs. My office was room eight for twenty years.
The forestry school was on the second floor. The Giannini Founda
tion, which is also a research organization in agriculture, had
its offices there.

Some of these projects overlap and wherever desirable, they
have joint discussion and probably combine from the different units
to work on the problem together. The men in the field, the farm
advisor's staff in the county, set up test plots to carry out the
suggestions of the experiment stations to see what these things do
under actual field conditions. And the specialists work with them
and examine the test plots, writing up the results. So as you

II

WM: probably noticed in the annual reports, I mentioned different
people in the different organizations.

Fair: It was very advantageous then for all of you.

WM: Yes, very advantageous. When Mu I f ord Hall was built, we moved in
here, and the Forest and Range Experiment Station had their of
fices on the top floor. Then it gradually developed that the
specialists in the various lines in Extension were off iced with
the subject matter division. I think that in almost all cases now
that is true.

But in the beginning, there were relatively few of us, as com
pared to now. We had most of our offices in Giannini Hall adjacent
to the Director's office, which is the big room now occupied partly
by the library. But that whole lower floor has been completely
changed after they rehabilitated the building.

There were always some Extension specialists at Davis. The
Agricul tural Engi neeri ng specialists were always at Davis. Then
gradually of course they set up a Regional arrangement in the
state. This was not true when I came into Extension. Everything
was handled through the Berkeley office.

With growth of population and complexity of agriculture, it
gradually came about that increased staff was needed and specialists
along several lines were assigned as farm advisors in some counties.
Now somewhere between twelve or fifteen staff members are in the
larger counties. Some forestry farm advisors work in two or more
counties.

Fair: What do you mean by present situation? The cut-back in funds to
the University?

WM: Yes, this has had a definite effect. One Fxtension forester was
dropped. There were forty--! don't know how many now — but I know
that at least forty positions have not been filled in Extension
because of the decline in funds. Several of the fellows had to
take early retirement.

Two of the foresters: Jim Gi I I igan, who really took my place,
has gone to Wisconsin; and Ray Isle, who was one of the county
agents and a graduate of this forestry school, was in Mendocino
County and then in Sacramento County doing forestry and 4-H Club
work, was not reappointed; so he is now with the Washington Exten
sion Service in Okanogan County.

Fair: When did the diversification of the specialist take place? When
did some of the administrative work force move out from Berkeley
to the counties? About 1935?

12

WM: Well, this was a gradual development of regional i zat ion in the

north coast counties, the south coast counties, the Sacramento area,
the San Joaquin area, and southern California — five different sec
tions. This was because of the increase in population, and the in
crease in the problems, and the difficulty or greater ease in con
tacting the local people and all that. The same thing happened in
the State Division of Forestry; they set up the regional offices
on about the same basis as the University has.

Fair: There are five areas. Now did these men work directly under you?

WM: No, no. These people are Agricultural Extension. I was only one
of the specialists in the Agricultural Extension Service.

Fair: Oh, I see. But they did have a different specialist in each of the
five areas depending on the need.

WM : No, they had administrative personnel in each of the five areas.
Gradually in those counties in which, say, fruit products were
most important, they had a local farm advisor who devoted all of
his attention and was a specialist in fruit products. There was
one in dairy products, one in animal products, grazing and other
areas of specialization, as these things became more in demand by
the local people.

Usually it was a request by the Farm Bureau and other agri
culture people to the board of supervisors, who would agree to
look after the local costs in connection with it, if such a person
were appointed by the University.

Fair: Was there any specialist in forestry in, say, the northern counties,
besides you?

WM: There were several graduates in forestry in counties but often
with other responsibilities than forestry. In all the northern
count ies?

!~;)ir: Well, that is where all the lumbering is.

WM: No. To explain the relationships between Agricultural Extension
and the College of Agriculture, the United States Forest Serivce,
the Soil Conservation Service, the State Division of Forestry, is
a difficult thing to get any understanding of by the outsider, by
the average person. It is a very, very complicated arrangement.

Fair: You were the forestry specialist. Now who were some of the other
specialists in Extension?

WM: Well, I mentioned Jim Fairbank was in agricultural engineering,
and there were the three 4-H Club specialists that ! worked very
closely with: Waterhouse, Ralston, and Spurrier. Then Eddie

13

WM: Gordon, the dairy specialist, had his office next to mine in
Giannini Hall. And Bi I I Newlin, the poultry specialist; Dr.
McKay, specialist in animal diseases; Burle Jones in range manage
ment — there were others on soils, entomology, citrus, and so forth.

Fair: Were there about twenty or thirty different specialists?
WM: Something like that.

Fair: What type of specialist was Tippett? Was he an administrative
specia I i st?

WM: Yes. He came in 1913 with Mr. Crocheron and was always sort of
office manager in the Extension Service.

Fair: Did Tippett help you set up a budget each year?

WM: Well after all, these things were arranged on a rather regular

schedule. (Phone rings) As you have probably noticed in the an
nual reports, we drew up a plan of work for the year, in which you
outlined certain places where you were going and the things that
you planned to do; and this whole thing involved discussions with
other people in the administrative office, and all that. They
looked it over and after it was approved and at the end of the
year, you were supposed to indicate whether you had done all of
these things. In many cases you had, and some you hadn't.

Fair: What kind of man was Tippett? I understand that you are good
friends.

WM: Oh yes. He certainly was one of the most understanding of people.
He looked out after people who got into difficulty, who were hurt
or became sick. A very helpful person.

Fair: He seemed to be very compassionate.

WM: Very, yes, he always did that. You have probably seen the write-up
that Agricultural Extension wrote about him recently. And also
the one on Burle Jones that just came out about two or three weeks
ago. He was the specialist in range management. He is still liv
ing down in San Mateo County. You would be interested in getting
a copy of that. The first one came out on Crocheron, then the one
on Tippett, and then this one on Burle Jones.

I have got to remember to send this to different people who
were in the Forest Service and the Soil Conservation Service who
worked with him on range improvement and management. I found out
at our meeting of the F.S.X. Forest Service Retirees* meeting last

*l am a member of F.S.X. on the basis of my work on the
Snoqualmie National Forest in 1911 and 1912.

14

WM: Monday that Russell Beeson, for example, who was range specialist
for the Forest Service had not seen this write-up on Jones;
Cronenmi I ler also, who was a range specialist. He lives down in
the San Mateo area. They both knew Burle Jones well and worked
with him. They were the people most interested in seeing this
report on his career.

Fair: Could you say something about James Fairbanks at Davis whom you
did so much work with? Can you tell me about some of the work
that you did with him and what kind of a person he was?

WM: As I said, we worked very closely together for, I guess, a total
of nine to ten years, of which we spent fifty percent of our time
on these fire demonstrations, preparing for them and putting them
on, and arranging for the Rural Fire Institutes, contacting the
different organizations, and getting the meetings here or at Davis
or at UCLA. So we had them back and forth, the preparation of the
eguipment reports, and the organizational reports on local fire
organization and all. We worked very closely together.

Fair: Was he easy to get along with?

WM: Oh yes. We never had any problems. We traveled thousands and
thousands of miles together in this truck that we had.

Fair: Can you think of any interesting experiences that the two of you
had together when you were traveling, or when you were presenting
demonstrations?

WM: CChuckleU Oh lots of them. They were very enjoyable. He was a
humorous person, and he had a very dry wit. We got along just
fine. One of the meetings that we did at Davis, for one of these
leadership meetings, we put on a little skit in which he took the
part of the farmer, and I took the part of the ranger coming in to
make inspections. We worked up several things like that, trying
to appeal to people.

f/iir: What did you do with the Farm Bureau?

WM: Of course, the Farm Bureau was set up originally as a medium

whereby the information of the University could be presented to
farmers.

Fair: I thought that was Extension's job?

WM: Extension is the arm of the University to do it, but the Farm

Bureau, through the Farm Bureau centers in the different counties,
supervised and assisted by the local farm advisor who is the local
representative of the Extension Service, held meetings, usually a
monthly meeting, of each center. They held commodity meetings on
potatoes and grain, and fruits, animals, and various other farm

15

WM: crops, where specialists from the University, either Extension

specialists from the experiment station or elsewhere, transmitted
this information to the farmers.

Take the cow-testing association, for example, which was pro
moted by the dairy division of Extension Service at Davis. Through
the specialist, who was Eddie Gordon (he died about six or seven
years ago now), cows were signed up for testing. The application
of breeding techniques to the dairy cattle resulted in an enormous
increase in milk and butter-fat production by the cows in Califor
nia. Los Angeles County had the largest cow-testing organization
In the United States. I don't know where it is now because there
are too many houses there now and they probably don't have so many
cows.

But that is the kind of thing, you see, that Extension is all
about. All of these things have been going on to the point where
some big counties now have specialists in a number of crop special
ties important in the counties.

Fair: I see, rather than one here at Berkeley only.

WM: Because, for the state man, such as I was, it got to be too big

a job in some counties. You couldn't do it. So counties like Los
Angeles have something like twenty people in the Extension Service,
specialists in citrus, dairy, poultry, floriculture, and many
other crops.

COOPERATION WITH OTHER FORESTERS

Fair: Who were some of the others you worked with?

WM: Well, E. I. Kotok. was director of the Forest and Range Experiment
Station, and teV<^y~Hill was in charge of products in the station,
and Charles Kraebel (who still lives in Berkeley) was silvicul-
turist in the experiment station. They have a field station at
Black Mountain in Lassen County and one in Los Angeles County.

At San Dimas station near Los Angeles, studies of watershed
management are conducted. Don Sinclair, who was a graduate of
the forestry school, was the director of the San Dimas station
for a long time. I occasionally went up there and discussed the
problems with them about planting, clearing firelines, and these
other various aspects of watershed protection which is so impor
tant in southern California.

Fair: Can you think of any project that you and the men who were work
ing with Kotok happened to solve in forestry? Was there any prob
lem at the experiment station that you gave assistance to?

WM: Well, I don't know really. Of course, the station in those early
days was small. They were just getting started. Our program was
small, and as I think that I said the other day, the problems
were overwhelmingly large. Everybody was working along certain
areas, for example, testing fire resistant plants.

They are still working on that, to find plants which may be
suitable for the prevention of erosion on burns, and also on the
fire lanes which are built to make it easier to control fires.
They have been testing for years plants from different parts of
the world that might be fire resistant, as well as drought resist
ant and frost resistant; so that if the fire came up to this area,
it would not burn as fiercely or bare the land which would lay it
open to erosion during heavy rainfall, but it would have plants
that would spread fire less rapidly than grass or young trees.

Fair: Now would this be like Compos i te , or small woody ground cover —

Atrip lex?

WM: Yes, Atriplex, saltbush, a number of these things, like ice-plant,
for example, Mesembryanthemum. This grows all right down in lower
areas, but it won't stand frost; so again you have got this prob
lem of climatic influences, soil influences, and all.

16

17
Foresters from Private Industry

Fair: Did you know Richard Colgan, the private forester for Diamond
Match?

WM: Yes. He is a graduate of Michigan State University. I never knew
him really well, but I knew that he was a very capable person high
up in the organization. And of course, on these committees that
were set up by the lumber industry, which has developed into the
Keep California Green, the representatives of the different lum
ber companies were all interested in fire prevention, and also in
the development in this cooperative fire protection plan for Cali
fornia, under the Cl arke-McNary Act.

The amount that they spent for local fire protection and the
cooperation that they put in was counted in connection with the
amount of money that came from Washington for forest protection
in Ca I i fornia.

Fair: Who were some of the other company foresters that used to come
along with Richard Colgan to these meetings? Do you remember
any of the other private foresters? Did the Union Lumber Company
have a private forester?

WM: Yes. Bob Swails was one of the men up there at Union Lumber Com
pany. He was interested in Eucalyptus too and did some Eucalyptus
planting in the early days.

Fair: How about the Arcata Lumber Company?

WM: No. The Union Lumber Company had a Carl Garhardy, who just died

recently, and Virgil Davis at Fort Bragg. Davis was in the field,
and Carl Garhardy in 1922-25 was in charge of their nursery, where
they raised over a million trees a year for planting in the red
wood cutover lands.

At the same time — what were those fel lows' names at the
Pacific Lumber Company at Scotia? They had two men there. Wirt
was the man in charge of the nursery. They had a very large nur
sery at Scotia for carrying on planting in the redwood area. The
man who was in the fields, the field forester, was a graduate of
the University of Washington and went back up into Washington. I
think that Wirt is dead now, but I can't remember the other's name,
Dave Mason, who was here on the faculty for a while, and then was
a Major in W.W. I, was consulting forester for the redwood indus
try and set up a lot of these things.

Fair: What things?

18

WM: The planting program, and the plan for the better management of
redwood lands, better protection, better cutting procedures, and
so on, in the Twenties. Al I of this went by the board in 1929.
During the Depression, very, very, very regrettably, the redwood
industry completely wiped out all of the forestry programs that
they had. They closed the nurseries and let the foresters go.

If they only had seen the advisability of cooperative main
tenance of one man to carry on the necessary research work on a
continuing basis, no matter whether it was done at Fort Bragg
or Scotia or wherever, they would have been years and years ahead,
But they didn't do it.

Working With Emanuel Fritz

Fair: What about Emanuel Fritz? Can you tell me something about him?

WM: He came here after World War I where he was Captain in the Sig
nal Corps. He and I made several trips in the early days up into
the redwood country. (Then I got interested in putting a lot of
time in 4-H work in the pine country.) He became known as Mr.
Redwood and headed up the work that the University did in con
nection with the redwood people.

We laid out the plot in Big River in 1923 when it became
known as the wonder plot. The one acre demonstration area,
study area in extent which had been growing for sixty-five years,
had 130 thousand board feet of timber on that one acre, showing
what bottom lands in the redwood country will do if they are pro
tected from fire. This area was too wet to burn, but the sur
rounding area had been burned maybe two or three times in the
sixty-five years; and so it was practically nothing but small
sprouts.

Fair: Do you think that Emanuel Fritz was bitter about his S.A.F. ac
tivities? Because he was so active, and he then seemed to be so
bitter in the end when he retired from the editorship of the
Journal .

WM: I don't think he was bitter about S.A.F. He is a strange person
ality anyway. I don't know — I suppose that I know him as well as
anybody. Fritz was apt to be curt and abrupt a lot. He was not
easy to be friendly with. He had a strange personality but he did
a lot for S.A.F.

He was opposed to many of the Forest Service policies, some
people thought unduly critical of the policies. He was close to

19

WM: the lumber owners in the redwood region and he established the
annual redwood logging congress for better silviculture, fire
practices and logging in the redwood region. The redwood region
owes him a lot for his interest and work.

He and I were here for many years but he was working in a
different field. He was teaching on the campus and working pri
marily with the redwood region, and also as editor of the Journa I
of Forestry for quite a long time. We didn't get a chance to do
very much together, except in connection with redwood meetings
occasionally. I attended the redwood logging congress several
times with him, but we didn't arrange meetings together because
he was working with a different group of people.

Fair: You started to say that people didn't understand him sometimes?

WM: Well, that was mannerisms I guess, and attitudes. He had a sort
of--l don't know if you would call it a combative attitude. He
worked very closely with the lumber industry, and he was rather
critical of a good many of the attitudes and methods of the For
est Service.

He was consultant to the State Division of Forestry, to the
Board of Forestry for a time. I never went to any of those meet
ings that he was at, and I don't think that I ever went to more
than two or three meetings because I didn't have that involvement.
He was employed by them as a consultant on policy matters and that
kind of thing. Occasionally I would be invited to go to a meet
ing if I was around Sacramento.

Fair: Fritz was employed by the state as a consultant?

WM: I really don't know what the situation was, that is, whether he
was actually employed by the State Board of Forestry; but he put
in a lot of time working with them.

Fair: Now you say that Fritz was a consultant for the Board of Forestry?
WM: I can't say exactly that he was; he was at a lot of the meetings.

Fair: This was when they were writing the Forest Practice Act? He was
so active in this work.

WM: Yes, I think so, about that time. I went to a few of those meet
ings. They held district meetings in the five different forest
districts in the state: I, the North Coast; II, the North Interior;
III, Central; IV, Southern Sierra; and V, South Coast (Southern
California is stated as District VI, but is not a logging district).

At the time, they were holding the meetings for discussion
for the suggestions that the industry and land-owners and grazing

20

WM: had made at these meeting. I went to a few of these meetings but
not all of them.

Fair: Who was Herb Gil man?

WM: Gi Iman was representative of the water interests in southern

California on the State Board of Forestry. He was from San Dimas
and was very active, and a very capable and dedicated man. I en
joyed him very much.

Fair: Did you know Colonel William Greeley?

WM: I met him a fow times. I never knew him very well, but I met him
at the Society of American Foresters meetings. I admired him very
much. He was one of the leading foresters in this country. He
was Colonel of the forestry regiments during World War One, and
later, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service. After that, he came out
west and was with the lumber industry in Portland. He had a long
and very distinguished career.

Fair: Can you tell us anything about Mr. Lowdermilk and about your work
together with soil erosion projects?

WM: He was here in the Forest and Range Experiment Station, working
on erosion control methods. He made suggestions for the erosion
setup that we used in that fire demonstration. This was one of
his major interests.

Fair: Did you have contact with any of the governors listed here:
Stephens, Young, or Rolph or Merriam, or Olson, or Warren or
Knight?

WM: Only indirectly. I went to see Warren when he was attorney gen
eral. He was very much interested in the forestry and fire pro
tection program, and helped it a good deal in getting better fire
protection started. I think he was very helpful after he became
governor, because he was naturally inclined toward conservation.

Fair: Did he help you start the conservation week at the beginning of
spr i ng?

WM: All of the governors have issued a conservation week proclamation,
beginning about thirty years ago.

Fair: Do you remember Ray Clar?

WM: Oh yes, from the time that he was a student here.

Fair: He told me about taking your silviculture class in 1919.

21

WM: Yes. I knew him well. Then he was a ranger in Sonoma County
before he went to Sacramento, after he graduated. He was down
here not too long ago, looking through the photographic file that
I had charge of for thirty years or more. It is now up in the
forestry library attic.

Fair: How would you assess Ray Clan's work under Pratt?

WM: I think that he had some problems — his health wasn't good for

quite a while. He was Chief Deputy State Forester for a while,
and he had a health breakdown on account of the pressures of that
office. He was reassigned to this historical matter because of
this health condition that he had. He made a very good recovery
from it, but the frustrations and the pressures in that office
up there got to be too much for him.

State Forester Merritt Pratt

Fair: Why didn't this affect Pratt in the same way?

WM: Well, I think Merritt was one person in a thousand in that job.
He had more of a placid personality, and I don't think that he
worried a lot about things. He had an unusual amount of adapta-
bility to different conditions in Sacramento, changing adminis
trations and all that sort of thing.

I always had great admiration for him because not very many
people could have persisted under the job that he had and these
frustrations and pressures and everything else.

Fair: What kind of frustrations and pressures were there?

WM: There was the problem of different interests.

I ni r : You mean po I i Ncs?

WM: Yes, political interests.

Fair: Do you think that many of Pratt's problems were politically
orientated?

WM: Yes, there were the personalities of the members of the State

Board of Forestry. He had some very difficult times in connec
tion with that. Dr. Pardee was an outstanding chairman of the
Board. He kept things on a pretty even keel. But the governors
appointed the people and they appointed some strange personali
ties that didn't contribute greatly to the actual work of the

22

WM: Board. The other man who was chairman later, president also of

the American Forestry Association, what is his name? William . . .

Fair: Oh, Rosecrans?

WM: Yes. He was a very good chairman of the Board.

Fair: Can you tell me what was the State Forester's relation to the
Board of Forestry, at the time that Pratt was State Forester?

WM : He was secretary of the Board and its executive officer.
Ciiir: Hid he take orders from the Board of Forestry?

WM: The Board of Forestry is supposed to be a policy-making Board,
similar to the Board of Regents of the University, for example.
The executive officer is the State Forester.

Fair: Did the State Forester have a vote on the Board?
WM: I don't think so.

Fair: He was just secretary. Who were some of these strange characters
that the governor appointed politically?

WM : They were recommended by different interests. I wish I could
remember some of them. Warren Marsh was from Santa Barbara.

Fair: How about Rex Black?

WM: Black, of course, was a very controversial figure. He represented
the lumber industry on the Board, but also he and Pratt didn't
get along at all. He was antagonistic toward the State Forester.
He tried to get him — he wanted to be State Forester himself, I am
sure.

Fai r: Real ly?

WM: That is one of the reasons why — and he did a lot of politicking
to try to accomplish this. But he was never able to do it.

Fair: Why was he antagonistic toward Pratt?

WM: I guess, personalities; and he thought that Mr. Pratt wasn't
positive enough and that he didn't favor the lumber industry.

Fair: Do you think that Black was justified in these accusations?

WM: No, I don't think so. And of course Black was — I guess he was
disbarred from the Society of American Foresters.

23

Fair: Yes, but then he joined again.
WM: Because of all of this political activity.
Fair: Tell us about Marsh.

WM: He was a local politician from Santa Barbara, and he was kind of

a lightweight individual. I don't think that he had any — I don't
know how he was appointed to the Board, really. It seems to me
that he had been in the nursery business, or was in landscaping.

Fair: Why did he cause trouble on the Board with Pratt?

WM: He was kind of a flighty person. I don't think he really under
stood the underlying situation, but he apparently had a follow
ing in southern California.

Fair: What was the underlying situation that this man did not under
stand?

WM: Well, as I remember it, he was interested in doing some rather
impractical things in connection with watershed protection in
southern California. He wanted to seed and plant knobcone pines.
I think that they nicknamed him nobby-cone pine.

Fair: Pratt didn't think that this would be effective?

WM: I don't think that the rest of the Board went along with it.
That was just one of the things. You know, you can't expect
all of the people on a Board to be cordial, any more than you
can expect any group like that to be fully understanding and
cooperative and all. We have a good example of that on the
Berkeley City Council.

r.iir: I guess ono just does tho host ho can, and that is it.

WM: Yos, th.rl- is i I .

Fair: Was Ci I man on the Board during the problems of the Thirties?

WM: No, he was later, I think. No — earlier than this man.

Fair: Was he on the Board during the problem with Black?

WM: I don ' t th ink so.

Fair: You were one of Pratt's best friends, and when Black made these
accusations against Pratt, they were guite serious. He charged
Mr. Pratt with incompetency and a lot of other things. How did
Pratt react to this? Did he ever tell you how he felt? Was he
hurt by al I of this?

24

WM : Not in detail, no. But I knew that Black was really an enemy of
Pratt. He had shown it in his attitude for some time. I think
that Merritt was worried by it, of course; it bothered him a lot.
In spite of all that, he had enough friends and supporters, and
so the charges didn't get anywhere.

Fair: He had friends in the Forest Service and the State Division of
Forestry, as Black's friends were in the industry?

WM: Well, I don't know. I suppose so, because Black was secretary-
manager of the California Forest Protective Association, which
was the mouthpiece of the lumber industry. Naturally, I don't
know if all the people in the industry were behind his efforts
to get the State Forester out of his job. Much of this was hear
say to me as I was busy with other affairs.

Fair: Do you think that there might have been some dissent ion in this
organ i zation?

WM: I don't know about that. Essentially, the California Forest Pro
tective organization, on the face of it, was supposed to be an
organization for the protection of the lands and the promotion
of good fire protection and forestry measures and all; but actually
what it was was a political organization to protect the lumber in
dustry against legislation they did not favor.

Fair: Can you give me an example where they were effective in this?

WM: They took a position that anything that came up in Sacramento

that would be designed to raise taxes on the lumber industry or
do anything in the management way, or control — they were opposed
to it. As a matter of fact, the C.F.P.A. was a lobbying organi
zation for the industry, in Sacramento.

I'.iir: Do you think that it is still like that?
WM: I suppose i1 i s to a certain extent.

Fair: Do you think that because of the fancy name, "Forest Protective
Association," they were able to get a part of the Cl arke-McNary
reimbursement funds for fire protection?

WM: I don't think that is correct, that the companies got some of the
money.

Fair: The Association didn't get any money?

WM: I don't know about that. I didn't think that they ever got any
thing from the Cl arke-McNary fund. Because you see, the companies
were supposed to put out a certain amount of matching funds, and
then allocations from Clarke-McNary money were made, not to the

25

WM: companies, but to the whole program of fire protection. I never
heard that the Association as such got any money. I don't see
how that could be possible.

Fair: Could the money have been allotted to C.F.P.A. and then they di
vided it up among the member companies?

WM: I don't think that would have been possible. They probably had
n representative in developing the program, similar to what the
Western forestry and Conservation Association in Oregon and Wash
ington did. Those things were somewhat different in the different
states .

Fair: What kind of governor was Merriam? Was he weak, strong? Did you
know him or know anything about him?

WM: I never knew any of the governors very well.

Fair: What I want to know is, that shortly after Black tried to oust
Mr. Pratt, the Board of Forestry ceased to meet for two years.
Did Mr. Pratt ever say anything about this to you? You mentioned
this fact in your annual report, that the Board of Forestry had not
met.

WM: I think the situation had been so tense that the governor just
let things cool off for a time. I was not in very close touch
with underlying currents at Sacramento, as I was too fully oc
cupied with my own job and the work of the Extension Service. As
a member of the University, I was not supposed to take part in
political activities nor to attend meetings unless reguested to
do so.

I think that they just guit meeting on account of this whole
controversy and the opposition to Black and everything, and Black
went to Minneapolis after this.

Fair: That was guite a while after that, wasn't it?

WM: Some time after it. I know that the Board didn't meet. They
just kind of let it drop.

Fair: Do you think that they scattered in confusion, or do you think
that the governor refused to let them meet because of the dis
sension?

WM : The governor appoints the Board, but after the Board is appointed,
I don't think that he has anything to do with their activities.

l.iir: Can you toll rrio something more ribout some of the comment's ttmt
Mr. Pratt would have made lo you about problems in I he Hoard of
Forestry or the Division of Forestry? You see, you are one of the

26

Fair: few people that we have contacted that knew Pratt as a personal
friend.

WM: When the Save-the-Redwoods League was started and the state ap
propriated- that six million dollar fund for purchase of redwood
lands for state parks, of course the State Board of Forestry ad
ministered that program. There was no park department or park
system at all.

Prntt was Stnte Forester, and the Deputy Forester, Solon
Williams, wns put in charge of that purchase program and he
handled o lot of these contacts. He set up the investigations
for determining the value of the lands and the expenditure of this
six million dollar fund. That was all done under the direction of
the State Board of Forestry, and later the State Park Service was
created and took it over.

Mr. Pratt was very active in the acquisition of parks, was
enthusiastic about the program and all. He was primarily con
cerned with other aspects of the work of the Division, fire pro
tection and cooperative agreements with counties for this purpose.

Fair: Was he a preservationist?

WM: Well, I think that he was I i ke a good many people in our genera
tion. He was a forester first and believed in the multiple-use
program.

Fair: So Pratt was more of a conservationist, a multiple-use man?

WM: I think so. He was a graduate of Yale Forest School and he had
been in the Forest Service, and he had the multiple-use idea of
forestry management. I would say that he wasn't a preservation
ist any more than I think that most foresters are.

Working With the Lumber Industry

Fair: Did you work with private industry at all?

WM: Well, of course, there you have to realize most of the things

that the University does, or the Agricultural Extension Service
does, is largely on request. If you are requested to do certain
things, that is fine; but otherwise you don't go into a place and
make suggestions.

Fair: Private industry could request that you come in and help them?
WM: Thnl i -. ri'ihl. I w.r, jii',1 looking -il ono of 1ho pub I irnl ions

27

WM: on my desk that came in the mail today* along that line. This

article is about wood chips. The man from Extension says, "Sac
ramento hn-r, just approved n 5.3 million dollar bond issue of which
two and <i h.ilf million arc to provide facilities to handle a hun
dred thousand bone-dry units per year of pulp chips to go to Japan.
This more than doubles the volume of chips that goes through the
port."

Now he goes on to say, "As stumpage prices continue to rise
there is a possibility that additional recovery from the log will
become more important." And this is the critical point, "I will
be glad to help in projecting the chip price required for profit
able operation, if requested." That is the point that I had in
mind.

Fair: Who requested you to help them? Can you think of any of the com
panies that you had assist them during your career?

WM: I did some experimental planting for the Union Lumber Company.
Fair: But that was before you were Extension Forester.

WM: Yes. Gut later of course, the redwood people organized the Red
wood Region Conservation Council, which is a public contact between
the California Redwood Association and the public. They sponsor
fire protection programs and a logging congress, and also sponsor
the teaching of practical forestry in the high schools to attract
capable boys into the industry.

I was one of the people who helped start the junior logging
congress which was held in the area for the one hundred high
school boys selected each year. It is all a matter of contact,
you see, with this Redwood Region Conservation Council, which is
a branch really of the lumber industry of the region. That is
just an example of it.

During the C.C.C. days, in cooperation with Santa Cruz County,
I did some test planting on the lands of the Santa Cruz Lumber Com
pany in connection with one of the 4-H Clubs of Felton. The leader
had been the railroad agent at Felton. The Club got the use of
about four or five acres of cutover land from the Santa Cruz Lum
ber Company, up toward the top of the ridge. We got stock for
them and I went down there, and the boys and girls did some of
the planting.

Fair: Did you get the stock from the state nursery?

*Publication from Agricultural Economics, by forest products
spec i a I i st , W i I I i am Dost .

28

WM : I can't remember now, but most likely.

Fair: Did you work with the Diamond Match Company when they were fire-
proofing their lands? Richard Colgan, their forester, did a lot
of fire-prevention work. Did you work with this particular com
pany?

WM: We did the fire prevention work in cooperation with the State

Division of Forestry and the U.S. Forest Service. The programs
that we carried on durinq fhe fire demonstrations from the spring
of about 1 070- 1 9 '/j or so wore in cooperation with . . . well, any
body who was interested: local fire districts, and local fire
departments, and state rangers who were in charge of a county.

The county farm advisor usually worked on arranging the meet
ings through the fire departments and with the high schools and
the other schools. Of course, where it was possible we gave de
monstrations for the Farm Bureau centers.

I remember one year — I don't remember the year — but we gave
one of the fire demonstrations at one of the annual tours that
the Farm Bureau had where quite a large number of people from
many of the different counties went around in certain areas to
see the agriculture there. The demonstration was with Mr. Fair-
bank, the agricul tural engi neer. We were the two who worked on
demonstrations.

There were representatives from the different areas who were
much concerned with fire prevention. People from different lum
ber companies would come to these meetings and assist in arrang
ing for the demonstrations, so in that regard, I think that you
could say that we did work with them as much as we could.

Fair: Did you ever give fire demonstrations for the employees of the
different lumber companies? for the timberjacks?

WM: I don't think so. They may have sent people, a fire boss or

foreman, to these demonstrations to watch because there was quite
a lot of publicity sent out in the areas in which they were to be
given. The public was welcome.

FIRL: DEMONSTRATIONS: TEACHING FIRE PREVENTION AND PROTECTION

New Equipment

Eair: When you were doing the fire prevention demonstrations, do
you remember helping to develop any new tools for fire
prevention, or watching any develop so that fire prevention
or fire fiqhting was easier? I know that they started out
at one time fighting fires with sacks and shovels, and then
they got trucks. You worked during this early period, didn't
you?

WM: The machinery was very limited in its capacity at the beginning,
The automobile and the truck were developing, but most of these
fire protection outfits that came out in the early days were
overloaded. We tried to show at the demonstrations the latest
things that were out, such as power take-off on the trucks,
new types of nozzles, improved hose, etc. We demonstrated
the first fog nozzles that were used, both in the back-pack
pump and in the other equipment that is standard for all fire
departments now. If there was a fire in this room, the fire
fighter can just break a hole in the window and poke a fog
nozzle in, filling the whole place with fog. This is better
than a stream of water which would break the other windows or
damage other things. Fog is very effective in fighting many
different kinds of fires.

Of course the Equipment Committee from the Rural Fire
Institute, made up of people from Agricultural Engineering
at Davis, tho State Board of Forestry, the United States
Forest Service, nnd the Board of Fire Underwriters of the
Pacific, were working right along in the development of more
adequate equipment, and improvements in various mechanical
lines. Back-pack pumps and portable equipment that could be
put on a small engine truck and used with high pressure hose
were developed. One of the first outfits that we had on a
University truck was a hundred gallon barrel, just a water
barrel of steel, water, and a power take-off from the truck
engines. It was one of the first developments of that kind,
and Mr. James Fairbank fixed that up.

We had a monitor nozzle that the driver could use with
one hand while he drove the truck with the other hand, to
use to throw a stream of water on a grass fire or a fire near
a roadway. We actually fought a number of fires just

29

EARLY FIRE FIGHTING EQUIPMENT

(above) fire truck with moniter water
nozzel. 1928

(right) Early portable back-pump

(below) Emergency Farm Fire Protection
Project, farm equipment .1942

30
WM: because the truck happened to be there. I remember one

fire right near Davis. We were going up to Davis to put on
a demonstration for the 4-H Club Congress at the annual
meet! ng.

fair: What year was this?

WM: Mnybe 193'; or so, I don't reiromber exactly when it was. But

we had thn truck there and we were going by a fire, so we went
in and helped to fiqht it. The Dixon Fire Department was on
the job and 1he only equipment that they had was two fifty
gallon acid and soda tanks. When those tanks were exhausted,
they had to go clear back to headquarters to get them recharged.
This was a good demonstration of the inefficiency of a lot
of the equipment that was in use at that time. Now of course,
all you have to do is look in any of the fire protection journals
and you can see how vastly all of this equipment has improved.
But we were in the beginning of it.

Fair: Can you give me an example of how your fire prevention

demonstrations changed from I928 to the I940's? Can you
contrast the two demonstrations and tell me what particular
innovations took place in those years that would have made the
demonstrations different?

WM: I don't know. After our beginning demonstrations the
state built four fire trucks on Moreland truck chassis.
They were the first fire trucks that the State Division
of Forestry had. They were pretty good outfits for that time
because they were largely experimental, but they didn't have
enough power to go to places off the road.. That of course
was the problem of most of the fire truck, and perhaps still
is. With most of the large city equipment you can't get to
the places in the country, on country roads, in sandy conditions,
or steep, narrow roadways, where they have too big a load
on the truck for the road. As new developments, such as the
truck, came along we could use say, the latest state-owned
fire truck and driver at +he demonstration to show improvements
of recent innovation.

Fair: What new tools were there besides the truck and the shoulder
pack and the fog-foam?

WM: There was constant improvement in the back-pack pump to make
it more comfortable to carry, for instance. And then these
little pumpers developed by Western Fire Equipment Company
in Seattle — a four cylinder unit that could be lifted off
a truck, or carried on a small trailer were demonstrated by us.

The Equipment Committee got out the Rural Fire Protection
Equipment Manual which discussed the experiments that they

31

WM: h,id carried on. For exnmple, Denn Roy Rainer, I quess that

fie is just retiring now from Davis — maybe he has retired, but

ho did the first work on the amount of water that can be distributed

through hose of a small size at different pressures. There

was information already available on the big hose — two and a half

to three inch hose. He actually carried on the research work

at Davis to develop what information was necessary in using

minim amounts of water to get the maxium amount of fire

suppression.

Fair: When you were establishing the fire prevention programs you
developed the mountain fire truck. Is that correct?

WM: All of the men on the Committee had a part in that continuing
developing of better fire equipment.

F.iir: I see, nnd I ho mountain f i ro truck was just one of these steps.

WM: II w.is just one of those; developments. Thoy wore experimental
lo start with. Iho Commi Meo proposed chnnqos, and got an
outfit buiM, and then went out and tested it, just like the
four Moreland trucks that I mentioned. Naturally the automotive
industry was improving during that same time, and all of these
were a steady development. You see a Model T Ford being run now,
and you just wonder, boy, after all that is all the farm advisors
had to begin with, canvas topped Model T Fords.

Fair: Who was on this Equipment Committee at different times? Do
you recal ! any names?

WM: Bainer of Davis, Professor Walker, the head of the Division of
Agricultural Engineering, James Fairbank was the Extension
engineer who worked closely with the people, and F.P. Burnsides
and R.H. Stalnaker from the State Division of Highways. Loren
Rush was the engineer from the Roard of Fire Underwriters of the
I'.icific, nnd then certain equipment men from the State Division
of forestry won; .ill interested in this.

Fnir: Were you on this committee also?

WM: No, I wasn't on the Equipment Committee because Mr. Fairbank was

the Extension engineer on that committee. But I was very interested
in their work. I was on the Public Relations Committee, and also
active in the development of volunteer organizations for fire
prevention and cooperative presentation of the demonstrations.

32
Presenting fire Prevention Demonstrations

Fair: What were some of your duties on the Public Relations Committee?
Did you plan the demonstrations?

WM: Yes. Jim Fairbank and I did that, of course. He did certain
parts of it, and I did certain parts of it.

Fair: Did people request you to give demonstrations in different
places or did you solicit demonstrations?

WM: No, we made a schedule of what dates we would be in San Diego
County, for instance, and left it to the State Ranger and the
farm advisor to make contacts with the local people in the
schools and so on, to put on the demonstrations when we were
there.

Fair: How many years did you carry on these demonstrations?

WM: It was usually done in the spring, about three months I think
we devoted to it; March, April and May would be about the time
that we tried to do it. It would be in advance of the fire
season and while the schools were still in session.

Fair: Were the meetings where you gave your demonstrations especially
organized for that purpose? They were not like PTA meetings
or community club meetings where you were just a part of the
program?

WM: They were done at schools, either high school or junior high
schools, or occasionally at an elementary school in a rural
area. Most of the time the principals were very cooperative,
for in most cases we had the whole student body there, despite
the fact that a number of principals said that they didn't
think that we could hold the interest of the students.

Fair: Who attended your meetings besides children?

WM: People came from around the neighborhood, various people

who were interested in fire prevention: farmers and others.

Fair: Did you ever have an important surprise guest or anything?
Did Mr. Pratt ever drop in on any of the demonstrations?
Or how about the mayor?

WM: Those thinq'. woro <lono on ,i one-two- three- four basis. Wo

just had a certain amount of Hme to do it. Like a class of
any kind, the students were dismissed from certain classes and
we put on the demonstration, and they went back. So it was

PRESENTING FIRE PREVENTION DEMONSTRATIONS

Erosion demonstration
developed by Metcalf

(above) Fairbank on truck, and
Metcalf put out a fire during
a demonstration.

(below) James Fairbank with
"Pipa", a dressed doll made
from pipe used to demonstrate
putting out a fire on the
body.

WM: a little hard to tall who was there unless they came up to
talk to us afterward.

One of the Ihinris that I was interested in was fhat in
each demonstration we givo some visual idea to the crowd of
what fire and the (tost ruction of humus and plant cover does
to cause erosion. We had two boxes which were five feet long
and one foot wide. There was a gravel layer in the bottom
of the box and a sandy- loam soil about four to five inches
deep was added. It was some of the best soil that they had
in Yolo County. Then we put those side-ways into the truck,
and when we pul led them out of the truck we put them on a
20 percent slope. It was exactly the same slope for both
boxes. On one of them we had a thin layer of leaf litter and
humus on the top, and the other was bare soil. This showed
what the condition the soil on a slope like that would be in
after a fire. Then we put on at the same time, the same amount
of water from two sprinkling pots. We put in about a quart
or a quart and a half of water on esch slope, just like rainfall.
The runoff from the surface was caught in a bottle down at
the bottom, and the amount of percolation that went down
through and came out in another bottle was measured. We had
the two bottles leading from the two boxes sitting where
people could see them. It was an amazing demonstration.

Fair: It sounds very effective.

WM: It showed what you could expect. There were no roots of course, and
the roots have, as we explained, a very definite retarding effect
on the runoff of the water. The humus and litter was sufficient
to continually maintain that soil in good percolative condition
so that 80-90 percent of the water that went into the soil
came out clear from underneath. In the case of the other box,
75-80 percent of the water came off of the top and gullies
were made. It was a very interesting thing for people to look
at and a very simple thing to do. It was based on similar
experiments that Dr. Lowdermilk carried on here in Fierkeley
after his return from China.

lair: Yes, I have met him. We are doing an oral history interview
wi th him a I so.

WM: He was conducting the experiments here on campus, and we

developed this portable demonstration. Now you wouldn't think
off-hand that you could put those boxes back into the truck
and carry them five or six thousand miles, and null them out
and each day do the same thing, but it never failed to work.

Fair: That is absolutely marvellous. What a great visual aid. You
said that some of the people were concerned that you might
not be able to keep the students' attention. What were some

34
Fnir: of your special techniques for keeping their attention?

WM: We never had any problems with that. One of the things that we
did was to put a couple of drops of gasoline in a pressure-top
can with a hole in the bottom of it. We shook up the can to
illustrate the terrific power of gasoline when properly mixed
with air — five parts gas to seven parts air. Then we would touch
a match to the bottom of the can and blow the top out of the can,
and the &afi sailed about twenty feet into the air. We would go
back to the same school a year later and some of the kids would
ask, "Are you going to blow up the can again?" We tried to tie
that in with the lesson that a number of children had been killed
by playing with matches by an empty barrel while it was standing
in the yard. This was shown as a prevention for loss of life as
well as for fire prevention.

Well, those arc some of the things that we did. Of course
we talked about electrical fires, the care and proper use of
electrical equipment, like the iron, for instance. Plenty of
houses have been burned up because somebody had left the iron
sitting on the ironing board and went to the telephone and for
got about it. And then we warned about putting pennies in the
fuse boxes and the hazard involved in that. It was generally
the teaching of caution with the use of electricity of many kinds,

Fair: Did anything unusual ever happen at your demonstrations? Did
something ever backfire?

WM: We actually had some fires. No, I don't think so. We had some
hose when we were demonstrating the different kinds of nozzles —
a rubber hose with a cotton cover — and it got little spots of
acid on the cover and then it blew the hose up. A hundred pounds
of pressure caused the crowd to be sprayed. That all added to
the excitement, f laughter!

fair: I imaqine that pooplo will novor forgot that fire demonstration.

Establishing Fire Protection in California

WM: Besides fire protection work, I developed a forestry project
for better understanding of the forest problems of the state,
and better protection of forest lands in private ownership,
much of which — some two to three million acres — was in farm
ownership. I also assisted in the development of the planting
of stock when the State Division of Forestry got around to
organizing a nursery. We did experimental planting to show

35

WM; the feasibility of recovering some of these lands that
had been damaged by fire.

You see, there was practically no state organization
for fire protection at the time because California didn't
qualify under the old Weeks Law until about 1919. California
only had about three rangers in Sacramento and some volunteer
fire wardens around the state. During World War I, under the
Agricultural Extension Service, Director Crocheron, Dean Hunt,
Professor Mulford and I spent quite a lot of time organizing
rural fire fighting companies. We had over three hundred of
them altogether. They did a lot of work, saving food and fiber
and other resources during World War I.

This was a very critical time in which subversive
organizations such as the I. W.W. were using disruptive
tactics and causing much loss of material in the war effort
through the setting of incendiary fires. The state of
California had only minimal facilities for fighting fire,
without any funds, or facilities or personnel, except a
dedicated group of volunteer fire wardens appointed by the
State Forester to do what they could in preventing and extinguish
ing forest and range fires.

After a meeting was held between B. H. Crocheron, the
Director of Agricultural Extension, and the State Forester,
G. Morris Homans, and I think several members of the
Board of Fire I 'ndrrwri ters of the Pacific, and several
representatives of the U.S. Forest Service, plans were
drawn up to provide emergency fire protection to a large
number of rural areas through the organization of small
rural fire fighting units of volunteers. The county farm
advisor with what help he could get from local volunteer
fire wardens and other concerned citizens took the lead
in organizing such companies.

Plans for a simple fire fighting trailer were drawn
up and distributed together with a brochure on "County
Organization for Rural Fire Control ." The county board
of supervisors gave support in most cases to the movement,
and Governor Stephens and Stale Forester Homans presided
at the swearing in of such companies. In many cases a
parade of the trailer outfits was held at the county seat,
culminating in the swearing in ceremonies on the steps
of the court house. The trailer was kept at the farm
of the chief of each rural fire company and was usually
a light two-wheel affair with the following equipment:

eight to ten 2 1/2 gallon acid and soda fire extinguishers;

supply of recharges of acid and soda for these:

six five gallon milk cans with extra supply of water;

six or more shovels ( round point);

six or more wire brooms or fire-flails for sweeping out fire;

(D 0> •

Hi T3 O
rt Cu >

o

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O N
Cu >

i-h O

Ml

H- tr1
co s

ft) t^ci
co rt M
fD O

CU 03

rt h-

TO co
0)

O CO

O (D

3 Q3

o

n> n
a. o

"

P Hi
H- i-{

a, o

D. 3
i—1 rt

fD -

ft

hh
Qi

36

WM: box of burlap sacks kept wet in emergencies for beating out

grass Tires;

wire cutter for cutting wire fences;

trailer hitch attached to the chief's automobile— usually
a Model T Ford.

Early in the program it became the custom to have a "Check-up
Day" at the county seat each spring for examination of the
equipment ( which of course improved during the year, and
eventually included rural fire trucks) and a demonstration
of proper use of equipment and publicity on fire prevention
in rural and forest areas. Eventually this evolved into
the organ! /at ion known as the California Rural Firo Association,
and in soul horn California, tho Southern California Association
of Fores lor. <ind I i ro Wnrdons. Itoth of these orqani /at ions
have con I ributod miqhlly to fire prevention and fire suppression
throughout California.

Fair: I read your paper that you wrote in the late 1920' s, on the or
ganization of rural fire fighting apparatus. I was wondering
what happened to your companies. Did they merge into the State
Division of Forestry fire fighting organization, or did the
counties take over the work?

WM: After California qualified for money from the federal government,
it was necessary to have a state law that measured up to the fed
eral requirements for minimum protection. This did not happen
until 1919 because before then the fire protection was so loose
that they did not qualify.

Tho federal government and the national forest was organized,
and wo workod closoly with the federal rangers and the Regional
Forest lorvico Office in S.in Francisco, as well as the state
forest offic;o. Mr. llomnns was State Forester at that time. I
went with him and Governor Stephens to the organization of a num
ber of those county fire protection assemblies where the rural
companies were commissioned by the governor. It was really a
very interesting thing. They did a lot of good work.

Later of course, the state organization developed to take
over protection of some forty million acres in the state that are
outside the national forests and outside of the limits of incor
porated cities, to what we have today. I remember Mr. Pratt
saying, "If we just had a million dollars, we could solve a lot
of these fire protection problems (at that time)." Well, Cali
fornia spends something like twont'y million dollars now on fire
protection. That is one of these developments over the years.

Fair: Did you know Fred Stevenot?
WM: Yes.

37

Fair: He proposed a state-wide plan for fire protection during the
I930's. Did you work with him on this?

WM: lie was a member, I boliovo, of the State Board of Forestry at
the time, and he was a leader in that regard. Both he and his
brother were very capable people. He was a qood talker and made
a good impression on the audience. I think that he had some very
good ideas.

Fair: Did he help you in any way in setting up the rural fire fighting
districts? I know that his plan covered many of the ideas that
you had for setting up a system of fire protection.

WM : I think that he was interested in the University program of de
monstrations, and any other aid in fire prevention, as a member
of the State Board of Forestry and in connection with the coopera
tive development of fire protection throughout the state. But I
don't think that he had any more interest than other members of
the State Board of Forestry. He was cordial about it, yes.

Fair: What were the Rural Fire Institutes?

WM: The Rural Fire Institutes were conducted here — no — conducted at
Davis one year and UCLA another year, and then back to Davis to
review the progress during the year in fire suppression equip
ment and methods of fire fighting. They were cooperatively car
ried on by the Agricultural Extension Service of the University,
the department of agricu I tural engi neeri ng at Davis, the United
States Forest Service, the State Division of Forestry, the State
Division of Highways, and the Board of Fire Underwriters of the
Paci fie.

The letter's engineers are the ones which give rating to
different fire districts, and to different fire departments, and
are a part of the underwriters laboratory experimental organiza
tion, which sets rating and rates for insurance throughout the
United States. The Western Headquarters is in San Francisco.
They have changed the name of it now. Loren Bush was the engineer.

These agencies were most interested in promoting the develop
ment of better machinery, trucks, and fire fighting equipment. As
I often say to these fellows now, you wouldn't believe it but when
I first fought fire in California, there was not a single fire
truck, as such, in the whole state. Fire fighting was done with
ax and shovel and wet sacks. There was not even a back-pack pump.

We organized during 1928-1930, and then again during World
War II, the rural fire companies. We drew up a manual of require
ments for rural fire fighting trucks, which was published by the
Board of Fire Underwriters of the Pacific and was authored by en-
qinoors I i ko nhilnnker from tho Division of Highways, and

38

WM: ^ome from the forest Service. All of this was again a

a matter of education. The Hoard of fire Underwriters of the
Pacific published the manual.

fair: How was your work during the Second World War different from
this work? You were organizing rural fire fighting companies
the entire time, weren't you?

WM: Yes, and emphasizing the responsibility the public should have
for fire prevention, because 90 percent of the fires that we
have are man-caused.

fair: Then during the Second World War this program was just

accelerated to make people more conscious of the danger of
fire?

WM: Yes, as a moans of saving vital material, food, fiber and
all other kinds of materials that are needed in the war
effort. I can remember the night that the Alber's mill
burned. We sat in the window at home and watched that. It
was a dust explosion in the flour mill, and it burned up
four million dollars worth of flour and equipment at a
critical time during the war. Pilots coming in from the
Pacific Ocean said that' they could see the fire for 150 rr! les.

fair: How was your work rn the fire prevention during the regular
year, from about 1926 to the beginning of the Second World
War, financed? Was it through the University and through
the State Division of forestry and the U.S. forest Service funds?
During the Second World War when you began going out and giving
many demonstrations, did you get more federal funds?

WM : No. The Cl arke-McNary funds which were divided among the

cooperating states, and the original appropriations were not
increased. We didn't get any other financing from the
federal government; it was nil done by the University.

I'.iir: I low were tools in each of the? counties bought when the

rural fire fighting companies were set up i ri each of the
counties?

WM: In answer to that question, you have to get back to the

point where you realize that we have a wide-spread difference
in rural California and forest California. The national
forests are protected by the U.S. forest Service, and that
includes twenty million acres of the 100 million acres in
the state. The lands in the National Park Service are protected
by the Department of the Interior and the National Park
Service. This protection is all a cooperative matter

39

WM: along the boundaries between all of the state land

<md the national forests. The area outside of the national
forest, which is considered of number one importance from
n watershed standpoint, is protected by the state under the
state fire protection system. Although the lands are near
and sometimes within the national forest, private lands
within the national forest are given protection by the USFS,
although some allocation of funds from the state sources
are arranged by agreement. Then you have, starting in 1881,
a relatively few rural fire districts set up under California
state law, similar to irrigation districts, or soil conser
vation districts. Most of these fire districts were in village
or farm areas.

There were two or three other state laws after 1881
which gave the direction of such districts to the county
board of supervisors, who oversee and tax the area for
provision of equipment and tools. Sometimes the men were
paid, but most of the members were volunteers who bought
their own equipment. The state organization protects some
forty million acres, an area double that of the national
forests. The system has been gradually perfected through
the years, for at the beginning of World War I there was
practically no fire protection at all. These local fire
districts, being volunteer, had equipment which was often
not ready to go when needed. So the State Forester gradually,
through the cooperation of the counties, at the request of
the counties, would put a state ranger 'in charge of 'the
fire protection in that county. The residences and other
areas that were not considered of high watershed and timber
value would be protected by equipment bought with county
funds and the hiring of men by the county.

Now Los Angeles County, for instance, has the most inten
sive fire protection organization in, I guess, the whole United
States. They spend more money on the protection of Los
Angeles County than the state of California did for all
the rest of the state for quite a long time. It is a hard
thing to imagine or to believe, but it is true. I don't
know how many millions of dollars they spend now, but I think
the state appropriations, plus the federal appropriations and
what comes from the timber owners, and from Keep California
Green organization, and these other things, is something like
sixty million dollars a year for fire protection in the state.

In spite of the fact that they have developed these
borate-carry ing airplanes and much better fire trucks, the
whole crux of the matter is that the public is still responsible
for starting most of the fires. The critical thing, like during
the Berkeley Fire of 1924, for example, is that fire preven
tion efforts, which is one of the main things we arc

40

WM: interested in is to keep the fires from starting, particularly
at times of high wind, low humidity, and high temperature. The
ten million dollar fire in Berkeley was the second largest fire
that California has evor hnd, next to the San Francisco fire.
It started at noon over in Wildcat Canyon. Wo have the curve of
wind and humidity and all, for that day, and it is a classic
example of what happens; because the humidity, which ordinarily
comes up to ninety like it did last night with the fog all around
(I guess it was a hundred percent with the rain this morning)
only came up to thirty and then it went down to twelve and the
wind came up from the north forcing the humidity to drop to eight.
The wind rose to forty-two knots, and when the fire started, there
was nothing anybody could do to stop it.

The same thing has happened a couple of times in Los Angeles
County, Oregon, and Washington and elsewhere, in the past three
or four years. Everything becomes so tinder-dry that the pieces
of material are carried flaming ahead of the fire by the wind,
starting many new fires. This is why fire prevention is so
important.

The Uses of Control Burning

Fair: Another thing that I was going to ask you about is control

burning. In one of your papers from 1931, I read that you ad
vocated the use of control burning of grazing lands.* Do you
still advocate control burning?

WM: I think that you must have misinterpreted what I said. I said
that on some of these areas the real crux of the matter was if
you got through a season (this article was about the north coast
area, I think) and permits were granted for control burns, under
what might be ideal situations, there would be less area burned
over during the summer with the control burning than there would
be otherwise. But I have never been in favor of control burning
in forest lands. Many areas of brush lands are largely the re
sult of past uncontrolled fires in the forest, and I think it is
very questionable to use fire in any forested area.

Fair: There wouldn't be many advantages, would there?

WM: No, not very many advantages. There is always the hazard that

when you get a f i re started, even under the best conditions, you
might not be able to control it. With improved equipment and
adequate personnel it is more feasible now to clean up fire
hazards in some forest areas by carefully controlled fires

fSee Appendix F.

41

WM: under optimum weather conditions, but it is expensive and still,
often very dangerous. The removal of heavy brush cover from
foothill chaparral lands is another problem entirely and is
yielding favorable results in increased forage where soils and
slope are favorable.

PROJECTS OF THE EXTENSION FORESTER

Fair: | would like to discuss the projects of the Extension Forester.
This past week I have been reading through your annual reports,
which I found very interesting. You had so many things to
do. I wani to ask you about the projects in general, and then
discuss some of them. Were your projects primarily seasonal,
or did most of 1hem spreod throughout the year?

WM: Of course lhat depends. Now the distribution of planting

stock or anything that had to do with planting, reforestation,
or such , naturally had to be seasonal.

You see, in California the planting of trees is only
feasible after the first rains in the fall, that is the first
rains that are heavy enough to wet the upper soil. Then after
the small trees are planted, if you get hot, dry, and windy
windy weather, say in January or February, as we sometimes do,
it is very hard on the plants. With species that are apt to
be injured by frost, you have got that complication also.
In many cases you get a series of nights that are freezing,
and then thawing in the daytime; even though small stock
Douglas fir and pine are planted well, the ice forming and coming
up will often throw those trees right out of the ground. So
you lose the trees. You always have those things to keep in
mind. Of course if you are using a tree that is subject to
frost damage when it is little, and a lot of trees are more
subject to frost when they are seedlings than they are later,
it is better to wait until around the first of March so you
don't get the frost.

Experimenting With Windbreaks

WM: We carried on experiments for several years in Orange,

San Bernardino, and Los Angeles counties to determine the
optimum conditions for protection of citrus against damage
from the Santa Ana winds that they get in that country. We
had anemometers set up at Fontana in Orange County to deter
mine wind speeds. We actually picked up oranges that had
been blown off the trees in connection with studies of

42

43
WM: windbreaks of a certain height to give the protection

desirable. Coby Lorenzen, who is now at Davis in Agricultural
Engineering> did quite a little work in making models that we
tested out in the wind tunnel here on the campus. Perhaps
you saw some of the publications that came out in connection
with eucalyptus for the protection of citrus. It is a very
interesting and important use of a tree to promote better
production in an agricultural crop. And that involved the
work by all of the people who were interested in the eucalyptus
program.

Fair: When you were building windbreaks in the citrus areas, you
were working with eucalyptus. But I noticed in your annual
reports th.it you wore n I so encouraging the use of windbreaks
in Modoc und I n-.ioen counties. Was this eucalyptus also?

WM: No, they don't grow up there.

Fair: That is what I thought. What kind of trees did you use for
wi ndbreaks?

WM: Lombardy poplars. I think that maybe I showed a couple of

pictures of those. And also the local trees, pines, firs...

Fair: What were you protecting?

WM: Buildings, homes and such in order to give greater comfort
to people and animals during storms. The same as along
the coast here. Have you ever driven along the coast during
a windy day? The Lombardy poplar, elms, hachberry, osage
orange, pines and firs were used like they are in the midwest
to stop the sweep of the wind across the land. That is why
the USDA hnd n windbreak project. They wanted me to take
over in thn Sho I tor-Be It Project when it was begun. I had
boon in I hi-, sl-tlo and I liked it, rind I didn't want to leave.
I dw-ird N. Munns, who was hero as one of the si I vfou I tura I i sts
in the U.S. fores 1 and Range Fxperimenf Station here, but
went to W.i'.hirxjlori D.C., asked me. You know it was not just
the planting of the trees, but the care of them after they
were planted, that was important. This is true with almost
all planting under semi-arid conditions. The thing that we
tried to emphasize all the time is that it isn't the matter
of just going out and planting trees, but consistent care
determines if the windbreak or a tree farm is successful.
All the experimental work with tree planting has had to do
with improved methods to produce a sturdy plant with a good
root system that is well adapted to local climatic and soil
conditions and planted at the right time. And then it has to
be given care and relief from competition. That middle-western
program combined hardwoods and conifer, usually in a five row
arrangement in order to build something that would create at
least minimum forest conditions for the trees.

44

Fair: But in Lassen County did you plant both hardwood and conifer as
a general rule?

WM: Well, it depended on what the people wanted. We simply carried
on information as to what trees were available, how they could
get them, or what the trees were to be used for. The state
trees that are grown, again through cooperation with the federal
government under the Cl arke-McNary Act, are grown for windbreaks,
watershed protection, timber production, erosion prevention, and
Christmas trees, but not for ornamental purposes.

Fair: What kinds of problems were they interested in at the experiment
station? What was their main emphasis?

WM: Planting particularly. You see, here again this was a very

new thing. The two California forestry stations at Chico and
Santa Monica, started by the first State Board of Forestry in
1885, were not popular as indicated by the fact that the Leg
islature thought that it was a lot of balderdash and they had
no use for it. They would not appropriate any more money for
it in 1890. However, they did set up these two stations and
had some planting done. Now the University had field stations
also for the testing of agricultural crops and tree planting
at the time. There had been relatively small amounts of plant
ing done before 1901. I have a map . . .

Fair: Oh, this is the map that you made in 1918 of all of the trees
at the Chico station?

WM: Yes, I made a plane table map of both stations. Norman D.

Ingham, who was resident at the Santa Monica station for some
time (I never met him), wrote in 1906 the bulletin, "Eucalyptus
in California," as a result of the studies that he had made of
the trees that had been planted at the Santa Monica station
and in other areas of southern California.

Working With Eucalyptus

WM: I was chairman of the United States delegation to the World
Eucalyptus Conference held in Rome the year I retired, 1956.
It was held at the headquarters of the FAO, Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations. This was the first
Eucalyptus Conference. This was my second trip to Europe.
Max Watson who was a long-time friend of mine (he died in
December, 1968) came along with me at his own expense. He
was a city forester in San Diego and had been interested in

45

eucalyptus, and he planted a lot of trees in San Diego
that are now on the U.C. San Diego campus, in cooperation
with Mr. Scripps. He grew eucalyptus after his retirement
from the probation department in Santa Clara County. He got
seed from Australia. He developed an arboretum of trees
in San Jose. He had over 140 species there at one time.
I have been measuring those trees that he planted since
I960 after we got back from the World Eucalyptus Conference.

A lot of people think that it is crazy to be interested
in eucalyptus, but there are lots and lots of possibilities
right now. More and more commerical concerns, particularly
pulp and paper companies are becoming interested in eucalyptus.
Jack S.veely, one of our forestry graduates has been working
for the Mason ite Corporation of Mendocino for five or six
years now. !<.,", 1imj frost resistant species of eucalyptus on
cutover hinds in Mendocino County. He had some very interest
ing things rominq ..ilonq thoro. M.imuj Gun ( I uo. viminalis)
h.is qiven I ho bcsl results so far.

It is bad enough , as you know from a bolanical
standpoint, to work with different kinds of soils, with
plants, tree shrubs and other plants, but when you also add
climate to it,and many of the trees are very subject to frost
damage, it makes things very complex. I remember in 1932
when we had the coldest weather in fifty years in Berkeley.
We had a beautiful row of Scarlet Gum on Arlington Ave. They
were all killed right to the ground . It was seventeen degrees
in Berkeley, and they can't stand that temperature.

Fair: Did you plant eucalyptus because you felt it could be utilized
in the future, or did you plant it directly for present use
as a windbreak or as a means to prevent erosion on exposed
s lopes?

WM: Well, for m.iny purposes. I did research work by chocking many
p I on In I ions . You m.iy h.ive soon some of my papers that I wrote
in conrioc. I ion with this, such ds Growth of Eucalyptus in California
r'lan'hiljoris, IWI , or I u c : . 1 1 y p t u s Spo c I e s f or' 'Cn I i f o r n \1T, 1967 ~

In San Bernardino and Orange counties they had something
like two thousand miles of eucalyptus windbreaks growing for
the protection of citrus fruit groves. Harold Wahlberg in
Orange county, and Henry Wilder in San Bernardino county, and
I measured, in cooperation with the farm advisers of the counties,
the speed of the wind with anemometers. The number of fruit
that were dropped from the trees at winds of certain velocities
were counted. How close the eucalyptus windbreaks should be
together to prevent such damage was determined by this method.
One of the things that we found out was that normally against
a Santa Ana wind coming out of the mountains you could get

46

WM: almost .100 percent protection of twelve foot citrus trees out

from five to seven times the windbreak height. ( See: Protection
of Citrus by Eucalyptus Windbreaks, by Woodb ridge Metcalf. )
When you get beyond that point you get increasing damage
until you get to the next windbreak, and then you get a swirl
of wind and a maximum loss of fruit and damage to the tree right
next to the windbreak.

There are 550 species and some sixty varieties of
Eucalyptus in Australia. There are about forty species
planted by the University at the Santa Monica station in the
early 1900's. Norman Ingham wrote the early bulletin in 1906
on eucalyptus for the University. The U.S. Forest Service put
out some on utili/ation of eucalyptus wood shortly after that.
This is ono of hho things lhat we are still working on,
to find out what species from Australia are best suited for
growing in different parts of California and the United States,
and how they best can be used. Thev will grow fairly in some
parts of Arizona , and some are making good growth in Florida.

Mr. Morgan Evans who is doing the ornamental planting
for Disneyland in Florida, said to me the other day after a
meeting in San Francisco, " I would like to talk to you about
eucalyptus because I would like to use more of them if I can
in Florida. Well, I told him that there are a few trees in
Florida, but that he ought to see Elbert Shory, who is the
research man in the Tropical Division for the Florida Forest
Service. Elbert has been experimenting for ten or fifteen years
with various soecies of Euca lyptus , the same ones that we
have in Ca I i forn i a .

Tho Eucalyptus Room

The early I900's was the day of the big boom and
interest in eucalyptus. T.D. Woodbury of the United States
Forest Service wrote a bulletin from the USFS point of view
on the possibilities of Eucalyptus in California, and
Louis Margolin wrote another one.

Fair: The Forest Service was encouraging this boom? Did they feel
it would be a new source of hardwood?

WM: The Forest Service and the University were working to find
out what species would grow here and to determine if the
wood had commercial possibilities when grown here in California,
The boom was largely done by promoters who assumed many things
which later proved to be false.

Fair: Who promoted the interest in eucalyptus?

47

WM: A number of eucalyptus companies. The Forest Service in
1904 issued a folio-sized volume from Washington by
Mr. McClatchy, on Eucalyptus in the United States. Much of
the information was gained from examining the plantations
in California for there was more eucalyptus planted here than
anywhere else in the United States. That was the earliest
publication that the Forest Service put out.

But both the State Division of Forestry, the University,
and the USFS were trying to exert some damping effect on this
whole thing. The land companies were selling the land here
in California all over the United States. I remember when I
was in high school in Detroit there was an office of the
Eucalyptus Land Company of California in downtown Detroit
selling lots in California. There was not enough experimental
evidence at the time for the results that they promised.
They knew that the trees would grow, that is the Blue Gum
Fucalyptus like the one out here that we are looking at,
along the: coast, and thaf they would grow very fast. But
they did not know the quality of the wood. Tiemann, of the
U.S. Forest Products Laboratory at Mad i son, Wi scons i n, came out
and set up a sawmill in the groves of the Berkeley Hill, now
what is in the Berkeley city limits. He wrote a publication
on the seasoning of the eucalyptus wood which was, and continues
to be, a very difficult matter because the wood grows so
rapidly. There was a lot of effort and time put in to produce
publications which would show that some of the claims that were
made by some of the eucalyptus companies were ill-founded.
I don't know what effect they had because the boom played
out in about 1912.

Fair: Why? Was there a lack of investors?

WM: Economic conditions. And also I think the effect of caution
which the University and the Forest Service and the State
Division of Forestry tried to emphasize: that this thing was
largely expor imentnl and nobody knew what results it would
bring. The companies had advert i sod that eucalyptus was
hickory's little brother, and Hint the hickory trees would
all be gone from the midwest the way that the cutting was
being done, therefore eucalyptus was going to come of its own.

A beautiful sawmill was set up in San Diego County, if
you can imagine such a thing. I saw the mill.

Fair: Where is it?

WM: Oh, it never operated, but it was out toward Ramona . It was a
big plantation in one of the valleys about eight or ten miles
out of San Diego. I believe it was the Pratt Eucalyptus Company
that built the mill, and they got a millwright, and a very good

48

WM: one from Maine. They sawed a few eucalyptus logs before
the money ran out. They used to drive those big ocean
rafts of Douglas fir logs from Pudget Sound and the
Columbia River points to San Diego — 150-200 foot rafts
tied together with chains and towed by tugs. The logs were
sawed in San Diego, and this mill tried to operate in this
way for a brief time.

The eucalyptus promoters talked about having a mi I I
all set up and ready to go, and they sold stock in the mills.
In many of the places they sold land and agreed to plant the
land with GO many eucalyptus trees — 800-1,000 trees per acre —
and to take care of them for two years. The land was sold for
$ 1 50-700 on acre with this understanding. They sold a lot of
land in Tularo County, and a lot of it was so alkaline that
the trees never grew. You can still see the alkaline places
where the trees died out. ( laughter) So as I say the effort
mainly made by the people who knew something about it was
to check this wildcat speculation. The groves that you have
probably driven through at San Juan Bautista — the highway goes
right through the grove-- were a total of 700 acres at one
time. I knew the man who planted it. He was an Englishman
named Humphrey Pilkington.

Fair: What a marvelous name.

WM: Yes, isn't it. There was a man named Luther, who was the

field man who oversaw the planting. I went around with him
one time to look at the trees after I took over the eucalyptus
project here at the University.

A lot of people from Wisconsin and Michigan, and Chicago,
Philadelphia, -.ind New York, who knew nothing about these things
,it all bought" blocks of trees or stock in the various companies.
The taxes commenced coming in and building up in connection
with 1hn property, and a lot of people just let these investments
qo. They didn't want to pay anymore without a return. Luther
bought up a lot of this land at a tax sale, so that he eventually
owned most of this gove. Then he sold some of the trees for
piling for use in San Francisco Bay during World War I. There
was something like 50,000 acres of eucalyptus plantings in
California, but it was very widely scattered. The largest
plantings were in San Luis Obispo County near the Arroyo
Grande area. I knew the man who did the plantings there
too. Mr. Brintuall was a retired banker from Chicago , and
set up a eucalyptus-oil still on this property. I looked at
the grove with him when he first came out here; it was about
700 acres at the time. He had set up $ 100,000 to plant
the trees and raise them, but he was up against disappointments
in connection with it.

49

Fair: What was the eucalyptus oil for?

WM: Eucalyptus oil is a medicinal product for cough syrups,and
used in the mining industry also. The question was, could
he use the leaves ( distillation was done with the leaves)
of eucalyptus to make oil which complied with the U.S.
pharmacopoeia, which was set up on Australian oil. The
conclusion by the chemist was that it was impossible to
economically manufacture eucalyptus oil in the United States
from the trees that wo had available, because they were low
in the essential oil, pinene and eucalyptoil, and other
fragrant oils. The Australian oil is made from a completely
different set of Eucalyptus trees which are higher in oil
content of the leaves. There are many books on eucalyptus
that give the proportion of oil that is to be obtained from
each species, for instance Blakely's . Some of these species
are shrub type trees that can be harvested by machinery from
second growth stands, and yield a much higher rate of return
in oil than can the trees growing in the United States. Also
there are the higher labor costs and land values in California
are higher, and there is an uncertainty as to the climatic
conditions here, and the entire problem needs more research.

Fair: That is very interesting. I had heard about the eucalyptus
boom, but I didn't know the details of it.

Working With the WPA and CCC During The Depression

on'

Fair: What kind of difficulties did you have during the Depress!

WM: Everybody had difficulties. They reduced our salaries for
one thing, and we didn't get very much salary to start with
either. Some of the men in the University get as much a month
now, as I got a year when I came in 1914. They reduced the
salaries by maybe 25 percent because the University didn't
have +he money doH ng the Depression. But as far as interference
with subject matter was concerned, except that work
was directed toward assistance to the people who were suffering
because of the Depression, it was like turning to war work.

Fair: Then your program was changed a little?

WM: Yes.

Fair: Do you recall if federal funds were cut back also?

WM: I really don't know.

50

Fair: I know from your annual reports that you did have some recreational
areas built by WPA and CCC. I was wondering if you supervised
this work, or helped lay out plans for new fire lines?

WM: We drew up the plans for the camp at Whitaker's Forest in Tulare
County when State Forester, Mr. Pratt, had the state CCC camps
comply with my request thnt they devote some time to the improve
ment of recreational facilities there, and also at Las Posadas in
Napa County, lie nssignod the men, and J. R. Brown, who was exten
sion specialist in agricultural engi neeri ng, des igned the swimming
pools for both of these places.

The CCC crew built the pools and also some of the cabins and
a cook house, added to the facilities and did fire protection
clean-up along the roads and trails at these forest properties.

The Las Posadas camp is in a state forest, which was given
to the state by Mr. and Mrs. Anson Blake of Berkeley. After
consultation with the Blakes, Merritt Pratt and I went up and
looked at the property with them. It is on Howe I I Mountain, right
adjacent to the Pacific Union College property.

Fair: Yes, I know where that is.

WM: At the Las Posadas camp on Moore Creek, we developed the water

supply and the swimming pool, and the buildings, trails and fire
clean-up. Mendocino had their own camp. Napa, Sonoma, Marin,
Alameda and Contra Costa Counties all cooperated in the develop
ment of that Las Posadas camp. I know that Contra Costa and Napa
Counties still go to the camp, but I don't know about the others.
Now the State Division of Forestry has a f i re protection head
quarters at Las Posadas in the state forest.

Fair: The Blakes gave the Las Posadas land to the state parks system,

but I have heard that there was some type of rub on this and that
the land was not supposed to be developed. Was there some type
of stipulation attached to this gift of property, and did you
have difficulties establishing that camp because of this?

WM: Not as a park. They gave it as a state forest. This was an

interim arrangement. Merritt Pratt and I went to the property
with the Blakes, sat in their old summer cabin there, and talked
about their giving the 880 acres to the state. Mrs. Blake first
of all had suggested giving this property to the University. Well,
the University didn't want it particularly, but Mr. Blake was very
anxious that she get rid of it for she was not particularly well
at the time and he felt that it was too much of a problem for her.
(She owned the property.)

She finally drew up the deed and gave it to the state with
a ten-year clause in it that the caretaker could remain there for

51

WM: ten years. During that time, there was a provision that the 4-H
Club camp could be developed. So It took about ten years to get
all of these details worked out. And it worked out eventually
all right. Mrs. Blake didn't want to have more than 150 people
at any time on the area.

Fair: How did you work around that?

WM: Well, most of the camps were not more than 150. They ran about

that. But there wasn't any particular problem in connection with
it except during that ten years in which the provision about the
caretaker was in effect. The caretaker was not cooperative and
I never knew what kind of information she got from him; her con
tacts were not with me but with the State Forester.

There was some question about the building of the swimming
pool. The caretaker didn't want the swimming pool in the place
where it was put; however, the CCC camp was there and they did
the work on it for the 4-H Club camp, and it worked well. The
4-H Club camp Is still there and still being used.

Fair: During the Depression, the only contact that you had with the
CCC and the WPA was the men that Pratt assigned to your camp?

WM: We had very good cooperation there.

One of the other interesting things that was done under
WPA was the development of the Mendocino Woodlands on Big River
in Mendocino County. This was one of the recreation projects
in the United States. They had a camp under WPA of somewhere
between three and four hundred men from San Francisco up there.
They built most of the roads and they built a lot of very beau
tiful buildings, but the man who drew up the plans for it was a
national parks recreation man, and I couldn't see the theory of
the whole thing from the beginning.

They built these beautiful little cabins with fireplaces,
Just a place to sleep, the fireplace and bedrooms, no cooking
facilities, no toilet facilities. There was a unit cookhouse
with a group of cabins here, and then a unit washroom — that sort
of thing.

This was one of twenty-one such areas that were built
throughout the United States. This was the only one in Calif-
fornia. There was one in Oregon. I saw the one that they built
in southeastern Ohio. The people who built them I am sure had
very limited opportunity to know what people want. This one up
here was supposed to be for families. Well, families don't want
to go to a place like that. They never did.

Fair: What did they use it for?

52

WM: Well, I don't know how many hundred thousand dollars they spent
on that place. It is part of Jackson State Forest now. There
are five thousand acres in it. Remember that this land was bought
on one of these hairbrained programs for buying up land from far
mers who were presumably starving to death on land that wasn't
farm land. They bought maybe five hundred acres, or something
like that, of land on the Mendocino White Plains that people were
living on and working at the mill at Fort Bragg. Daughter! They
had put out orchards but they were not starving to death by any
means.

It was one of these wild ideas. Then in order to make the
Rural Rehabilitation Program sound reasonable at all, the govern
ment bought five thousand acres of cutover land from the Union
Lumber Company and developed what is now Mendocino Woodlands sec
tion of Jackson State Forest. They put these camps there and
worked for several years on the development of two organization
camp sites. After the state took over the property, the two sites
were leased, one to the Mendocino Woodlands Association in which
the 4-H Clubs participate, and one to the Oakland Girl Scouts at
Camp Timberta I I .

Organizing the 4-H Camp at Whitaker's Forest

Fair: These are 4-H camps, right? at Whitaker and Las Posadas? Would

you like to tell me about how and why the 4-H camps were organized?

WM: Well, you see, the 4-M Club program is a year-round program. And

the summer recreation angles of it are, or were considered at that
time, quite an important way of promoting the interest and the
general enthusiasm of the boys and girls for the year-round pro
gram. We had these opportunities on certain lands in order to
provide better facilities than had been available for camping by
the 4-H Clubs. I came into Extension in February, I926. I, of
course, had worked closely with the people who were in charge of
the various sections of the 4-H throughout the state: Waterhouse,
Spurrier, and Ralston, and later, Paul Barker. These four were
assistant state leaders of Agricultural Extension in the super
vision of the 4-H programs.

So we talked about camps and camping when it became possible
to put some time and energy into it. It seemed desirable to do
this to promote first of a II better understanding by the boys
and girls themselves of some natural conditions in the woods, and
an opportunity to give them some instruction in tree, shrub, and
plant identification and the relationships in the mountain country
between forest lands and industry and its part in watershed

53

WM: protection, and alt of these things; in other words, simple

forestry in the woods. I took the farm advisors from the five
southern San Joaquin counties, Kern, Kings, Tulare, Madreaand
Fresno, up to Whitaker's Forest in the fall of 1926. It was
decided that it was a good place to develop a camp and that they
would be interested in promoting a camp program. The California
Farm Bureau organizations in the five counties petitioned the
Regents for permission to build the camp on this site, and per
mission was granted in February, 1927.

Fair: Was this the first cnmp?

WM: Yes, this was the first one. I had taken over the forest for
the University [^Comptroller's of fi cell in 1915 and cruised the
timber on this 320-acre piece of ground that Mr. Whitaker had
given to the University in 1910. Nothing had been done on it
until the forestry school came, and then Mr. Mu I f ord asked me
to find out what we had up there, to cruise the timber, run the
lines out and set up five sample plots to determine the growth
of Sequoia gigantea, a very fine second growth stand on this
land that was logged somewhere between 1871 and 1876.

The first camps were held in 1927, with very limited facili
ties at the time because we had a minimum amount of money to do
anything with. That was true for the first, well, for practically
all of the time that I had anything to do with it. However, the
various counties put up a relatively small amount of money. I
think that we had only $ | 500 to do everything that we did the
f i rst year.

Tho Worlman Lumber Company mill was not very far away so
we no | (umber at minimum cos I and built the cookhouse. Fvery-
body si op I outdoors on I ho ground the first year and later on
font platforms. We had a dininq platform and the first camps
were held there in 1977. Improvements in the spring of 1927 in
cluded a cookhouse, dining platform, water supply and toilet
f aci I i ties.

Director Crocheron would assign a little money at the end
of each fiscal year for some of the needed things that were done
there. And then when the CCC program came along in 1934, Mr.
Pratt, who was very much interested in our cooperative work to-,
gether, assigned a group of workers from the CCC camp at -MdxTiTi
Ranch in Tulare County. The men built several cabins and they
built the swimming pool (which they later named after me). So
we got quite a lot done.

I remember Mr. Pratt said that of the thirty-five camps operat
ing under the CCC program in California, he thought that the work
that they had done in fire prevention at Whitaker's Forest along
the roads and trails, and tho development of the camp, was about

54

WM: as important as anything that they did in all of the camps
during the depression years.

Madera County came to camp on Flag Day, June 14th, 1927.
They had come up the night before, so I got a group of boys
and we went out and cut a white fir and peeled it. It was
set up as one of the exercises that first morninq, and the
flag was run up on Flag Day, 1927.

Then two years later we set up the camp at Las Posadas.
The one <it Whi taker's was done in cooperation with Bob ( W.R.)
Ralston, who wns in charge of the 4-H Clubs in the area of
the southern San Joaquin, and Waterhouse, with whom I sailed
in the 19:56 Olympics, was in charge in Ihe north coast area.
In the meantime Merced and Stanislaus counties got interested
in getting a special use site in the Strawberry area in Stanislaus
National Forest, and I worked with +hem on plans and development
there. The farm advisors and 4-H Club leaders formed a camp
development committee. The site is not very far from the Lair of the
Golden Bear, the U.C. Alumni Association camp.

About the same time in Santa Barbara County, I went with
a state ranger and Ed Smyth the farm advisor, and we picked out
a site on the Los Padres National Forest at White Oak Flat. Well,
naturally the 4-H worked up some consideration in the county for
the camp, and the Rancheros Visitadores Trail Riders who are
people who have the horse-back trips each year, calling at several
ranches all the way through me county wanted a place to start
from. White Oak Flat was the place that they thought was good,
and so they put quite a lot of money into the development
of the facility there. The ride is supposed to be in connection
with the fiesta that they have in Santa Barbara to popularize
old Spanish days and the ways of the Spanish landowners. This
ride is conducted every year. Over several years the organization
put quite a sum of money into the development of the facilities there.

Fair: How fortunate for you that you had support in developing the camps.

WM: As I said the other day, this is a matter of cooperation with a lot
of people. Local ranchers did most of the work in the camps,
and we in Extension could help in planning and stimulating
interest. Mr. Doty of the Doty Ranch at Ellwood in Santa Barbara
County, was very hefoful in developing White Oak Flat.

55

Other 4-11 Activities

Fair: Your actual involvement with the 4-H was your interest in
bui I ding the camps?

WM: I was invited to many camps to conduct nature studies, tree
identifying walks, and to lead singing, and I developed
several campfire ceremonies which were popular. I had to
travel widely to do it , and it was a pretty strenuous pro
gram during a good many summers as the camps all came within
five or six weeks. I knew a lot of boys and girls; of course
I never knew rrtanv of them very we I I , but a least they knew
me. They invited me to come to a 4-H Club annual conference
at Davis, and I led sinqinq there. I took part in leader
ship train inq moe I ings for the loaders, alonq with the others:

rtilPyP4?
ReKer, wnterhouse, Ralston, and a few more.

Fair: Do you think that the 4-H program has changed a lot since
you have been associated with it?

WM: I think that there has been a decrease in interest and sup
port for the camping part of the program in California, in
spite of a large increase in 4-H membership. I suppose it
is one of the features of our changing civilization. These
camps required a lot of detailed work, by not only me, but
by a lot of people. I know that Director Crocheron was very
interested in the program, and after he died the directors
were not so enthusiastic about it. I think that there was
an impression that some of farm advisor's staff in the
counties were spending too much of their time in connection
with it. So the emphasis has changed.

They do hold some camps still. I don't think fhat
they hold ar; many camps as they did. One of the things that
was of concern to me was that the people constantly demanded
more things in a camp. They don't want to live under pio
neer conditions. They want a hotel-type institution, elec
tric lights, facilities for baseball and other games, and
less attention to hiking and pioneering. For ten years or
more, Dr. Mary Olney of the University Hospital at San Fran
cisco, who is one of the great personalities in the field
of medicine and an expert on d i abetes, started the diabetic
children's camp. The first year she held the camp at Las
Posadas at my suggestion, because the camp was close by.
The next year because there was some objection on the part
of some of +he local people who knew nothing about diabetes —

Fair: They were afraid that it was a communicable disease?

56

WM: Partly that, and partly some other things that did not
amount to anything. So I suggested that they go to
Whi taker's Forest. They used Whitaker's Forest Camp for
ten years. The 4-H Clubs used the camp from about the
15th of June to the first of August, and Dr. Olney had
the two sessions of the diabetic camp at Whitaker's
forest during August. Well, then after I got out of
Extension, they got into a series of misunderstandings,
the background of which I don't know much about. But she
and the Diabetic Children's Foundation applied to the
Forest Service for a special-use area at Bearskin Meadow
which is about ten miles from Whitaker's Forest. They
developed a camp there and have been in that camp now for
about eight years. (They have been camping for about
eighteen years.) They have spent over $ 350,000 in the
development of that camp at Bearskin Meadow at Sequoia
National Forest.

Fair: That is by no means a primitive camp.

WM: No. It is a very well developed and comfortable site. It
is supported by volunteer contributions from a number of
organizations in the Bay Area, people who are interested in
the study of d iabeti cs,and it gives the interns at the
hospital a chance to live with, study, and understand re
actions of diabetic chilren to insulin treatment and proper
diet.

Fair: Did the University object to an outside organization using
Whitaker's Forest?

WM: No, the 4-H C'ub Committee was glad to have them use the camp.
It wasn't an outside organization because Dr. Olney is a member
of the staff of the Medical Center at the University at San
Franci sco.

But as I say, they continually wanted --not only them but
our people, the 4-1-1 Club leaders and all who went to camp —
wanted more and more in the way of camp facilities; and the State
Department of Health has become more restrictive in Its require
ments for camps.

I think the diabetic people also wanted more and more things,
better facilities. One of the things that they wanted was a
kiln for making ceramic craft work, and so forth. After World
War II, surplus materials were available and we got some used
generators, to provide some light at the camp because there was
no electricity there. Then they wanted to put in a high tempera
ture oven and of course run it in the daytime. The gasoline
driven generators were thus worked overtime and deteriorated
rap idly.

57

WM: Then the next thing, they wanted Southern California Edison
down there to run a power line into the camp. Well, it would
cost $78, 000 to run the big power line into the camp. S. C.
Edison said you can put up the $28,000 to put the power line
in here, or we will build the line and you will have a stand-by
charge of $100 a month. The University handled it in the latter
way. So they are paying $1200 a year for power in there and
there is a very minimum use of it.

All of these things are problems. Although the camp was
all torn down because of changing conditions, lack of local
interest and leadership, and so forth, they still have the power;
and I guess the University still pays the $100 a month, and they
only use power in the caretaker's house.

Now as I say, this is a feature of the changing scene in
California and the rest of the world, I guess.

Fair: About the 4-H organization: I know that it has changed in the
last few years, and I know that you have noticed it yourself.
Do you think that part of this change resulting in the lack of
interest in 4-H today is because so many people are no longer
rural that there is no longer a need for the organization?

WM: There is much larger enrollment in the 4-H program but different
emphasis. That question on the decrease in the proportion of the
number of people that are necessary to provide the food for our
affluent society undoubtedly has a very great influence on the
attitudes of the young people coming up.

Mr. Ray Clausen was a 4-H Club member from up in Humboldt
County. He i s a very capable and interested Congressman in
Washington, D.C., and he spoke the other day of some of the as
pects of the redwood park controversy. I went up and spoke to
him afterwards (I had led singing at the luncheon). He said,
"I am glad to see you again. I sang with you as a 4-H Club mem
ber in Humboldt County."

Eair: You were talking about training some of the 4-H leaders, and

that you held training sessions. How did you select the leaders
for the 4-H groups and for the camps, and how did you train them?
Did you have special training sessions for a week before the
camp opened?

WM: We tried to do that. That was one of the developments, and one
of the things that is very badly needed now, and oew- only in the
4-H Club program because the 4-H program is less in need of it
than the Boy Scout and Girl Scout programs. Too many of the
leaders there come from the city, and they don't know anything
about life in the woods, forest influences, fire prevention, and
so forth.

EXTENSION FORESTRY PROJECTS

Extension Director B.H.
Croucheron talks to the
4-H campers at the
Alameda-Contra Costa
camp, 1928

Metcalf measuring
Manna Gum Tree, Euc.
viminalis, near Dinuba
California, 1937

Stripping a 36 year old
cork oak at Chico
Forestry Station, 1940.
Ralph Waltz (r)
George Greenan (1)

58

WM: I have a couple of granddaughters, one in Girl Scouts, and
the other is in Camp Fire Girls. But I suppose there have been
thirty years that I have been a counselor in nature studies,
forestry and so on, for the Mount Diablo Boy Scout Council. Not
so many of the boys take these projects, I suppose because they
are difficult in a way for those raised in the city.

it ; ,, II

fair: Well, it is also in many cases not socially "in.

WM: They call me up and say that they would like to take a merit

badge in nature, soil and water conservation, forestry, and the
like. I say, do you have the manual; they say, "Yes." Have you
read it? "Yes." Have you selected what you want to do there?
"Well, no." Well, I say, that is an important thing to do. There
are a lot of ways you can satisfy this requirement, but I am not
interested in doing anything for you until you decide what you
want to do, what you want to learn. Make out an outline of it,
and then I wi I I talk to you.

The Cork Oak Project

Fair: Another of your projects was the planting of cork oaks and har
vesting the cork. Can you tell me something about this?

WM: The most extensive planting of cork oaks was put in at the Chico
Station in 1904. That is where we started the experimental strip
ping of cork from the trees in 1942. The trees had made good
growth and we stripped cork from about 150 of the six hundred
trees in the plantation.

Fair: Were these a native species or were they brought over from the
Iberian Peninsula?

WM: They are from the Mediterranean area, and this is a very interest
ing historical thing too. The Spaniards apparently were never
able to establish cork oak in this country. The acorns dried
out and died on the way because of the length of time that it
took to get the acorns from Spain or Portugal.

As far as we were able to find out, the earliest planting
that was successful was from trees on the Kiser ranch about
miles south of Sonoma in Sonoma County, about 1854. It was not
until the time of the clipper ships that transportation was fast
enough so that they got the acorns here. They may have been
planted in South America and then brought them up, but I think
that they probably came directly from Spain. Those trees are
still there on the Kiser ranch, four large trees. I remember

59

WM: now we qot about eiqht hundred pounds of cork from each of the
trees.

The largest cork oak in the United States, as far as I
know, is on the Napa State Hospital grounds. That tree was
planted in 1873 on very good land. When we stripped it in 1944,
I believe it was, the tree was fifty-nine inches in diameter and
one hundred feet tall, and had a crown spread of over a hundred
feet. We stripped it up for sixteen feet, and we got a little
over half a ton of cork, 1050 pounds.

Fair: What were you going to use the cork for? Was this an effort
to replace a commodity lost to the War?

WM: This was a cooperative thing between the Crown Cork and Seal

Corporation, in Baltimore, Maryland, the University, the State
Division of Forestry, and the U.S. Forest Service.

Mr. Charles F. McMnnus, who was president of the company,
became interested in the growth of cork because they were one
of the largest cork users in the United States. He held the
basic patents on these Crown closures with a cork liner that are
on pop bottles and beer bottles. He came to California some
time around 1940-41 and he saw the cork oak growing in southern
Ca I i fornia.

He wanted to see whether it was possible to grow cork com
mercially in the United States. He commissioned George Greenan,
who was the credit man for their western office in San Francisco,
to represent the company and I represented the University; and
State Forest nurseryman, Ray Doney, and the Forest and Range Ex
periment Station fellows, Palmer Stockwel I and Nick Mirov, coop
erated.

From 1942 until the end of the War and to 1947, the state
qrew about "500,000 trees, which Mr. McManus paid twelve and a
half cents apiece for the state to grow. We distributed those
through the state ranqers and the farm advisors as widely as we
could, to get people to plant them and look after them, all the
way from San Diego clear up to Oregon.

At the same time, we were doing this stripping work. We
stripped some five tons of cork from trees around different places
where cork oaks had been planted as ornamental trees. People were
very interested in cooperating in connection with it. George
Greenan and I would go to a person who had a nice cork oak in
their yard. We said, "Now we would very much like to strip this
in connection with the experimental project. We can't guarantee
that it won't hurt the tree, but we don't think it wi I I . We have
not lost any trees yet, but there is always a possibility." Most
of these people were very interested in watching the work. When

60

WM: we started out on this project, we couldn't find anybody in the
United States that had ever stood and watched anybody strip a
cork oak.

Fair: You strip the tree completely around?

WM : Yes, completely around.

Fair: Doesn't that kill the cambium layer?

WM: The cork oak is the only tree in the world that grows an annual

rinq in the cork as well as in the wood. Under California condi
tions, the wood cambium grows in the spring until about the first
of July, then the cork cambium starts to qrow. And after the cork
cambium is in full growth and those new cells are soft, you can
make a vertical cut along the trunk of the tree and horizontal
cuts through the bark, top and bottom. And then you take — I think
there are some tools here. [Showed metal and wooden spuds for
cork stripping]

Fair: I was wondering what that collection of tools on the shelf was.

WM: We designed some of these tools ourselves. This one is from an

automobile springleaf. When we were starting to work on the trees,
George Greenan sent to Portugal and got a Portuguese cork strip
ping ax; and we tried to use that, but we found that it damaged
the cambium layer considerably.

Mr. Fanno was a saw manufacturer at Chico and we went to
see him and ask, "You make pruning saws with the teeth on the
inside of the curve. Do you think that you can make one with
the teeth on the outside of the curve?" He said that he had
never made one but ho sure; would try. And that is how we got
that etff saw for making 'the vertical cut through the cork with
minimum damage to the cambium.

Fair: That is an interesting stripping instrument that you have there
with the long handle. What is that?

WM: Well, this is a standard implement in the east for stripping
hemlock bark. We tried this, but here again it is too sharp
and it damages the cambium layer. Eventually, we found that
sharpened hickory axe handles were excellent.

Fair: Oh, that is a wooden mallet.

WM: Yes, a wooden mallet, Qace you get the cork started. Then we
have one we used, the peovCe, a heavy handle sharpened and shod;
and then we used these axe handles. They are very useful also.
You see, that won't hurt the cambium very much, but it will force
thr: cork ,iw.iy. Thr cork will crack away from tho Iron ju^t I i ko

61

WM: a ripe watermelon. Sometimes you are able to take a piece off
that is eight feet long from completely around the tree.

In February, 1945, we loaded a ton and a half of cork and
almost a half a ton of acorns that we had collected in California;
and we distributed these, George Greenan and I, with a ten-ton
truck and a driver from Baltimore, Maryland, who sent the truck
out and loaded it and started back. We distributed the acorns to
state forest nurseries in Arizona and New Mexico, Louisiana, Mis
sissippi, Florida. I am one of the few people I think who is
not in the trucking business who has gone from San Francisco to
Baltimore in a ten-ton truck.

All of that cork was shipped to Baltimore and the Crown
people allocated guite a little of it to Armstrong Cork Company,
in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for testing. We found that the Cali
fornia cork is, as far as virgin cork is concerned, practically
as good as any European cork.

However, the highest quality cork from Spain and Portugal
which goes into champagne corks is developed by continuous strip
ping of the trees from the time that they are about twenty years
old, about every ten or twelve years. Some of the trees are
eighty or ninety years, and the guality of the cork improves with
each stripping. You have the highest guality on the older trees.

Of course, we had no opportunity to determine that in the
trees here. I never did think that the project was a feasible
thing economically in California because of high labor costs
and high value of land which yields higher returns in agricul
tural crops.

Fair: Was it really good for the tree?

WM: It didn't hurt the tree any; it recovers remarkably well. When
you strip the cork off, the cork cambium is light red to pink
color and it gradually darkens during the next two or three
weeks until it becomes almost black. Then new layers of cork
cambium start underneath. In another eight to ten years, you
can strip it again. That is the way it is done in Portugal and
Spa i n.

From the economics of the thing, I always realized that
Spain and Portugal were poor countries and they need everything
they can to ship out. The United States has always used fifty
to sixty percent of the world's supply of cork. They can, with
the cheap labor that they have in Spain and Portugal, strip the
cork, bring it down to the ships, and land it at U.S. Atlantic
coast ports — or could at the time that we were working on it —
for about five cents a pound. There are some five million acres
of cork forest in Spain and Portugal and Northwest Africa.

62

As a result of this research project, we know now where we can
grow cork trees In the United States, mostly In valley and foot
hill areas in California. A lot of the trees still grow on the
Davis campus around the quadrangle, beautiful trees. But practi
cally all of the land that we have is too valuable for growing
something else.

The Crown Cork and Seal Company spent about $100,000 on
this project and the Extension Service, State Division of For
estry and U.S. Forest Service contributed much time and effort.
Palmer Stockwell made a trip to Spain to study cork forests and
methods of cork stripping and utilization there. The results
were interesting and significant, even if negative as far as
commercial growing of cork in California and the United States
was concerned.

Fence Post Dipping Project

Fair: Can you tell me something about the fence post dipping project?

WM: That was an effort to emphasize the importance of wood treatment
with chemicals to make posts last longer.

Fair: Was th i s a war project?

WM: Not essentially. It was a development when they brought out

pentachlorophenol , which is soluble in oil. The product is still
very widely used, but this was just when it was beginning and
nobody knew much about what it could do. We were trying to not
only demonstrate the use of that material, but emphasize the use
of other salts and methods of protecting wood against fungi and
termites in buildings, and in fence posts, poles and wood mate
rials used in the ground.

Fair: Did you give demonstrations on this?

WM: Oh, yes. We demonstrated the method of treatment, and also we

put in some test plot areas of treated material using some Cali-r
fornia species. Eucalyptus and oak, and other woods that are
not naturally resistant to rot, were used to see if simple methods
of treatment for dipping would be effective. Now of course pres
sure methods of treatment are admittedly the best because you get
more penetration. Top erop- treatment vJe®M give significant pro
tection against rot, and hot-cold methods using creosote and
"Penta" are also standard.

About the same time, Gary Hill of the Forest Service was in

63
WM: forest products in the Forest and Range Experiment

Station. He was secretary of the Bay Area Teredo Control
Committee ( the marine animal which destroys underwater
wood) studying methods of treatment of piling all around
San Francisco Bay. The Forest Service and the industry,
and others set up this Teredo Control Committee for the
study of the situation around the Bay, and the develop
ment of methods of preservation to control the activities
of the Teredo.

Fair: And you helped to work on this one too?

WM: I didn't work on this project, but it was about the same time.
It was an indication of increased interest in the protection
of wood against deterioration by fungus diseases, insects,
and marine borers.

Fair: Did you go out to the counties to do the demonstrations of
fence post dipping?

WM: Yes. The farm advisors held meeting of people who were

interested in fencing, and we talked about the different

methods of wood preservation such as salt methods, creosote

and others. We put in test plots of treated posts in
several counties.

California Christmas Tree Growers Association

Fair: We have not talked at all about the Christmas tree farms.

WM: That has really grown to be quite a thing now. I was a
member of the original meeting in Santa Cruz when the
Association was started. I think that was 17 years ago.
I had worked before that with Mr. Black, who as far as I
know, was the first Christmas tree grower in California.
He lived in Franz Valley above Calistoga. I got him the
first Douglas fir planting stock from Oregon that he put
In an old abandoned vineyard that he owned there, in about
1934. He had a very nice plantation set out and coming
along well, and then he died suddenly in 1941. His
wife and daughter who inherited the property found that
it was too much for them to handle, so they sold it.
The man who bought it wasn't interested in the Christmas
trees and just let them grow. I guess there is a young
forest there now. However, we learned a lot from this
pi antation.

The Neilsons, Howard and his wife, of Santa Cruz^
were elected at that first meeting as President and

64

WM: Secretary of the California Christmas Tree Growers

Association, and have continued In that position ever
since. They have done a wonderful job. He tried to get
somebody to take it over this last year, but couldn't find
any one. So the next meeting which Is to be In January
here on the campus will most likely elect a new president.
There are a lot of members in the Association, as well
as a branch in the Sierra counties and one In southern
Cal ifornia.

Fair: What kind of advising did you do for the group? Did you
help them select trees, sites, or what?

WM: Yes. As in connection with any other enterprise of that
kind, the emphasis is on the economics of the situation,
which is the adequate care for the kind of stock that Is
planted, the way that it is planted, and the care given
it afterwards.

Fair: Were there new species created for use as Christmas trees?

WM: We started with Douglas fir, white fir, Monterey pine, and
Scotch pine. Professor William Libby of the School of
Forestry has been doing some testing of selected races
of Monterey pine in recent years, during the last four
or five years I am sure. Monterey pine has been selected
for its rapidity of growth.

One of the things during the years that has been
important is the method of pruning, shearing, and shaping
the trees. Take the Monterey pines for example. If they are
not pruned back and shaped they make inferior Christmas
trees. We did a lot of demonstration work in planting,
cultivating, and shearing in different counties. Much of
the work was done in Santa Cruz County because most of the
planting started there. Sonoma County is also an important
county in Christmas tree production. We have held meetings
in Sonoma and discussed the sources of stock, types of stock,
and different species of trees, methods of planting, cultiva
tion or weed control, and adequate care during the summertime
to get the trees started. It is all a matter of getting
started In the proper way by finding out all about what
areas trees will succeed in.

I was just talking to Ed Gilden,the Extension Forester
now. He has been carrying on the program with the Christmas
tree growers since I retired, and he said that this bad
weather of the past weekend was a major problem in connection
with sales at " choose and cut" plantations, because people
don't go out in bad weather to cut trees. C There was a period
of severe rain storms two weeks before Christmas. ed.D

Fair: Oh, I see how that would effect the business that has such

65

Fair: a short marketable span.

WM: Now the people only have one more weekend, so the weather
may cut down on the amount of sales. I think that the
figures show that 250 thousand trees were sold last year
from plantations. Of course the total number of trees
sold in California is about four million. I started this
study of imports into the state to find out where the
Christmas trees were coming from. You have probably seen
the publication that we did on Christmas trees In California.

What we don't know as much about is the number of
trees from natural stands produced in California because
we have no way of checking, really. Unless producers make
up reports, or if the farm advisors and rangers send us
figures. We have the reports from the railroads, so we
know how many carloads were shipped and where they came .
from. The plant introduction stations on the highways have
cooperated by keeping records of Christmas trees shipments
by truck: how many trees in each truck, where they came
from, and what the species were. So we have very good
reports on that.

Oregon State University has done quite a lot of studies
of what happens to trees in shipment from Puget Sound and
other points to southern California, and has developed the
uti I ity of icing cars. Icing the railroad cars at the begin
ning, and then if they are shipped through the Central Valley
under very hot weather conditions, again at Roseberg or
perhaps Sacramento on their way to southern California,
prevents the trees from deteriorating from the heat in the
cars.

California Christmas Tree Growers Association has grown

to a membership of over 300, with something like 2500 acres

of plantations, and sales maybe of 110-115 thousand trees
a year.*

* See supplement written by Metcalf in Appendix B.

66
Travel I Ing

Fair: ! know that you did extensive travelling. Can you tell

me something about your travels in this state. What were
some of the activities that took you around besides the
fire demonstrations and the 4-H Camping program?

WM: I travelled on request from the farm advisors in the

different counties, and in connection with the statewide
efforts of various kinds that were going on both in
4-H Club work and in planting, or preparation of forestry
programs. For quite a while there used to be over KFI in
Los Angeles, a radio program prepared by the farm advisor,
where he discussed such things as different agriculture,
forestry, and soil conservation problems. Some of us in
the state office here used to be asked to prepare one
talk a month, or something like that for the program.

I had all of the windbreak problems down in
southern California. With the farm advisors in Riverside,
Orange, Los Angeles counties, I did a certain amount of
test-plot work with anemometers, and picking up of fruit
after heavy Santa Ana winds in the orange groves.

Fair: What were some of the exciting incidents of your travels?
Did you ever have anything interesting or exciting happen
to you as you were driving through the state?

WM: I don't know. I remember during the War when we had gasoline
and tire ration cards. I had four tires blow out on one trip
that I made, and I had to wait until the tires could be sent
from the University Garage in Berkeley because I couldn't get
any tires where I was.

Fair: Where were you?

WM: I was up In the foothills some place, up above Stockton

or Jackson, or one of those places. It was one of those things.
My annual travel by car was about 20,000 miles. Also I
did a lot of travelling on my own time,particul arly during
the last ten or twelve years or so that I was in the Service.
I used my vacation time to travel and to contact Extension
foresters in other states. I think that I knew more Extension
foresters than any other forester in the United States.

The University used to bring twenty-five or fifty cars
a year from Michigan before they started to assemble them
out here. The University used Pontiacs for fifteen years_or
so, and we used to bring the cars back from there,. I woufd
drive to different states and contact the fellows there and

WM: discuss the various forest extension problems in

other areas. I also knew the Extension foresters from

Washington D.C., WH-rtarrr Sowder and Bill Williams.

. H-

Fair:

Fair: Where did you stay when you were travelling around? Did
you stay with farm advisors' fami I ies, or did you have to
stay in motels?

WM: The year that I started, 1926, I remember talking to Tippett
about travel costs. He said, " We have set up a thousand
dollar fund that you can draw on for expenses during the year."
I don't think that I overdrew it. My travelling expenses
were usually pretty small, for I camped out some of the time
when I did travelling in connection with the 4-H camps.

Did you travel mostly by yourself?

WM: Yes, mostly by myself. I drove 20-25 thousand miles a
year in the University cars. In the beginning I had a
pass on the Santa Fe Railroad, as did a number of people.
I would take the train to southern California sometimes.

Fair: Did you find it advantageous to be here in Berkeley rather
than up north , or i n the Central Valley? Could people
from around the state contact you easily enough?

WM: Oh yes. There is no question about that. This is the place
where a person should be, for this is the headquarters of
the University. I did a lot of travelling, and I sometimes
wonder how I did it. I worked in almost all of the counties
from San Diego to Modoc, on various aspects of Extension >
work: fire protection, forest management, planting, cork oak
program, 4-H Club work, and the 4-H camping program. I didn't
have a staff. I had to do most of these things myself with
the help of the local farm advisors.

Fair: Were the roads bad?

WM: There are no bad roads now like there was then. In 1924 it
took me twenty-one days to drive from Detroit to Berkeley.

Fair: Are you kidding?

WM: No, and we were driving from twelve to fifteen hours a day.
There were only four miles of paved road in the whole state
of Nevada. We plugged along at five miles an hour, mile
after mile, after mile, through dust that deep. Nobody knows
anything about roads like that anymore.

Fair: How in the world did you travel twenty-one thousand miles
a year?

WM: That was later, and California roads improved each year.

68

WM: We are fortunate in California because we have better
roads than they have in a lot of states.

Fair: Did you have a University car to drive the entire length
of your career?

WM: Yes. I can remember the first cars that the University

Extension had — old Model T Fords. I never learned to drive
before coming to California. I never knew anybody who
could drive a car, or for that matter anyone who owned a
car, until after I graduated from the University of Michigan
in 1912. There was nobody in college at that time who had
a car, even in Michigan where the cars were made. I didn't
learn to drive a car until 1916. I took over the eucalyptus
project from the United States Forest Service, and with J.A.
Mitchell who was one of the U.S. research foresters before
the Forest and Range Experiment Station began, travel led
seven or eight thousand miles a year visiting the groves
of eucalyptus that had been planted in the eucalyptus boom
days somewhere around 1900-1910. I travelled with him and
I learned to drive his Dodge car in 1916. That was the
year of the big floods in southern California when there
wasn't a bridge left between San Diego and Los Angeles.
Everything was washed out: railroads, highways, and every
thing else.

Fair: The good old rainmaker Hatfield who was hired by San Diego
to "make" rain really did do his job well. They had a lot
of rain that year.

WM: The first highway bond issue- that the state voted created
a narrow highway between San Diego and Berkeley. It was a
very narrow road.

Fair: .You used to drive the old ridge route over the grapevine and
the Tehachapis then.

WM: Yes, I have been overall kinds of roads. I remember the
first time that I went to Whitaker's Forest in 1915.
Merritt Pratt and I went by train to DInuba. We hired a
car from a local man who had a Cadillac that could make
the mountain road up there, and made arrangements to stay
at the Fored" Service ranger station nearby. We were there
for ten days and then the man came and took us out again.

Fair: That's certainly the slow way. Did you travel all vear*. or
Just during the summer?

WM: I travelled at anytime there was need for my presence In
the field.

69
OTHER PROJECTS

California Conservation Council

Fair: I noticed in your annual reports that you attended hundreds of
meetings a year for your different activities. Can you
tell me what type of meetings thev were. I know that there
were fire demonstration meetings. Were there soil conservation
meetings?

WM: I worked with the California Conservation Council for twenty
five years.

Fair: What did you do at those meetings?

WM: I was. president of It during 1955-56, and I also assisted
for a number of years in getting out the outline of things
to be carried on during Conservation Week by the different
agencies. The idea of this organization, which was started
by Miss Pearl Chase of Santa Barbara was to encourage
people to practice conservation. Her dedicated and dynamic
leadership over the years has made it an effective rallying
point for many of the conservation agencies, and stimulated
them to renewed efforts in putting their programs before
the public each year in March. Miss Chase maintained an
office for the Council in Santa Barbara with some assistance
from the County Board of Supervisors and membership contributions
from people throughout the state. She stimulated the writing
of pamplets on conservation and distributed thousands of these
to schools and to other organizations which could make use
of them. These were sold at small cost, but receiots were
never sufficient to defray the cost. She and her brother
Harold Chase and a few other dedicated people made up the
difference.

Every effort was made to secure the interest and
cooperation of al! conservation agencies by enlisting their
directors as vice-presidents or associates for the Council.
The governor was urged to issue a Conservation Week Proclamat
ion each week which was given wide publicity.

Have you seen one of the verses that I wrote which was
placed on a poster to be distributed to all of the schools?

Fair: No.

70

WM: What Can I Do

What can I do In Conservation

To aid my community, state and nation?

I can use courtesy, thought and care

In field or forest anywhere;
Take what I need, but never waste,
Curb my desire for frantic haste;
Obey the laws for fish and game
And help my neighbors do the same

In handling forest, range or field,
Plan skillfully for future yield.
So live, thnt in a future year
None will regret that I passed here.

Fair: That is marvelous.

WM: That was put up on a poster showing a picture of a boy and

a dog going through a farm gate, with an outline of Mt. Shasta
in the background. It was sent to every school in California
during one or two of the observances of the Conservation Week.

Fair: That is really great.

WM: That is one of the things that I wrote. You may have seen
some of the others such as " Save Space for Beauty'.'*
I sent that to Mrs. Johnson last year. I had written It
ten or twelve years ago and it was issued by the California
Conservation Council during one of the Conservation
Weeks. When Mrs. Johnson initated this beauty program
for the country I sent her a copy of it. I thought she
would be interested in the fact that we had been doing
something like her program for the United States, here
in California for many years. I have a. very nice letter
from her thanking;me for sending it.

Fair: What were some of your other slogans that you wrote for
Conservation Week during other years?

WM: Each year a sheet came out designating each day of the
week, starting with March 7th, dedicated to some aspect
of conservation: forestry, soil conservation, fire prevention,
and so on. And for several years I helped in writing the
little slogans that were used in the pamphlet that was
Issued for each Conservation Week.

See Appendix C.

71

'Fair: Do you remember some of the other slogans that you
wrote?

WM: No, not particularly. One year I wrote a couplet for
each of the days in Conservation Week.

Fair: I see that you are a poet as well as a forester.

WM: One of the things you might be interested in, I didn't
bring a copy of it, but you will find it somewhere. I
wrote about American speaks, " Bring me men," modeled on
the first verse of the poem by Sam Walter Foster, " The
Coming American." It is quoted on the Natural Resources
Building in Sacramento — " Bring me men to match my mountains."
I used that verse and then I wrote five verses more: Bring
me men to match my forest, Bring me men to match my rivers,
and so on. I can get a copy of it for you.*

Fair: Fine. We will include it in the transcript.

WM: Efforts were made to start regional chapters of the Council
but without success. The California Conservation Council
tried to reinforce and give opportunity to the different
agencies to present their programs in another manner with
emphasis on a statewide program. All of the different
agencies did participate in arranging for that week by
forming a program. We got a message to the governor each
year and had him issue a proclamation about the week.

Fair: How did you combine your forestry duties with the Council?

WM: It is an educational effort promoted by the California
Conservation Council and with a board of assistants or
counselors made up of people from the Forest Service,
the Park Service, the State Division of Forestry, and the
governor, as well as the Director of Extension and the
heads of various organizations. You can see it on that
basis. The observation of Conservation Week comes on
March 7- 1 4th, starting on Luther Burbank's birthday.

Fair: Tell me some of the things that you have done for CCC Week.
Have you given fire demonstrations, or have you planted
trees?

WM: Yes. We fitted them in, but one person could do little.
Every effort was made to secure attention to conservation
subject matter by all agencies and schools. The Information
was sent out to the farm advisors in all of the counties.
It is just like fire prevention week in the fall, which
is a national observance promoted by the city, county, and
state fire departments. We have promoted better understanding
of conservation by that means in the fall too.

* See Append! x C.

72

Fair: Did you help your 4-H groups plan special conservation
activities such as nature hikes?

WM: Oh, yes. We did a tree planting here and there, and

cleaned up a fire hazard. They still do some of these

things, and now the 4-H is quite active in local projects
to promote beauty.

Radio Talks and Publications

Fair: Part of your program for fire prevention was carried on
through different means of publicity. I understand that
during the Second World War you gave radio talks. What
did you talk about?

WM: KGO had a studio in Oakland. But in the beginning these
talks were not considered to be very important. There
were not very many radio sets and people didn't pay
much attention to it, but we would get a request occasionally
to give a talk on forestry.

I prepared a number of talks for presentation
in the weekly series of programs that they put on KFI
in Los Angeles on various aspects of the forestry
program: growing trees, planting trees, harvesting trees,
watershed protection, and so on. We did the same thing once
in a while on T.V. After we got interested in the Christmas
tree program, we put on a demonstration on television.
That was the first program of that type that I took part
in, showing different types of Christmas trees and what
constituted a number one tree, or a poorer tree. And we
told how they could be grown and improved in the forest
under natural conditions by giving them room and shaping,
and the handling in the plantations.

I don't watch television myself much, I would rather
listen to the radio. Mrs. Metcalf looks at these doctor
programs and things like that, which don't appeal to me
at all. I can't be bothered with these problems, so I
listen to the news; I am different.

Fair: You are so busy that I am sure that you can not take the
time out to watch T.V.

WM: Wei I , I do quite a b it of writing i n connection with these
various i nterests, and I have been working on a publication
on " Trees of the Berkeley Campus" for something like four
years now. I think that it Is going to be a very definite

73

WM: contribution to the Centennial observance, and I think that a lot
of people are going to be interested in it.

Fair: I most definitely want to see a copy of it. I walk around the

campus now, and after having read some of your papers on the trees
on campus, I see if I can remember which tree is which.

WM: Of course we tried, with the Environmental Horticultural Division
and some of the men who were here before, to keep at least the
more Interesting specimens labeled. But it is a very difficult
thing to do because the little kids that come on campus throw rocks
at them and break them off or cut them off with knives. We had
about three hundred labels made two years ago, and they put a lot
of them out; but I don't know how many of them are still there.

Fair: I have seen very few of them. I only remember one Toyon marked.
You wrote a forestry news letter at times too, didn't you?

WM : Yes .

Fair: How often did you write this? Did you write the entire thing
yourself or did other people contribute to it?

WM: The Extension Service gets out a number of different publica
tions along different lines which go primarily to the farm ad
visors. They supply such information as they feel is germane
in their counties to the local papers.

Now once in a while of course, an article that is of suffi
cient state-wide interest is sent out In the form of a press
release from Berkeley. This again is a development over the years;
things don't stay the same. But when we organized the Small
Woodlands Council after 1950, the years that we had that as a
medium of cooperation between all of those interested in small
woodlands areas, we used to get out a newsletter on that, you
see.

Small Woodlands Counci

Fair: This was a part of Extension forestry?

WM: Oh yes. I was acting as secretary of it, and we would have meet
ings here. I came back from my 1950 sabbatical with the idea of
setting up what we called a Small Woodlands Council. This was to
include all of the agencies and all of the personalities In Cali
fornia who were interested in bringing about better management,
better protection and better understanding of the problems of the

74

WM: woods in small ownerships. We carried that on for about five or
six years. We issued a number of publications that you will find
in the library. They had to do with suggestions for better man
agement and protection.

We also had occasional meetings in the field to observe
progress on the ground. Our office here acted as secretary and
sent out the notices. I think that it was very helpful but I
think that it has been allowed to evaporate now.

Fair: That is really a shame when something like that happens.

WM: A lot of things happen that way. You know if you don't have a
person who is interested in doing something like this and will
ing to do the work, it is not easy to get things done. After I
retired, I guess that nobody was particularly interested in car
rying on. Maybe it is no longer necessary.

Fair: Yes, it is the leader that makes the difference.

WM: If you have a good secretary, you can get along very well, even
if you don't have a good presiding officer. The secretary is
really responsible for running the thing. But that is the way
that it is. Times change, and things that seem important to one
time are not so important to another.

Fair: Was the Council made up of people who owned small wood lots or
was this a management program?

WM: No. This Council itself was made up of representatives of the

different agencies that were interested in promoting better man
agement, utilization, and information about the small woods.

Fair: What agencies?

WM: All of these agencies that we have been talking about: the

University, the Forest and Range Experiment Station, the Regional
Office of the U.S. Forest Service, Soil Conservation Service, the
State Division of Forestry. We invited other people, Fish and
Wildlife Service representatives and all, for the discussions
of these problems.

I don't know that the Small Woodlands Council made much im
pression on the whole situation. The information had been grow
ing about forestry since the organization of the Forest Products
Laboratory and the spreading out of its work; because after all,
when you start talking about products, it doesn't take you long
before you get back to the forest from where these things come
and the implications of proper care, protection, good management,
and utilization. But it was one of the things that was a help in
getting people to work together.

75

Fair: You worked in 1948-1949 on the development of small mills. Was
this a forerunner of the Small Woodlands Council, or is it in
any way connected with it?

WM: The program having to do with small portable sawmills came about
through interest generated by the cooperating agencies to assist
owners of small woodlands in thinning their young stands to im
prove tree composition and to increase growth, also to determine
if such management practices could be carried on at a profit.
All of the agencies cooperating in the Small Woodlands Council
were interested in this and the Soil Conservation Service was
able to purchase a very good portable mill for use by land owners
in different forest counties who wished to conduct such test thin
ning of their stands and work up the products for ranch building
construction or possible sale. The equipment was used on a lease
basis under the direction of a Soil Conservation Service man in
charge for several years, but I do not know if it is still
aval I able.

FORESTRY LEGISLATION

Fair: I have questions about legislation during the period that you

were Extension Forester. We have spoken of Clarke-McNary quite
often. How did the Fulmer Act influence you?

WM: Well, the Weeks law in 1911 was one of the marks of progress,
like when you go back in history to the Magna Carta, the May
flower Compact and the Declaration of Independence. These things
are all a part of the developing knowledge and appreciation in
democracy and our American laws.

Fair:

Well, how did the Fulmer Act influence your work in any way?

WM: That had largely to do with better fire protection in the na

tional forests. The Forest Service carried on these nation-wide
studies of the lumber industry and the availability of merchant
able timber, and impressions about how long this would last, and
what it was necessary to do in order to get land back into pro
duction again. I think as a matter of fact that figures have
shown that there is more timber growing in the United States
today, as far as total volume is concerned, than we are cutting.

At the same time, there are millions and millions of acres
of unused lands. A forester in Florida told me that because of
fires in that state, five million acres need planting. We have
about the same in California. Of course, we have a much bigger
area than they have but then it is a more difficult area to do
anything in because so much of it is so dry.

Fair: Did the Norris-Doxey Farm Forestry Program, help you with
reforestrat ion?

WM: This was one of the things that promoted the wind-break, the
shelter-belt program.

Fair: Do you recall some of the discussion that took place when they
were considering the Forest Practice Act?

WM: As to what the industry and land owners were willing to do in
keeping land productive: You see, this was supposed to be a
movement developed by the industry and land owners of the state,
and then proposed to the Legislature. When it was passed, the
administration of it was then turned over to the State Division
of Forestry and the State Forester's office.

76

77

WM: These meetings were held to get the Ideas and the impressions
of the landowners in the different places and in the industry,
to find out what they thought was important and what things
should be included in the Forest Practice Act. Everybody was
Invited to come.

Fair: The public was Invited?

WM: Well, I guess that they were open to the public, yes. But mostly
they were attended by the landowners and the timber owners.
After the law was passed, It provided for Forest Practice Com
mittees In the five different areas Csee page 19], and each Com
mittee was supposed to draw up definite requirements for manage
ment of lands to insure their continued productivity. When the
Committees discussed these and passed them, they then became law
in those areas. Now there has been one very controversial
aspect of the law that I don't think has been resolved yet.
The law has gone under some criticism because an owner could
declare that he did not intend to use it for forest purposes;
that is, he could have it removed from the provisions for the
Forest Practice Act because he was going to use it for something
else — grazing, subdivision, and so forth. Then all the timber
could be cut off or the land burned and changed into grazing
land or whatever. That is still a matter of controversy.

Fair: What do you think will happen? How will this problem
be resolved?

WM: Well, they have just been discussing different solutions In
the various meetings during the last year, I understand.
(I have not been to the meetings.) But a method of tighten
ing up the requirements in the Act which the Legislature would
have to do had been considered. That may be the only way that
it wi I I be resolved.

Fair: Do you think that will be a practical way to resolve the problem?

WM: After all, the good faith of the people who own the land and
their willingness to carry on conservation methods of manage
ment is a primary consideration. If they don't want to do
this — take for example, the case of one of the owners in
Nevada County. He had a forester make long time plans for
the administration of the area, and this plan was approved
by the Forest Practice Committee. The owners did conservative
cutting on the land, leaving seed trees and managing It
according to good conservation principles. Well, then the
land was sold to another outfit which put It into a subdivision.
They cut all the trees off of It and simply said that they
were not going to uso it for forest purposes anymore, even

78

WM: though it is in some of the best ponderosa pine producing areas
in the state. So those are some of the things that happen.
These are all problems that have to do with ownership of land.
All of these laws are items in the progress through the years.
Each law passed with provisions for better use of land for crops,
grazing, watershed protection, timber production and forest re
creation is a step forward for maximum benefits to the largest
number of people. On the other hand restrictive laws which place
high quality lands In a single category and prevent multiple use
are to me of questionable desirability.

COOPERATION WITH OTHER AGENCIES

United States Forest Service

Fair: What was your specific relationship with the U.S. Forest Service?
You have told me that you helped at the Experiment Station. Did
the United States Forest Service ever request your services?

WM: During the various wars, when we had these committees for the

saving of food and fiber for the war effort, all of the agencies
were working very closely together. Richard Hammett of the U.S.
Forest Service, the one who was credited with the creation of
Smoky the Bear, and I, went to see the Board of Supervisors in
Imperial County. We went south together on one of these trips
trying to develop better understanding of the fire situation,
better equipment and attention to fire danger. We went to the
Board of Supervisors of Imperial and San Diego counties to talk
about the things that they could do to assist in the general
statewide fire protection efforts.

Claude Ti I lotson was here during the Second World War, and
he and I and the State Forester, Pratt, worked very closely to
gether in connection with fire prevention and other projects.
Ti I lotson was the Clarke-McNary inspector for the U.S. Forest
Service in the California Region.

Fair: Who were some of the people you worked with in the U.S.F.S.?

WM: Hammett, Ti I lotson, J. Price, and various supervisors of the
national forests when we would go to the communities at the
edge of their forests. They sometimes came to the meetings,
and sometimes delegated the district ranger to come.

Fair: What about setting up fire districts? Did you have to contact
the Forest Service at the time you were setting up the rural

79

80

Fair: fire fighting distructs? Did the Forest Service object to you
working in their territory?

WM: We did not organize new fire districts but worked in those

already established. As I said, I don't think that there were
ever any objections. After all, the problems were large and
required cooperation and mutual understanding, as they still
do today. The Forest Service has the primary responsibility
for the protection of the land within the national forests and
the state has the primary responsibility for the protection of
the private lands outside the national forest, as well as the
land outside the limits of the incorporated cities, or the limits
of the Incorporated fire districts; but both of the federal and
state governments work with the local governments.

The local fire districts that we helped to organize are
set up by the county board of supervisors who appoint the com
missioners and appoint a time for the election of the fire com
missioners of the district. The commissioners then report to
the board of supervisors. Therefore the contact from a state
wide point of view is from the state forester's office through
the board of supervisors. In many cases, the county board of
supervisors turned over the protection of rural property within
the county to the state.

This was all developed in the Thirties after we had generated
additional interest in better state-wide protection. The State
Forester has contact with the board of supervisors and makes
annual or biannual arrangements with them for doing certain
things. The state will appropriate so much money and they will
put a ranger in to supervise and cooperate with whatever local
fire districts might be in the county, and to handle the coopera
tion in that zone adjacent to the national forest lands.

Fair: Then you really didn't have much contact with the United States
Forest Service rangers or work with their programs, did you?

WM: No, not particularly. The Forest Service was represented on

these various committees so I had contact there. They received
the information and wherever there were national forest lands
involved in the areas where we were to give a demonstration, they
usually appeared at the demonstration. If they wanted to assist
in the demonstration or talk about local situations, they could,
as did many of the local fire chiefs of the towns or fire dis
tricts where we were.

Working With Experiment Station Personnel

Fair: What kind of planting did you do with the U.S. Forest Service
Forest and Range Experiment Station ?

WM: That is really a research organization developing better
understanding of requirements of collection of seed,
maturity of seed, and storage of seed. We had a ref rigeratTon
plant that used to be In the basement of Hilgard Hall; it
was one of the first cold storage units that was available
around here. I used to bring In seed and turn It over to them
to store down there. They had these different temperatures:
one was zero, one 40° and the other a little warmer. We
car rr led out these tests for refrigeration of seeds with certain
moisture content at different temperatures. We carried on
germination experiments afterward to see how long the 'seeds
would keep. For example in the cork oak project Nick Mirov,
who was one of the si I vlcultural 1st at the station carried
on some tests for the storage of cork oak acorns in moist
sawdust. You can kill acorns by putting them in a bag and
leaving them in this 6ffice here for two weeks* Mirov found
that by storing them in moist sawdust at 4-t.j* they could
be kept for a year and still germinate very nicely.

Fair: How much work did you do with the Eddy Tree Breeding Station,
or the Institute of Forest Genetics as It Is now called. I
understand that you helped to select the site for the station.

WM: Lloyd Austin was a graduate of the University, not in forestry,
but in landscape. When Mr. Eddy from Everett, Washington, decided
that he wanted to set up a station for the study of pines of the
world, Austin asked me to go with him to select a site which
would be considered most suitable for such experimentation. I
spent a couple of weeks with him; we went around up in the
north coast ranges, and up and down the Sierras, and we finally
looked at this place at about 2000 feet elevation near Placerville.

Fair: Did you work with the station after that?

WM: Oh .yes. When we were working on the cork oak project, Palmer

Stockwe I I, one of the men at the station, was very much interested
In it, In fact he was selected by the Forest Service to go to
Spain to make some studies on the cork oak trees and cork utiliza
tion. Both Stockwell and Mirov worked on the germination and
grafting experiments on cork oak. The cork oak was grafted on
other California native live-oaks.

Fair: Quercus wislizenii perhaps?

WM: Yes, and Canyon Live Oak, Q. chrysolepis. But these experiments
were done at the Institute of Forest Genetics.

82

Fair: Oh, then Quercus kel logl i?

WM: Yes, he tried it on black oak, but because it is a deciduous

tree, the scions lived until winter and when the roots went into
a rest period, the scion died.

Fair: What were your relations with the Soil Conservation Service?

Did you work with them? I thought that you might have, because
of your interest in prevention of erosion.

WM: When they set up the Soil Conservation Districts, I worked with
a number of their people. They had a forester in the district
and they had an experimental nursery. (Charles Kraebel was In
charge of the station in southern California, that Is, the San
Dimas Field Station of the U.S.F.S. I worked with him in con
nection with experiments and studies that they are still carry
ing with erosion prevention.) The Soil Conservation Service
started a nursery in southern California for growing stock and
planting for windbreaks and erosion control in the San Fernando
Valley. I worked there several times with their people as well
as at the Santa Paula and Pleasanton sites. There was overlapping;
there isn't any question of that under the Roosevelt policies,
because the Soil Conservation Service was another agency paral
leling the work of the Forest Service and the Extension Service,
which were already doing work In erosion. But as Mr. Crocheron
used to say, "There are enough problems so that a lot of agencies
can work, and should work, without animosity."

Soil Conservation Service

Fair: Did you find that the Soil Conservation Service was particularly
difficult to get along with?

WM: The soils division here on campus and the Extension man in soils
were the people who made the contacts with the Soil Conservation.
Service as an over-all matter. I knew the people very well. John
Barnes was contacted because he was in charge of the State Soil
Conservation Service program until he retired. I knew him well
and worked with him for a long time. He came with me on a couple
of trips, and we used to meet at various times.

I was a member of the statewide committee that met each year
to go over the proposals for soil conservation that were made
from Washington, D.C., to see whether the statewide committee
thought they were important enough to adopt in California. Then
If they were adopted, it was for certain sections of the state.
They might not be important in the Imperial Valley, for example,
but very important in other places. These affairs were very

83
WM; complicated, but after all I think that there was a pretty

good spirit in the whole thing. I never felt any particular
animosity toward me or the things that I was trying to do. I
was glad to work with these fellows whenever they wanted me
to, or felt that it would be Interesting. I went with the SCS
in the field sometimes and discussed problems on the ground
as to what they wanted to do, but after all that was the logical
thing to do.

Fair: Can you remember anybody who was on the committee besides you and
John Barnes? Was the State Forester on the committee?

WM: Yes, the Forest Service had representatives, the Division of

Forestry, the Soils Divlson of Extension and the University did
als'o. Representatives from all of these agencies were invited
to come, but some of them didn't.

Fair: Do you recall the names of the people who worked with you on
this committee?

WM: Mr, Pratt use to come to the meetings or send one of the deputy
state foresters to the meetings. It was largely a matter of
maintaining contacts arid 'i nformat Ion.

Some of the proposals that the committee considered came
from Washington D.C. This was true in a lot of these programs
that came from Washington, although in many cases they were often
arranged to accomplish results in the southern states and really
didn't apply to California at all. We had to try to work out
something that would yield some significant results In spite of
the way the program was set up. A lot of these things were set
up politically to favor the democratic south, and ! don't think
that there was any question about that. We have more crops In
California than all of the rest of the United States put together
probably; these programs were aimed at the small cotton farmer in
the south.

It is like the program set up here in Berkeley, what they
call the multi-purpose Senior Center. It isn't a practical
thing, and it isn't what the people in Berkeley need. They
are spending $2500 a month on this thing. I am on the committee
at the request of the City Council, but I have told them repeat
edly that I don't believe in a lot of the things that they are
doing. It is too darn expensive.

Fair: What years were you on this Soil Conservation Committee? Was
it during the Thirties, Forties?

WM: It was shortly after It was set up, sometime in the late Thirties.
Fair: I saw some comment, I believe that it was in one of your annual

84

Fair: reports, about a cooperative project between you, the 4-H, the
farm forestry bureau, and the Soil Conservation Service, and it
was called the Watershed, Farm, Forestry Project. Can you tell
me about this cooperative program?

WM: This program was an attempt to stimulate additional interest In
an educational way more than anything else. The primary respon
sibility of the University and the Extension Service is keeping
people informed about what is going on, as well as improving the
present methods of doing things. Naturally, the farm advisors in
the different counties were anxious to know what these proposals
meant to their own people, or if it didn't apply to their own people,
they would tell the committee that it didn't apply. The Soil
Conservation Districts were set up with elected representatives
In each of the districts. It is a very different setup than most
other things in connection with agriculture. The SCS maintains
technical advisors in a district, which might, but not necessarily,
include a whole county, and might be coordinated with the farm ad
visors' work for the same people. These are some of the elements
of competition, you might say.*

Fair: What were some of your projects with the State Division of

Forestry? What were some of the things that you accomplished?
I know that you worked a lot with Mr. Pratt. Did he ask your
advice on matters or suggest projects that you might work on?

WM: The State Division of Forestry operates through a state ranger

appointed by the State Forester to supervise fire protection and
prevention efforts in that county. He reports to the State For
ester, and naturally works in cooperation with the county board
of supervisors and representatives of other agencies in the county —
farm advisors, agricultural commissioners of the State Department
of Agriculture, local personnel of the Soil Conservation Service,
local wardens of the Fish and Game Department, supervisors and
rangers of the U.S. Forest Service In many foothill and forest
counties, and so forth. The Extension Forester can and often
does, work with all of these agencies on programs of mutual In
terest, particularly in times of crisis or emergency, but also
on the furtherance of educational programs: projects on fire
prevention, tree planting, recreational development and forest
management such as we have already discussed.

Then you must realize that most of the foresters belonged
to the Society of American Foresters. We would have meetings
of the Society and discuss a lot of these things that were made
subject matter for discussion in the Society. Because it Is a
separate thing entirely many of these things could be discussed
and talked about, and brow-beat, things that you couldn't do at
government policy meetings. That is one of the SAF'rs main
advantages. Also it is a powerful force of understanding, and

*See Append! x B.

85
WM; so you wouldn't want to leave that out of consideration.

Now the engineering societies and these other things are the
same way, and It does aid in getting some of these things
understood and assists in getting results.

Fair: That is really excellent. I didn't realize that was what

was happening In SAP. I can see that it is a very valuable
organization for the foresters.

Change at the University

Fair: Were you on the Academic Senate at the University of California ?

WM: Yes.

Fair: Did you go the the Senate meetings?

WM: Not often because I was usually out on field work. I maintained
membership in the Academic Senate because I had it before I went
into Extension.

Fair: Did you notice how a controversy In the Senate among the

administrators of the faculty affected Extension? Or did it
affect Extension?

WM: Well, the policies of the University affected all parts of .it. The
College of Agriculture, the department of agricul rural sciences,
has always been a very powerful public medium in support of the
University. The Extension Service played a very large role in
that regard. Naturally the director of Extension and the vice-
presidents in charge of Agriculture and the deans .at Davis and
Berkeley and Riverside are in a lot better position to answer
that question than anybody else. This is particularly so in
my case because I didn't go to these meetings for they were
discussing things that had to do with the Berkeley campus.
Extension has a much broader statewide responsibility and a broader
emphasis than the local campus.

Fair: Oo you remember the so called "faculty revolution" in 1919? This
was when the faculty was attempting to get more power for the
Academic Senate.

WM: 1919?

Fair: Were you on the Senate at that time?

WM: Oh yes.

86
Fair: But you were only an assistant professor at the time.

WM: I was here in 1919. That was right after the war.

Fair: Do you remember the Loyalty Oath controversy in the later I940's ?

WM: I could never understand the oppositon to It. I signed it, and
I have signed it a number of times in different capacities such
as when I was a member of the Forest Service .

Fair: Did they have problems with the farm advisors signing this?

WM: I don't think so. I think most of the farm advisorsT- most of

the people in Extension have too much sense and too much loyalty
to the nation not to sign it. I think that most of this stuff
was just bunk. I think that a lot of this present turmoil — I
don't have any use for these "activist" people at all. They
had this turmoil on the campus when we were celebrating the fifieth
anniversary of the School of Forestry in December 1964. The
"activists" tried to keep us from coming on to the campus. I
guess I am just too old-fashioned to have much patience with such
methods. It made me so darn mad, and a lot of the alumni couldn't
understand it, and they can't yet.

Fair: It Is so very disconcerting, and a very hard thing for outsiders
to identify with.

WM: We are having a meeting of the School of Forestry Alumni on

December 6th. One of the vice-presidents is going to talk to
us about the student turmoil. He is going to try to make some
of us understand something about it.

I heard another very good speech about the turmoil, . The
speaker said that most of the young people have absolutely no
conception of what it is to work for anything. They have always
been given anything that they wanted, and they don't know what
money is worth. They have never had to work for anything. I think
that this is largely the problem. I talked the other day to the
Mayflower Society about logging and lumbering in pioneer days,
and I said that the only thing that you can conclude by looking
at any of the pioneer history of this country is that there was
grinding toil involved in everything that everybody did. There
wasn't any time to do much except work. The amazing thing about
it was that the pioneers in those days set up educational institutions
like Harvard and Yale, and when they could do so, with the assistance
of Congress, they set up the land-grant colleges. Many of them
didn't have the opportunity to get much schooling — they were
too darn busy cutting down trees to make a farm.

PRESERVATION VS CONSERVATION

WM: Another thing that worries me is providing for

expanding timber use in the United States. This year at our
meeting of the Society of American Foresters at the Kaiser
Center, we discussed multiple use of wild lands with particular
reference to the changing scene: the very wide misapprehension
and misunderstanding by the people who now live in the cities.
70 or 75 percent of the population of the United States live
In metropolitan areas, and has little understanding of the rural,
mountain and forest problems, except in many cases In a very narrow
view of what you might call the preservationists.

The ideas of the preservationists are very dangerous. One
of the men who represents the lumber industry says that there is
definitely going to be a terrific shortage of building materials
for all of the buildings that are required. Yet the government
said that they propose to build a million houses in the near
future, and somebody said that if they did that the lumber
prices would double. If the government tried to build them
with substitute materials it couldn't be done at a reasonable
costs. After all the American home since pioneer days has been
a wooden house, and the maintenance of adequate supplies of
lumber depend on good management and good protection of forest
lands.

Take for example* the redwood controversy. The government
and the preservationists want to put several thousand acres of
very fine redwood lumber area Into a national park. It is going
to have a terrific effect on the entire economy of Del Norte County
and the northern part of Humboldt County. They will be removing
these acres from constructive use. There are many things talked
about by the preservationists, yet they disregard the economics
of the situation entirely.

Fair: Economics may not affect the members of these groups and so

these problems are not taken Into consideration when planning
reserves and such things as parks.

WM: Well, there are I ifnits to what even an affluent society

such as ours can do in disregarding the needs for practical
approaches to a lot of these pj-oblems. This is one of the things
that we have tried to emphasize. in the work of the Extension
Service and the forest services. One of the things where
communications have fallen down in recent times is that there
is a lack of understanding of the importance of constructive
multiple use of the forest lands, or that continous timber
production can be accompanied by recreational use.

87

88

WM: One of the men from the psychology department gave

a talk at a meeting that I went to on people's reactions to
scenery. It was a very complicated speech, I thought he used
too many words for roe, but they are trying to find out from a
psychological point of view what people see In scenery when they view
certain scenes: forest service people, housewives, students, and
so on, and to find out how important what they see Is to them. A
lot of trouble, as I see it, is that many people who go out don't
really see or appreciate rural and mountain scenery. They are in
too much of a hurry. I often think about the time I stopped on
the top of Redwood Mountain on the road overlooking the Segno I a
glgantea forest below. There was a car from Ohio with a family
looking over the view. I pulled up along side of them and I
said, " Do you know what you are looking at?" They said no.
"We I I, "I said, "Maybe I can tell you about some of the Important
things about this forest. These are some of the oldest trees
in the wortd that you are looking at." I talked to them for
five or ten minutes, and then they said to me, " This Is the
first time since we left Ohio that anybody had taken the trouble
to tell us anything about this western country." They didn't
have any Idea of what they were looking at.

Fair: Many times I will be riding in a car with people and I will

point- out different trees or plants to them. They are either
amazed, having never noticed the tree before, or else they
just don't care.

WM: They just don't see them. I have said repeatedly to school
children that I have met In connection with my work, be sure
to notice things. I will say to them, " Isn't that a beautiful
redwood tree up in the next block", but they have never really
seen it. It might as well be a telephone pole. But that of
course is what the Extension Service and all of these educational
organizations are trying to do. They are trying to bring about
a better understanding and comprehension of the things around
them, that is that people can see If they will see .

William Penn Mott, now the director of the State Division
of Beaches and Parks, was the park superintendent in Oakland,
and also superintendent of the East Bay Regional Parks. I talked
to him a little bit about this problem, and he said that one of
the things that the parks system has very definitely in mind is
to try to develop a series of state parks that are near places
where people live. A small number of people in the United
States ever get any place to see or understand the things fn
the open country — particularly places far from home.

•: The thing that is so sad about this is that some of those people
don't even care that they don't see anything.

Fair:

WM: Oh no, most of them don't know what they are missing.

89

WM: I read an article in the paper not long ago where the writer
was discussing what he considered to be Important benefits of
a certain area of forest and mountain country. He listed scenery,
recreation, etc, but he never mentioned timber production or
other constructive use for economic benefits. This was about an
area In one of the national forests which was set aside for
multiple use management, including timber production, watershed
protection, grazing, and recreation. He never mentioned timber
at all. This is very short-sighted. Quite a lot of the people
who live in the city, such as the Sierra Club members, for
example, have the same attitude. And it is a dangerous attitude
I think, an exceedingly dangerous attitude, because as was
brought out at our meeting of the SAP the other day, there Is a
definite chance that there will be a timber shortage in this
country rather soon.

Fair: But they have been predicting that for fifty years.

WM: I know they have, and we have reached the point where there is

a lot of young timber coming along, but it isn't of a marketable
size. This vast housing program that they are talking about putting
in the cities to rehabilitate sliirh - areas is not going to be
possible at a reasonable cost, unless you have timber to do this
with.

The preservationists have tried to rewrite the definition of
conservation recently in a way that a lot of people think that
you shouldn't do anything with the country at all. You should
just leave it alone. Well, that I think is a very short-sighted
policy. As an example, a lot of land they took out of the Olympic
National Forest and put into the Olympic National Park — I don't
think there was any reason in the worl.d to do that. It was
already under effective forest management.

Fair: Do you think that it was a political move?

WM: Why certainly. It was Franklin Roosevelt's idea.

Fair: Was he a preservationist?

WM: Certainly he was. There was no need for that move. The Supervisor
of the Olympic National Forest is one of my very good friends,
Herbert Plumb. I was up to see him in Feburary of this year. That
is another one of these things that get into politics. It is very
unfortunate. In spite of the fact that many of the lumber companies
are now carrying on excellent conservation programs on their lands
for permanent management, which also allows recreational use in
suitable areas, they are not thought to be capable of managing It
properl y .

CONCLUSIONS: ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF A CAREER

Fair: You told me earlier that Ray Clar was looking through your
photograph file.

WM: Yes. Someone ought to go through this collection and repaste
some of the pictures and titles because they are falling off.

Fair: We would like to have it put into the Bancroft Library where
It would be repaired as well as being stored In dust-proof
and light-proof containers. Some of the pictures are being
ruined by being stored In the School of Forestry Library attic.
We would like to have your permission to move It over to the
Bancroft Library. If we can make arrangements with the School
of Forestry Library> would it be feasible to move It?

WM: I will take it up with Dean John Zivnuska and see what he says.
Fair: The Bancroft Library is tops in preservation of material.

WM: That is fine. There are a lot of interesting pictures there,
and I thought it would be a very interesting thing to go back
to some of these places and re-photograph some of them after
all of these years.

Fair: I have to tell you about a photo that I found in your file.
You took it on the top on Mt. Frazler in the Tehachapis near
Gorman. It was looking up toward the Cuddy Valley, west to
Mt. PInos. This area Is still very rural, but your picture
taken in 1927 — why there is just nothing there. I was amazed
to see how much it has " grown up^" for according to our
population standards today, there is still nothing In the valley.
It looks so serene. Your pictures capture the mood marvelously .
I was talking to one of the boys who works In the forestry library
who was looking for a picture of a forest fire. He^chqse one
of yours because they are so dramatic. They really capture the
essence of the scene. This is why I think it would be a valuable
addition to the Bancroft Library where It would be seen by more
people.

i would like to ask you to make a summary evaluation
of your position of Extension Forester. What do you think
Is the chief value of the Extension Forester?

WM: Do you mean in California, or in general?

Fair: In California. Please comment on your work in California.

90

91

WM: I think that it was a very satisfying sort of existence.

I certainly enjoyed the work that I had to do. t wouldn't
have traded jobs with anybody that I knew of. I was out a
great deal of the time of course, I spent a lot of time in
the field.

Fair: What did your wife think of that?

WM: Well, she seemed to get along with it all right. She used to
say that she married me for present and absent... Daughter!]

Fair: Instead of for better or worse. What do you think the value
of your position has been to the state? What have you helped
to achieve during the last thirty-five or forty years?

WM: I acted as a kind of a medium of cooperative endeavor along
a lot of lines, keeping people informed about what was going
on in the experiment stations, and the University as a whole.
But that of course is the purpose of the Extension Service.
I worked with a lot of dedicated and capable people. I feel
it was very satisfying.

Fair: How has the position changed since you retired?

WM: I stayed on one extra year after I was sixty-seven because

they didn't have anybody to take over the Job. Ed Gilden came
that year and worked into the job, and I retired on July I, 1956.
Jim Gilligan really took my place. He was here for seven or
eight years. The thing that impresses me a lot is that nobody
does the job in the same way in almost anything.

Fair: Then the emphasis has changed?

WM: Not only that, the whole situation has changed: more people,
easier transportation, changing attitudes of what we call
the affluent society, but I don't think that the job is any
easier. There is the changing attitude of the administration
also. There were two directors after Mr. Crocheron diedt_ ,
Earl Coke and George A I corn, who has been director for ten
years now. They don't have the same method of doing things.
There has been much less emphasis on the camping program, and
on the outdoor programs in general I think, than there was
for a number of years. I have not kept in real close touch
but many of these changes are part of the changing scene.

Fair: What do you think was the most important way you 'helped Extension
grow? What do you feel was your most important activity?

WM: Oh that Is a pretty hard thing to say. I got to know, or had
contact with, more 4-H Club members than anybody else In the

92

WM: Extension Service. At least more 4-H members knew me. It

was a very interesting thing to keep in touch with the younger
generation. I tried to keep the various agencies Informed,
and cooperating in a way that would result in major progress.
I guess that was as important as anything that I did.

Fair: What kind of future does Extension have? Is it going to be
useful in the more urban society?

WM: Of course Extension has had a very important Influence in
the development of agricultural procedures, and in the
production of agricultural crops in .Cal Ifornia. Naturally
it has been Influenced in recent years by the growth of
corporation farms and the moving of the people to the cities.
There is no reason why Extension In many of its aspects such
as its work with boys and girls, and its work in better housing
and better home management, can't all have a very great Influence
in the cities too, especially in this Improved cities program
that they are talking about. How they are going to undertake
that program I don't know. It wl I I be a big challenge and
• require a change of emphasis.

Fair: Were the corporation farms or the large company-owned farms
being built up while you were still in Extension?

WM: No, I never had anything much to do with that angle of it.
Naturally the agricultural economists had more to do with
that. One of the aspects of that is fifty years ago, and
before America was an agricultural economy, farming was a
way of life. Starting back in Lincoln's time the USDA
began assisting farmers because food production was of vital
importance. Later it became evident that small farms were
no longer economical. In other words you couldn't make
enough money to raise a family unless you had another job.
The tendency has been to increase the size of the farms.

Director Peterson of the experiment station:said a year
or so ago," One of the problems is that we have to produce
more and more food for an expanding population on poorer land."
A lot of the best agricultural land has been taken over for
airports and subdivisions and freeways. Four million acres
of California are in towns ...

Fair: And under asphalt.

WM: So it is all a part of the changing scene. You ask where is

Extension going? I don't know that anybody knows. It Is like
this turmoil in connection with the University — who knows
what is going to happen here. Somebody said the other day
that the only solution at San Francisco State Is to close it
down, close the buildings and either sell the place, doing away

93

WM: with it entirely, or else close the buildings and wait for five
years until the whole thing dies down, and then start all over
again.

Fair: Do you think that will work?

WM: I don't know.

Fair: This has been a most interesting series of interviews. I have

enjoyed it very much.

WM: I too have enjoyed talking with you. Well, it Is half past
eleven and I must be going. We are going to do the singing
for Christmas at an Orinda convalescent hospital where my good
friend, Bob Ralston, is recovering from a recent illness.

94
APPENDIX A

DUTIES OF THE EXTENSION FORESTERS:

Excerpts From Annual Reports and Plans of Work

3.:cuaties 4-H Camp Fund
::iividual Counties

Total County Contributions
U C. i'ricultural Extension

§4,731.79
3,135.00

$3,828.32

290.00

07,366.79

§2,514.67
1,447.50
281.50

$4,118.32

3,473.63
5,122.57
4,170.71

U.C, College of Agriculture
V.C. Vfnitaker's Forest Income
Total U. of C. Expenditures

£4,243.67

12,766.91

Detail of work done by the Extension Forester during 1947 at / ;

Whitaker's Forest. Taken from the 1947 annual report, on .-file g~

University Hall, Berkeley.

Annual Report
Extension Foresters

1st Decade 2nd Decade Total

$8,560.11

3,425.00

011,985.11

5,938.30
6,570.37
4,458.21

17,016.88

S:ata Forester, CCC Program 06,080.00 9,500.00 15,580.00

T°TAL $18,196.76 26.385.23 44,581.99

A7oraCe expenditure per year $1,819.67 2,638.52 222900

:=.-«<; the current year as they have found a suitable oSSnTSSe wSS

Income figures may be sumarired for the above period as follow*

First decade 1927 through 1936 , , $502 6O

Second decade 1937 through 1946 .... 9,823loO

$10,325.60

^ ty ^^"hfr^rf I50"!10? l£md n°ar th° 80uthW9st corner Tthe
r .Vj s; near ohe road below Bruin Camp water supply tank, 4) below the

^-7 road at a point about 100 yards west of the sharp curvi at nc^.

96

Annual Report
- 9 - Extension ^ or esters

for the most part the logging was carefully done and there was little damage
to the second-growth stands, Host of the slash was lopped, but some snags
still remain to be felled and sono brush must be disposed of by burning during
:r.o spring. The logged area is in very good condition for reproduction, but
^.fortunately there was a complete lack of cone production during the year ex-
Tn?t for Sequoia trees which as usual had a large number of hold-over oones
excellent seed,

The old Sequoia which was killed by lightning in November 1946
r,as worked up into posts and a number of overmature incense cedars were cut
for posts and shingle bolts. Thinnings in the overdonse young timber stands
i-cro carried on to provide material for construction of the pole shelter over
the 4-H camp dining platform and sale for farm telephone poles. Trees with
Broken or defective tops or those unduly crowded or damaged in logging were
thus utilized with some stumpage return and decided benefit to the remaining
stands. These timber operations may be summarized as follows*

Mature timber sale to Wortman & T7ortmant

""Sugar oine - 125,280 board feet at §5,00 per II.
Ponderosa pine - 28,410 w " " 4.50 " "
White fir - 357,100 " 3.00

Incense cedar - 3,550 " 3.00 "

Redwood old logs - 3,970 5.00

Total - 518,310 n " " --- - --- $1,863.88

Besides this monetary return, the timber operators contributed
about $350 worth of lumber which was put to very good use in the construction,
•jro^ram during the year and carried out some grading with a bulldozer outfit

it the site of the new 4-H camp cook house.

Poturns from Ivlinor Forest Produotsi

1069 white fir Christmas trees © 5^ per ft, . . . $231.70

3580 ft, telephone poles © 2^ per ft ...... 89.50

Grape stakes and miscellaneous . ..... . . . ^ 19 , 36

December 1946. ----- - Total ---- --- --"" $340.56

2182 41 Redwood posts © 6^ ...... • ..... 130.92

186 #2 " " 8 Zft ........... 5.58

5 Gate posts © 25^ • • • • ...... , . . , 1.25

505 Incense cedar posts © 3|y «•••••••• 17.68

9800 Cross arms Q $3.50 per M. * ........ 34.30

Miscellaneous sales ....... ........ 20.00

Year 1947 - - Total --------- ---------- $209.73

Total minor products --------------- $550.29

Total income from forest products ------- $2414.17

Rentals^

Tulare Camp Fire Girls (June) ..... ..... 92.00

Diabetic Children, Medical Department (August). . 200.00 (Receivable)
Tulare Teacher's Institute (September) ..... 50.00

Miscellaneous Cabin rentals (May-October) . . . . 242 .88

Total -- --------- §564.88

Total Income 1947 --- ---- ---- ..... $2999.05

97

From the 1936-37 annual report prepared by Metcalf. This is an
outline of the activities that Metcalf was engaged in, and those
that he felt were especially important. Taken from the 1936-37
enixtal repoft, ott £tL« Uniyiara*ty Hall, -Berkeley.

J

in working out problems on several of their project areas.

'.'/ork.

Outline of the extension program in forestry:

1. County program of forestry:

Continuing educational effort to promote effective action
on an all around program for protection, conservation and
wise development of wild lands in each county.

a. Rural and forest fire protection.

b. Maintenance of watershed areas in effective condition

for maximum production of water by constructive
management •

c. Development of recreation areas and facilities,

d. Improvement and maintenance of demonstration forest

areas.

2* Protection and improvement of second-growth timber stands and
constructive use of foothill lands*

3. Y/indbreak planting, the care and management of windbreak trees
and the planting, care and utilization of trees on farms*

4* Forestry for California boys and girls*

5. Better utilization of forest products on the farm and in the

home.

The program of work has been discussed from time to time with various
•: of the United States Forest Service, the State Forester, personnel of the
•7 Division of the University of California and others. On the assumption
iiiitional funds might be forthcoming under the Norris-Doxey bill, suggestions
vision of the program along several lines vrere made in May to Director V/ar-
' i-nc. discussed with him and the other extension foresters at the Spokane Con-
'•-'. At the close of the year the staff of the Forestry Division of the Univer-
'•'•3 asked to consider this program at a special meeting called for the purpose.
-•-ral feeling seemed to be that additional attention should be given to the
oi Kanageinent of second-growth timber stands regardless of character of owner-
-:.i to the whole subject of management and protection of watershed areas in
'.76 and productive condition, because of the fundamental importance of both
:;a Batters to the welfare of agriculture. An additional meeting with the
•3 contemplated in the near future to further develop these suggestions,

A sample of Metcalf's activities during the middle of his
career. This is an outline of proposed work for the year 1939.
Taken from the Program of Work, 1939 on file in University Hall, Berkeley

_ correspondence - Lake County Senior 4-H
irt of Trees
tccn<:r.ic Conference - Santa Cruz

Oorv'cronces on Conservation Week and Rural Fire Institute
A/*' «-e - Preparation of Material for Conservation Week to Send Out
*'r<( ""* *•£ MI Club Meeting

^.--r office. Calls on Soil Conservation and State Ranger Cooperation
•ffMnca of Conservation Committee and Forest Practice Committee
pr*f»re Program of Y/ork

««£- Office - Measurement of Trees in Berkeley

25th Ar.r.ivorsary Celebration of Forest School

- MUtgfcor's Forest 4-H Camp Committee

Cbftftrvation Week - Act as Chairman for Alameda County
« Preparation of Material for Rural Fire Institute

County Economic .Conferences
c. Of^ico - Send out Forestry Notes

Correspondence

- 6ur4l Firo Institute - Davis
CWlce - Ikterials for Summer Camps
^ccwomic Conferences

Office - Send out Notes to Field

Firo Demonstrations
c/itct on Improvement Work Plans - Whitaker's Forest
Vindbrcak Uoetings and Conservation Tour - Southern California
D me tor Preparedness Check-up
Conferences with Farm Advisors and Rangers
Sfnt out Notes to Field
• Butte County

Pr*pAro Trail Markers and Outlines for 4-H Camps
u)SCfc (XeejLcr. Improvement Work - Whitaker's Forest and Las Posadas

club Encampments
Club Encampments

/ff

"H ciub

c-u^ Encampments - Forestry Tour - Santa Cruz County

Club Encampments

-,i.

ie« Specialist Project
' 1939

1059

.•00v ~". Home Department Camps
1 rook - Homo Department and Farm Bureau Camps
"ook - Vacation
-v. TTook - Vacation

5*pW** 1939

" — "etik - Vacation - 4-H Club Convention, Davis

: v.'ock - Vacation

• ' ock - Office and Check on Controlled Burning Experiments
r^i Tfcok - IThi taker's Forest on Experimental Utilization

rock - Office - Correspondence and Preparation of Materials
vrock - Demonstrations at Howard Forest and Eldorado Project Area
rook - Fire Protection Demonstrations - Southern California
v. rock - Inspection of Plantations -and Windbreaks - Los Angeles County
Lleasure Trees - Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties

~" cck - Check Ovor Fir Timber Sale and Outline Plans for Closing Camp at

VHiitaker's for the Winter
; "ook - Office
">ek - Measurement and Write-Up of Trees

4-K Club Achievement Programs
: :. ":ck - Office

2 - 4-H Club Leaders' Conference

Plans for Conservation Week 1940

ck - Office and Compilation of Data
ri - Annual Report
o:k - Office and Preparation for Annual Conference

'-^ - Annual Conference

cck - Chock Over Program of Work with Forestry Division and

State F.orester
-si - ::ake Cooperative Plans with Forest Service and Soil Conservation

Service
"pci - Office - Send out Notes to Field

•'- • Plans for Rural Fire Institute with Fair bank and Southern California

Agencies
ek - Plans for Llaintenance and Improvement Tfork at University Forest

Properties

- Office - Forest Practice and Conservation Committees
k - Send out "Notes and Material for Conservation Week

100

APPENDIX B

PROJECTS OF THE EXTENSION FORESTER

CALIFORNIA
4.-H CLUB FORESTRY PROGRAM

OBJECTIVES:

1. To develop an understanding of the importance of forests to

our economy ami to society,

2. To study the wide usefulness of forest products in our daily

living*

3. To understand the relationship of forests to water supply,

forage plants, wild life and recreation.

A- To acquire a knowledge of valuable trees and shrubs from the
standpoint of oconerce, windbreak, shade and beauty.

5. To learn how to grow and propagate forest species.

6. To appreciate the hazards to the forest — insects, disease,

fire and mismanagement .

7. To obeerve and practice methods which improve the usefulness

and value of the forests.

102

Woodbridge Metealf
(to the tune of Jingle Bells)

O'er the roads we go, To see plantation trees;

Back and forth you know, It really is a breeze.

In Cadillac or Ford, To make just one more stop;

The Farm Advisor shows the way - Ms '11 get there though we drop,

Ref. Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way

We want to see the Christmas trees, and how to make them pay*

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, We are on the way.

We're the folks who grow the trees - The C. C. T. 0. A.

II

We plant our trees each year, And follow all the rules,

Laid down by those who know, We work like blasted foole.

When days are dry and hot, with rain long overdue

Our worries are increased a lot - Perhaps they won't live through!

Ref, Cultivate, Irrigate, Kill competing plants,

Fertilize, Analyze, Don't leave things to chance
Springtime, Summer, Autumn - We are busy every day;
Never a dull moment for the C. C. T. G. A.

in

We gather now and then, To learn how trees will grow,

When planted, sprayed and sheared, Quite properly you know.

We study soils and bugs, and sale psychology

So Christmas trees will bring us in Some PROFIT - possibly?

Ref. Jingle coins, Jingle coins, Jingle in the till,

We hope the folks will come en-mass, And buy them with a will

Jingle Bells, Happy Days, Are not far away

For those with good plantations in the C. C. T. 0. A,

To the many good friends in the
California Christmas Tree Growers' Association

THE AMEHICAN CHRISTMAS T ft £ £ |03

rtoodb ridge Metcalf .

What is the .American Christmas Tree
As we celebrate Christ ' s ' nativity?

It's the towering tree on the White House Law,
With li/shts that blaze 'tilJ the Christmas dawn,

The majestic Grant Sequoia tall

In Kings Cannon Park inid the anowflakea fall.

It's the outdoor tree in your yard and mine,
'.'ith the colored li^ts that gaily shine,

uid it'r. forty million, other trees
Standing trip and straight in the autvmjn breeze,

Of many kinds, both old and new,

In natural stands and plantations too*

From New .ngland's hills on rocky ground
Through this broad land to Puget Sound,

It is Balsat: and Spruce from Ontario,

Sed and -hite Pines from the states below,

\nd Scot's Pine', now tha favored one
/rom Atlantic shoreo to Oregon.

It ie 3ilver-tip Fir frori Sierra 'r height «,
/\nd Uou«-las i-'ir to brine delights

To boys ana ^ii.-lt: from everywhere,

And the OhricUaav joys with them to share,

104

A Roadside Rest, Palm Park on Cabrillo Boulevard,
Santa Barbara, California - Karl Obert, photo

SAWK SPACE WOm. BKABJTY

££!*?.!•? LYALJ2N JL^ 5 PMM_U_NITIES

Woodbridge Metcalf

Keep a little space for beauty

When you build the highways wide;'
Plant some trees and shrubs beside them;

They'll be looked upon with pride.
JLeavc some groves, with picnic tables

Here and there in friendly shade,
Where the hot and weary traveller

Can enjoy the sylvan glade.

Save a little space for beauty

Mid the city's roar and stress;
Here the parks and trees and footpaths

Will suggest the wilderness.
Give each home a floral setting;

Plant some streets with sturdy trees;
Civic pride and gracious living

Are achieved in ways like these.

Wow with added millions coming

As the busy seasons roll,
There is need for pleasant vistas

As a solace for the soul.
ILet each builder add some beauty,

And we all should do no leas
Than to recognize the duty

That we banish ugliness.

IANTING SUCALYPTS

Woodbridge Metcalf
Extension Forester University of California

OBTAINING STOCK FOR PLANTING

Planting stock of several Eucalyptus species is usually available in flats
of 100 trees at moderate cost from a number of California nurseries. Avoid buying
trees larger than about 12 inches tall grown in pots or cans as they may have a
cramped or damaged root system. You can also grov trees from seed.

COLLECTING SEED

A sure way to grow trees well-adapted to your locality is to gather seed from
trees which have made good growth and development in that area. Most eucalypts
produce good seed every year and ripe capsules are available much of the year.

These should be collected when plump and fully mature, but before they have
opened to expel the tiny, chaff-like seeds. Spread the capsules in a thin layer
on cloth, or in a tight box in the sun, or in a dry room. They will open in a few
days. Gentle shaking will expel the tiny seeds and a considerable volume of chaff.
In a few species, the plump, black or brown seeds are easily recognized; in others,
chaff and seeds must be sown together.

It is best to test seed quality by placing a small amount between moist blotters
under a jar for a few days at room temperature. If no germination takes place within
a week or ten days, the seed is of too low quality for use. Seed of a few species
may be available from local seed dealers, but many species will have to be obtained
from Australian seed dealers. An ounce or less will usually produce several hundred
seedlings, if the seed is well matured and freshly collected.

PROPAGATION

The simplest method of growing seedlings is to use seed flats about 18 inches
square and k inches deep filled with a good quality sandy-loam soil, well-mixed with
peat moss and screened to remove lumps. After firming the soil with a smooth board,
the seeds can be broadcast over the surface and very lightly covered (not more than
1/16 inch) with medium sand, or fine, clean sawdust.

May to August is the time for sowing seed, as the trees will then be the right
size for planting the following spring. W^.^Ting must be done very carefully, using
a fine mist spray. Sometimes it is done through a light cloth placed on the soil,
to avoid washing out seeds. The flats should >^e set in a shady place, often under
lath or cloth protection, and be given special attention, in order to maintain the
moisture content of the soil until trees are well started. Shading from hot after
noon sun is usually necessary.

When the trees are from two to three inches tall they should be carefully
transplanted with a small trowel to other flats or to tar-paper pots or cans where
they will have sufficient room to develop. Used No. 10 or similar tin cans punctured
to provide drainage make very satisfactory containers. The transplanting must be
done in a shady place, well- sheltered from the wind, and with as little disturbance
to the roots as possible. The flats or containers should be placed in a lath house
or other protected area until planting time next spring. Frost protection is
essential during winter months, as seedlings are easily damaged.

°

PLANTING

The planting site should be carefully prepared by ploughing or disking, some
time in advance of setting out the trees. Weed control is very important. On slop
too steep for ploughing, soil should be dug from a spot about 18 inches square'/
pulverized to remove lumps, and carefully firmed around the ball of earth when tree
are set. Contour terracing may be advisable if the soil is apt to erode. The best
planting season is late winter or early spring after danger from frost is over.
Quiet overcast, and cool weather is ideal for planting. Never plant during hot, dr
or windy weather.

Remove trees from the flat or container and plant with as little disturbance t
the roots as possible. Trees should be set at the same level they occupied in the
container. Water applied after planting will firm the soil, and give the plants a
good start.

GARS OF THE PLANTATION OR WINDBREAK

On level ground or moderate slopes, the usual square planting distance (about
eight feet) makes it possible to control weed and grass competition with mechanical
equipment during the first two growing seasons. If oil or other chemical weed con
trol is used, extreme care must be taken not to injure the trees. On steeply slopi
ground, it is usually necessary to control competing vegetation by hand cultivation
around each tree. On many dry sites, some irrigation during the first dry season
will be necessary. In citrus areas, windbreak maintenance requires the same culti
vation, irrigation, and fertilization as is given to the orchard. Ornamental
eucalypts, though hardier than many trees, respond to good treatment and reward the
planter with rapid development of foliage and an attractive display of flowers.

WHY PLANT EUCALYPTUS TREES?

Eucalypts iiave been planted in coastal and lowland districts of California for
more than a hundred years and have added greatly to the beauty of the landscape.
They provide effective wind protection for citrus and other orchards, and shade for
livestock in many hot, dry valleys. Of the more than 500 species, about 25 are in
rather wide use, 50 are occasionally seen, and more than 200 species are now growin
at Los Angeles State and County Arboretum. Though blue gum, manna gum, red gum,
gray gum, and desert gum are the most widely distributed species, there are many
small ornamental forms (mallees) with attractive flowers which deserve testing in
gardens and parks, and for use as noise barriers along main highways.

Fast growing trees which reach large size, such as blue gum and manna gum are
now being used as a source of semi-chemical pulp and, in the future, will probably
be more widely planted in coastal areas than in the past. The wood of these and
several other species has been widely used for fuel, and can be made into excellent
charcoal.

3 -

SPECIES IN COMMON USE IN CALIFORNIA

Blue gum

Red gum

Forest Red Gum (Grey Gum)

Desert Gum (Moitch)

Manna Gum (Ribbon Gum)

Red Box

Sugar Gum

Red Ironbark (Mugga)

Narrov-leaved Ironbark

Swamp Mahogany

Yate

Bushy Yate (Lehmann's Gum)

Lemon-scented Gum

Silver-leaved Mt. Gum

White Ironbark

Red- flowering Gum

Yellow Box

Sydney Blue Gum

Eucalyptus globulus

E. camaldulensis (rostrata)

E. umbellata "(tereticornis)

E. rudis

E. viminalis

E. polyanthemos

E. cladocalyx (corynocalyx)

E. sideroxylon

E. racemosa (crebra)

E. robusta

E. cornuta.

E. lelananni

E. citriodora

E. pulverulenta

E. leucoxylon

E. ficifolia

E. melliodora

E. saligna

W. F. Blakely Number*
248

197

178
204

SPECIES DESERVING FURTHER EXPERIMENTATION

Maiden's Gum

Eurabbie

Giant Gum

Gum- top Stringybark Ash

Messmate

Apple or But But

Gray Ironbark

Tuart

Broad- leaved Kindlingbark

E. maidenl
E. bicostata
E . repnans
E. gigantea
E._ obliqua
E. stuartiana
E. paniculata
E. p;omphocephala
E. dalrympleana

277
558
121 So.

67

96

97

53 So,
245 "
542 "

36
550 "

60 "

261
250
369
370
362
225
537
98
236

Calif.

Calif.

*A Key to the Eucalypts, by W. F. Blakely. Ausb. Forestry & Timber Bu. '55
University of California Agricultural Extension Service. July 31> 1956

Reprinted July, I960

PINES FOR CHRISTMAS TREES
AND HOLIDAY DECORATIONS

By Woodbridge Metcalf, Extension Forester
University of California, January 1955

Traditional Christmas trees in the United
States include balsam, white, red, noble and Douglas
firs, white, black and Norway spruces, and a scatter
ing of other species depending on locality. In recent
years, however, there has been a definite swing to
pines, especially where these trees are grown in plan
tations. In the Middle West and eastern states Scots
pine, red pine, and jack pine are in great demand and
many farmers obtain a substantial return from planta
tions on land otherwise poorly suited for agricultural
production. It has been well demonstrated that sandy
soils planted to pines at concentrations of from 1200
to 1800 trees per acre yield satisfactory returns five
to seven years after planting.

During the past five years a number of test
plantings have been made in California and some very
satisfactory pine Christmas trees have been grown in
the central coast counties. These have sold well on
the ranch to buyers who cut their own trees, and in
limited amounts when displayed at retail outlets
along with Douglas, white, and red firs. It has been
demonstrated that pine trees of good form and density
sell at prices about equal to those received for good
quality Douglas and white firs.

Monterey pine , nnus radiata, is

native along the coast south of San Francisco Bay to
Cambria in San Luis Obispo County. It also does well
as an ornamental and windbreak tree in coastal areas
as far north as Humboldt Bay and a few trees are said
to be growing in southern Oregon. Some trees have
reached large size as ornamentals in southern Cali
fornia, but it is not really at home under interior dry
conditions. It has made excellent growth at the In
stitute of Forest Genetics at Placerville, but that is
about the upper limit of elevation as it will not sur
vive very cold weather. A plantation at Chico in Butte
County was killed out by the severe freeze during the
winter of 1932 when the temperature in that area drop
ped to approximately 10 degrees above zero.

The most extensive stands of Monterey pine
are on the Monterey peninsula where Christmas trees
have been cut in limited quantities from openings in
the forest for many years. Only recently have they
been set out in test plantations and offered for sale

in retail yards handling Douglas, red and white firs.
These tests have indicated great promise from this
species as a Christmas tree. It grows more rapidly
than any other pine, but in spite of this, develops a
dense and very attractive Christmas tree form with
multiple whorls of branches growing at intervals about
one foot up the stem. The dark green color of the foli
age is desirable and the upright "candle type" tips
of twigs offer distinctive decorative possibilities at
Christmas.

Monterey pine apparently makes its best growth
in the central coast counties on sandy or sandy-loam
soils with adequate moisture at least during the first
growing season. Plantation trees in Monterey, Santa
Cruz and Sonoma Counties have developed into excel
lent Christmas trees in two to four years after plant
ing as one-year seedlings. Those at the Schleth plan
tation near Petaluma were given frequent furrow irri-

Young 3. year-old Monterey pines, Pinus radiata, on the
Schleth plantation at Petaluma, California. These trees
were irrigated in 1953 but not in 1954.

These seedling trees were planted in April, 1953 and pho
tographed in September, 1954. Many of these Monterey pines
were sold from the Schleth plantation at Christmas, 1954.

gation during the first growing season (1953) and av
eraged 33 inches in height in January 1954. Without
irrigation they continued their rapid and symmetrical
development the second year and about 80 percent of
them were five to seven feet in height at Christmas
1954. About half the trees in the plantation were sold
this year to those who came to the ranch to choose
and cut their own tree at prices averaging 60 cents
per foot. Small lots of Monterey pines displayed for
test sale in retail yards in Berkeley during the 1952
and 1953 seasons brought prices intermediate between
those received for Douglas and white fir in the same
yards, averaging 75 cents per foot or $3.00 per tree.
Monterey pines grow more slowly on clay soils
and do not have such regular growth and attractive
form and density. However, they respond well to
pruning and shaping. There is every reason to sup
pose that with such care they will develop into excel
lent Christmas trees on several soil types all along
the central and north California coast.

Bishop pinO , Pinus muricata, is an
other coastal pine species which offers good possi
bilities as a Christmas tree, particularly on sites ex
posed to the full sweep of winds off the ocean. Nat

ural stands of the tree are found from near Lompoc,
Santa Barbara County, to Trinidad north of Eureka in
Humboldt County. The needles are a little shorter
than those of Monterey pine and the color is some
what more gray-green, but vigorous and bushy trees
of both species are very similar. In 1954 two test lots
of Bishop pines were displayed for sale in yards in
Berkeley. One small lot from a natural stand follow
ing the 1945 fire near Trinidad was sent down by the
Hammond Lumber Company. These trees were some
what thin in foliage and had long internodes so that
they lacked bushiness and density. Only 60 percent of
the lot of 25 trees was disposed of at an average
price of $3.00 per tree. Another lot of 234 trees was
brought in by a farmer from the Point Arena area and
displayed for sale in one of the same yards. These
were much bushier trees cut from a windy area expos
ed to the ocean. All but 20 of these trees were quick
ly sold at an average price of $3.00 and the retailer
said he would be glad to have a larger lot of them
next year.

,Pinus contona,\s a small
tree with short needles borne two in a cluster. It grows
on and near sand dunes near the ocean from Mendocino
County north. It has a bushy habit of growth with a
desirable dark green color. Its small, prickly, persis
tent cones give it an unusual and attractive appear
ance. A major difficulty in trees from natural stands
is that their thick growth interferes with symmetrical
development. Thinning in young stands materially
assists the development of good quality trees. During
the last two years test lots of Beach pines from Jack
son State Forest have sold very well. These trees
were mostly from tops of trees ten to fifteen feet in
height and contained numerous cones. The four to
six foot trees sold at prices averaging $3.00 per tree.
There are many coastal areas north of San Francisco
Bay which can produce this species perhaps in mixed
stands with Bishop pine and Monterey pine as all three
thrive on slopes exposed to steady, cool ocean winds.

Lodgepole pine , Pinus contona

latifolia.This tall, slender tree occurs in dense stands
in moist meadows and the edges of mountain lakes at
elevations above 6000 feet along the main range of
the Sierras and north. It is often called "Tamarack"
pine in California. Here again the usual density of
natural stands interferes with the development of good
Christmas tree form, but this can be corrected by ear
ly thinning to give the best trees room for growth. It
was reported that 8000 Lodgepole Christmas trees
were cut in the Bend, Oregon area for Christmas 1953,
but it is not known where these trees were shipped. A
few trees of this species were sent to Berkeley for
experimental sale in December 1953. Most were of

such poor form and density that less than half were
sold.

pine, Pinus attenuata,
is a species which grows on poor, shallow soils in a
number of low elevation areas in California. A notable
characteristic is the large numbers of curved, knobby,
persistent cones which give the tree an unusual and
often attractive appearance. Natural stands which
usually come up after fires are so dense as to prevent
development of symmetrical Christmas trees. How
ever, a few very attractive decorated trees of this
species have been noted during the past few years. It
may be that this tree will make possible the use of
areas too poor and sterile for the production of any
other species.

9COVS PINO, Pinus sylvestris, is a tree
of several climatic races native in Europe and now
widely planted and used as a Christmas tree in the
Middle West and adjacent Canada. It has short, gray-
green needles and a stocky, dense form which makes
an ideal small Christmas tree. The oldest plantations
of this species (65 years) are at Chico Forestry Sta
tion in Butte County where some trees have reached
heights exceeding 100 feet. The first trees of this
species were available this year from the Nielsen
plantation in Santa Cruz County where many were sold
"on the ranch" for about $1.00 per foot for larger
specimens and $3.00 for smaller ones. One difficulty
with Scots pine is its tendency to fade in color during
the winter under some climatic conditions. This has

_•»

.„•»- ~. --•"**•

, - *:*-••$ "' •

Austrian pine, Pinus ausmaca. This

species from central and southern Europe has longer
needles than Scots pine and an attractive, bushy habit
of growth as a young tree. A few trees present in orn
amental plantings indicate that it should succeed about
as well as Scots pine. A very good plantation of Aus
trian pine at the Chico Forestry Station is in better
form at 60 years than the plantations of Scots pine
mentioned above. It is similar to the red pine, Pinus
resinosa, of the Lake States and will probably sell as
well as that American tree if grown in plantations.
The foliage of red pine has sold in recent years for
$12.50 a ton for prunings from plantations of ten to
twelve years old in the middle western states. This
is stumpage price for branches without cones.

S(IC|Cir pine, Pinus lambertiana, is such
a valuable timber tree in California and Oregon that
young trees are rarely cut as Christmas trees, al
though they are very attractive when of good density.
The short, blue-green needles are borne in bundles of
five, and the regular whorls of horizontal branches
give young trees a fine symmetry. The long-stalked
cones, however, are very popular when used with foli
age of Ponderosa or other pines for door medallions
and other Christmas decorations. Good cones often
bring 25 to 50 cents each as they come from the for
est. These are made up with a bit of color and a rib
bon with two or three short pine branches and often
sell at retail from SI. 50 to S2.50.

Scots pine, Pinus sylvestris. These trees ore 4 years old
and were planted in the Crest Ranch Christmas Tree Farm
in Santa Croz County. Trees from this row sold at the
ranch for $1.00 per foot in December, 1954.

not been serious in California. The tree does well on
light sandy soils and should be suited to a rather wide
range of conditions in central and northern California.

Western white pine,

monticola, is another of the five-needle pines. It is a
close relative of sugar pine but usually found at some
what higher elevations in the mountains. Its cones re
semble those of sugar pine, but are only about half as
large. They are often borne in clusters of two to five
at the ends of the long, horizontal branches. These
branches with cones are very popular as Christmas
decorations and in recent years have sold at retail
for from 50 cents to $1.50 depending on the number of
cones. Because of the high mountain distribution of
this tree and the difficulty of collection, demand for
these cones usually exceeds the supply.

pine, Pinus ponderosa,
is one of the most widely distributed western trees
and occurs on a wide variety of sites. Its long needles
grow in bundles of three. The cones are symmetrical,
four to five inches long, and often are borne in great
quantities. The very similar Jeffrey pine, P. jeffreyi,
has larger cones, usually a definite blue cast to the
foliage and a sweet, vanilla-like fragrance to the
bark. Branches of both these trees are used in making
wreaths, plaques and other Christmas d ecorations.
Branches with cones retail from 50 cents to 75 cents.

Even without cones they bring $50.00 to $75.00 per
ton in truckload lots delivered at retail yards. These
branches are commonly used in making plaques as a
background for a single sugar pine cone. Symmetrical
and densely foliaged Ponderosa pines are appearing
in increasing numbers as Christmas trees, particularly
in southern California.

Coulter pine, Pinus coulten, is one
of the most drought-resistant of all native pine spe
cies and is found in the South Coast Ranges and in
southern California mountains with a very extensive
forest stand in the Julian area of San Diego County.
Its twigs and needles are heavier than those on Pon
derosa but similar in appearance. Its yellow-brown
cones, armed with heavy, hooked spurs are ten to six
teen inches long, and are the most massive of any pine
cone. They are favored as fireplace decorations since
they are too heavy for use in plaques and wreaths.
A few symmetrical young specimens are sold as
Christmas trees in southern California where they
bring about the same price as Douglas and white firs.
Coulter pines grow well in plantations and some are
being planted for Christmas tree use.

MleppO pine,Ptnus halepensis, from
the Mediterranean region is the only pine which seems
adapted for growing in the heat of low desert country
with irrigation. Its foliage consists of two-needle
clusters of short, light green leaves which give the
tree an appearance similar to that of a light-foliaged
white pine. The crown is apt to be rather flat-topped
and bushy. It is not an ideal Christmas tree type.
However, the stalked cones of moderate size are per
sistent on the branches, and the tree is so adaptable
to dry situations that it will no doubt find acceptance
as a Christmas tree.

Japanese black pine,

thunbergii, grows well in the central coast area of
California and deserves wider use for the production
of Christmas decorations. Its short dark green needles
occur in clusters of two, forming dense masses of fo
liage in which the silky white buds are an attractive
feature. The small symmetrical and unarmed cones
are borne in large quantities. If handled carefully they
persist well when used in hangings and door decora
tions. The green cones of the next year are present in
whorls in contrast to the brown, open cones of the
present season.

Dwarf pine, I'lnus mugho, from Eu
rope is widely used as a globe-shaped ornamental
which rarely reaches Christmas tree size. Its tiny
cones are favored for use in wreaths and table deco
rations as are cones of several other pine species
from the eastern and southern forest regions.

In general, pines succeed best on
well -drained sites of sandy or sandy- loam soils,
though some will do well on heavier soils if other con
ditions are favorable. Many of them grow rapidly to
Christmas tree size and respond well to pruning for
improvement of shape and density of foliage. Some of
them have good fragrance to the foliage which is also
very resistant to needle drop if the trees are kept
standing in a container of water during the period of

use.

Pines are hardy under many plantation condi
tions and usually grow faster than fir or spruce trees.
They are so adaptable that they deserve a place in
many Christmas tree plantations in California.

5/55—750

Co-operative Extension work in Agriculture and Home Economics, College of Agriculture,

University of California, and United States Department of Agriculture co-operating.

Distributed in furtherance of the Acts of Congress of May 8, and June 30, 1914. J. Earl Coke,

Director, California Agricultural Extension Service.

105

APPENDIX C

CALIFORNIA CONSERVATION COUNCIL

106
AMERICA SPEAKS - BRING ME MEN

The first verse by Sam Walter Foss. Two other verses written in 1958
and read at the meeting of the John Muir Memorial Association at the Muir
Manor, April 27, 1958. Two other verses added and read at the annual meeting
of the Association in Martinez, I960, and the final verse written 1962 and
read at the meeting at Muir Manor, April 21st, 1963.

Woodbridge Metcalf, Berkeley, California.

1. Bring me men to match my mountains,

Bring me men to match my plains,
Men with strength and dedication

and new eras in their brains.
Bring me men to match my prairies,

Men to match my inland seas;
Men whose thoughts shall pave a highway

Up to amplet destinies;
Pioneers to cleanse thoughts marshlands,

And to cleanse old error's, fen.
Bring me men to match my mountains - BRING ME MEN,

2. Bring me men to match my forests;

Match my Redwood, Pine and Fir;
Men who'll utilize them fully

And grow others where they were.
Bring me men who study methods

For improving present ways,
So the benefits of forests

Will persist through future days;
Men whose skill and power and knowledge

And will live through years again
In the broad and fertile woodlands - BRING ME MEN.

3. Bring me men to tame my rivers,

From the mountains to the sea;
Storing water for the millions,

For their crops and industry;
With the watersheds above them

Clothed with forests green and cool ,
And the rainbow trout a-leaping

In each calm and limpid pool;
Men to build the dams and power plants

With wonderous skill and ken
For the progress of my people, - BRING ME MEN.

107

Written during the 1950' s; sent to Mrs. Lyndon B.

Johnson At ' the time of her beautif ication of America campaign

SAVE 8PACE FOR B B A U T Y.

Keep a little space for beauty

When you build the highways wide;
Plant some trees and shrubs beside then;

They'll be looked upon with pride.
Leave sane groves with picnic tables

Here and there in friendly shade,
Where the hot and weary traveller

Can enjoy the sylvan glade.

Save a little space for beauty

Mid the city's rcejr and stress;
Here the parks with trees and footpaths

Will fiuggest the wilderness.
Give each hoae a floral setting;

Plant the streets with sturdy trees;
Civic pride and gracious living

Are achieved in ways like these.

Mow with added millions coning

As the busy seasons roll,
There is need for pleasant vistas

As a solace for the soul.
Let each builder add sane beauty,

And we all should do no less
Than to recognize the duty

That we banish ugliness.

Written by Woodbridge Nstcalf
Extension Forester finer Itus

108

A California Conservation Leaflet

A CALIFORNIA TREE ALPHABET

by: Professor Woodbridge Metcali „

A is for ABIES— the iirt red and while.

For BRISTLE -con* too up on Monterey's height.
Likewise for ARBUTUS, the red barked MADRONE.
Called "Robin Hood's tree" for its brilliance of tone.

B for BIG CONE SPRUCE— tree of the south.

Inhabits steep mountain sides; stands severe drought.

Also for BETULA— BIRCH of the west.

Which grows along streams near Sierra's high crest.

C CHAMAECYPARJS with pendulous leader

And fragrant while wood is the PORT ORFORD CEDAR.
Then, loo, CASTANOPSIS with leaves colored gold.
CHINQUAPIN tree or small shrub, if truth's told.

D DOUGLAS FIR, giant tree of the north

And gray DIGGER PINE which in foothills stands forth
Also for DOGWOOD with flowers large and white.
When spring brings full bloom — a most wonderful sight!

E is for ENGELMANN SPRUCE tall and straight.
North of Shasta a group; nowhere else in the State.
And for tall EUCALYPTS from the Antipodes,
Throughout all our lowlands, most common of trees.

F for FREMONTI A golden in bloom; '

For LOWLAND WHITE FIR in deep canyon's dark gloom.
For FRAXINUS • ASH. with leaves "Feather compound "
It's "canoe -paddle" fruits are on mother trees found.

G for GIANT SEQUOIA so long-lived and tall

Throughout the wide world, the most ancient of all;
GOWEN CYPRESS inhabiting plains near the sea
And exotic GREVILLEA, a park and street tree.

H is for HEMLOCKS — one north near the coast.

But of BLACK HEMLOCKS beauty the high mountain boast.
For HIGHLAND LIVE OAKS in the foothills so dry.
And HOLLY whose red berries gladden the eye.

I INCENSE CEDAR, small leaves in flat sprays.
Its trunk in soft, brown, fibrous bark it arrays;
ISLAND IRONWOOD. has leaves deep cleft, like a fern;
And to ISLAY for glossy green beauty we turn.

J is for JUNIPERS— Natives ure four.

To find, the high mountains 01 deserts explore.
For gay JACARANDA with flowers of blue.
And JUGLANS— BLACK WALNUT with compound leaves
loo.

K is for KNOBCONE PINE, hoarding its seeds
Until, after fires, they com<- up like weeds.
In the timbered Sierras. KELLOGG or BLACK OAK
Is a tree "under- story" admired by the folk.

L is for LODGEPOLE Or "TAMARACK" pine-
Two leaves and small cpnes with a neodlc-!ike spine.
LITHOCAHPUS. the TAN OAK we use tanning leather.
11 grows with the REDWOOD and likes foggy weather.

M MONTEREY CYPRESS and MONTEREY PINE
Are useful for windbreaks and plantations fine.
Our MAPLE has broad leaves and fruits in a "key."
And in warmest of deserts, the MESOUITE you'll see

N is for NUTMEG with large, fleshy fruit,

A Yew family tree which sprcuts well from the root.
And numbers of others—too many to name--
(The alphabet's limited size is to blame.)

(over)

Coast
Redwood

109

O is for OAKS— VALLEY. BLUE. CANYON. POST.
Broad-spreading LIVE OAK that grows near the coast.
And the OLIVE brought in from its home o'er the sea
Is in dry situations a tine highway tree.

P PONDEROS A. ouz best pine for lumber.

And of PALMS in the south we find a small number.
For quick growing POPLARS, three species there are.
BLACK, FREMONT and ASPEN, the last known atar.

Q is for QUERCUS, the oak's classic name.

The strength ot oak timber has won worldwide fame:
We have thirteen species — if named you might tire.
All valuable chieily tor wood tor the tire.

R is for REDWOOD, the lumber to last.

And for reforestation — its sprouts grow so fast.

RLD ALDL'R— a tree of the coast mountain streams.

And foothills in spring glow with RED BUD'S dark gleams.

S for SITCHENSIS, the monarch of spruces.

Its sirong yet light wood has a wide field of uses;

For SUGAR PiUE truly the king oj its race.

And mottle- barked SYCAMORL famed lor its grace;

T TORREY PINE which is famous afar.

Yet its range most restricted to bluffs near Del Mar,
For THORNAPPLE too south oi Oregon fair
And sturdy TESOTA in desert's white glare.

U UMBRELLULARIA— BAY TREE'S broad crown
Its leaves, spicy, tragrani, have won it renown.
And TEXAS UMBRELLA was certainly made
To grow in warm valleys to turnish cool shade.

V for VELUTINA— ASH of the road.

And brilliant VINE MAPLE from rock-slide abode;
Green twigged VELVET WILLOW, leaves silver below.
And lor volume of wood which well-kept forests grow.

W WESTERN RED CEDAR from Oregon's border
For shingles, drop-siding and poles is in order.
WAX MYRTLE has berries like green stippled gems,
WHITE ALDER lines streams with smooth, gray-mottled
stems.

X "Unknown quantity" — Tree you don't know?
Go look it up! So your knowledge will grow.
And for XYLEM — the wood made of fibers quite various
Which meets man's requirements in ways multifarious.

Y is for YUCCA— the JOSHUA TREE
Its ungainly form in the deserts we see;
And in cool shady canyons, the slender stemmed YEW
With its red waxy berries so charming to view.

Z a for LIFE ZONES where different trees grow.
From the floor of the valley to limber line snow.
Likewise for the ZEALOTS who study dendrology.
And those who have patiently read this "anthology."

Ponderosa
Pine

Palm

Oak

BOOKS: Trees of California (natives*. W L. Jopson, illu.s. 244 pp. Manual
of Pacific Coast Trees, 'natives ct ortiami-iua.'s), Mc'Minn and Maino, illus.
410 pp. Ornamental Trees, Mamu and do., aid, illus. 219 pp. Interesting
Trees in California, Wood budge Mctt;iil. U C. Agric. Extension.

THE CALIFORNIA CONSERVATION COUNCIL cu-op.-raU>» v.ith Fed
eral and Stiiti- Departments. Schools and other Agencies in sponsoring:
Conferences. California Cunser\alion Wi.-rk and Year-Round Outdooi
Good Manners Campaign.

CONSERVATION COUNCIL LEAFLETS:— Sf of 20 ur moie items.
40c. plu< 10c f»r moiling. Sepiir-nlo 'e;.flet: a? '<o, 2c, and Ic each. Send
for free copy «i current Program Uindo and Leaflet List. Address: —

CALIFORNIA CONSERVATION COUNCIL, 912 Santa Barbara Street,
Santa Barbara, California. Leaflet No. C-928 Ic— 3rd Printing. XXXM 1-57

no

APPENDIX D

MERITS AT RETIREMENT

The annual yearbook of the University of California forestry
students, Timber, dedicated their 1957 issue to Fredrick Baker
and Woodbridge Metcalf, two recent retirees connected with
the School of Forestry.

"WOODY"

II-

N>

:/^&r 1914 was indeed a lucky one

In that year "Woody" joint
!he DivivSion of Forestry,
'wa.fi. then called. For thene>_
luxftu»ourses in Forest ProtR&$«.,'! SrTvi-

N > ^^rr

^

idrology, and For
»f his responsibu'li
ta ke char;
tract in
antv. V
advent bt
"the !

S.*£oantry of

t#Lo*fl!

<*•*_..

,'J&*.

'^^

education am<
eveloped^

%
Sitter,

•&
ajm people-,:

VsFai£&

r^c-f-^

^«K

jnc<

^ ^Woody"
^e in organ -
for the

forage needed
well to mention
'e foundation for a
Sgram during World

>u:

, iVlt n \orts tra-

»t>pl

fire

It has

hcarrtp^fl

-/7 trff?3~- « « "

",ybhaftd in initiatina aji Intensive campaign of rural
^ervativcjy^tWstatfed'lhai L50, <jOu^ieNO(pluy>ave< been

ht^fhS^evention throuij^this prp^drtj, ^Tjfd,^))^!^^^, ^/eif > afjj f ajnm
fightin^'pompanies.ivepe orj
res . ^"4* >J* • - • '• '

^Among hi
long be

Club meetings,
demand f or ^

groups, farm-fp^eople, and bu
'*Woo^dy^enjoys, jtree and, J>
"tus, abcut ^^Jdvtite^s the na
he^was named head of the
ifl &ome last October.
. One can see that "Woody
California's forest resources
of which we can all be proud.

It is our hope that we. the foresters nf tomorrow, may follow the examples set
For us by these two outstanding foresters of today. We find it an honor to dedicate
this yearbook to you, "Bake ". and "Wo<x1y".

- Oliver Kolkmann, '57

red a*s the able'

oughout the length and breadth of the stati- he has been much in
ding or per^r^rjg^a^ master of ct-renionies among professional
jngs.

<cati«>n, partii ularly in the case of eucalyp-
expert. Because of lus knowledge on this sub-
S. '.t> legation to -lie World hucalyptus Confer-

U.

has been an important m^n in the conservation of
His recurd in California has been an enviable one,

J

y Y Vy Vx A.J. J

TATE OFFKIE LETTER

June

Woodbridge Metcalf Retires
Forest Diseases TlJriber Tip
Forest Products Lab May Have

"Box Stretcher" Answer
College Entrance Advisors
"The >-H Trail" Scores AgainJ

Exhibit Suggestions for Home Advisors

U-H Food* Project

A SoBMory Of Federal Price Support Program*

Farmer's Gas Tax Refund

Notice of Correction

Personnel Changes

TO THE STAFF:

*

WOOEERIDQE METCAIF- RETIRES

After over U2 years of service with the University of California "Woody" Metcalf
enters on July 1 the realm cf perpetual sunshine and happy days. No longer will
projects, programs, policy said procedures be pressing upon him.

He Joined the then young school of forestry in October of 19lU as one of three mem
bers of the faculty. For ten years he taught courses in forest protection, silvi
culture, dendrology and forest nursery practice.

He was appointed extension forester in 1926. Since that time he has contributed much
to the education and appreciation of people of' the value of forests to civilization.
He is a conservationist of note and the recipient of many awards, honorary memberships
in scientific and popular forest and conservation associations.

m

He may be remembered longest and with intense appreciation by the U-H Clubs of Cali
fornia in hie forest education purruits.

Perhaps ve may summarize our appreciation of the service be has rendered to California
by quoting from a scroll which was presented to him recently at a recognition luncheon
given in his honor --

To

Woodbridge Metcalf

Noted conservationists, eminent forester, inspiring
teacher, loyal citizen, as a token of admiration
and 'friendship upon retirement after 1*2 years
of dedicated service to the University of
California. Our best wishes go with you.
May you1" days be bright and
your years golden

George ?. Aloorn

N*GT1 TKTT C3 AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICE

j^jj V\f ^3 DIVISION OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
2200 UNIVERSITY AVENUE

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA 94720 113

848-4928

June 28, 1968

FRIENDS HELP FORESTER METCALF CELEBRATE
80TH BIRTHDAY, 5UTH ANNIVERSAY AT UC

BERKELEY- -Woodbridge Metcalf, California's first Extension forester, made the
numbers count last weekend, celebrating his 80th birthday, his 5^th year of associa
tion with the University of California, and his 12th year in "active retirement"
from Agricultural Extension.

More than 120 of his friends in the University, the Berkeley community, and
California's forest industry Joined in "Woody 's" birthday observance Sunday evening
at Sponger's. At least a dozen of his hosts, former students, teachers, and
associates, recalled the "good old days" at the University, in forest "cruisings,"
or in 4-H activities.

Metcalf, who earned a master's degree in forestry at the University of Michigan,
came to the University of California as the third faculty member in the newly
established Division of Forestry in 191k. After more than a decade of teaching —
and after earning a master's degree in forestry from UC, he was named the University's
first Agricultural Extension forester in 1926, and held that post until his retire
ment.

During his k2 years as an active UC professor and Agricultural Extension staff
member, Metcalf taught forestry courses, led fire prevention work, promoted Christmas
tree planting, helped develop a ^-H camp at Whi taker's Forest, was an active church
man and Red Cross leader, and in recent years has been a prominent senior citizens'
leader.

And although he officially retired June 30, 1956, his retirement "didn't take."

Metcalf has remained active in forestry writing, speaking and counseling, and

-more-

COOPERATIVE EXTENSION WORK IN AGRICULTURE AND HOME ECONOMICS, Prepored byt

J.S. Department of Agriculture and University of California cooperating Jim Morrison

George B. Alcern, Director

-2-

has continued to participate in forestry school staff conferences. He also has
continued in 4-H activities, especially in singing leadership at conferences, and
has worked on in conservation, the study of eucalyptus trees, and only last year
expanded and revised an AEG publication on eucalyptus species, a field in which
he is renowned worldwide.

The forester has kept up his active affiliation with the California Christmas
Tree Growers Association, which he helped organize, and often has been a speaker
for the organization. He still is active in his church, First Congregational of
Berkeley, and sings in its- 9 o'clock choir.

Metcalf and his wife, the former No rah Clements of Bala, Ontario, celebrated
their Golden Wedding anniversary in Jeptember 196!*. His wife, two daughters and son
and three grandchildren attended the birthday party this week.

Among those who paid tribute to Metcalf for his teaching, leadership, friendly
personality, his family devotion and his wide acquaintance "all over the world"
were the following:

A. E. Wieslander, Dr. Henry Vaux, the Rev. Spurgeon Mayfield, Ed Gilden,
Dr. John Zivnuska, and Dr. Knowles Ryerson, all of Berkeley; Howard Nielsen, Santa
Cruz; Bob Colwell and Myron Krueger, all of Walnut Creek; Mrs. Robert Cockrell,
Kensington; Jim Mace, Placerville, and W. C. Metcalf, his son, from Sacramento.

Krueger, a former UC professor of forestry, who retired from the University
staff at the same time as Woody Metcalf, served as master of ceremonies. The
birthday party was planned by a special committee from the UC School of Forestry
and Conservation.

T-l ..* '•".'•"•' \'L7.r^il??>

»\07 a, California 115

May 22, 19$7

The American Forestry Association
919 Seventeenth Street, N0W<.
Washington 6, Do C<

' O

Gentlemen:

The staff of the School of Forestry of th; University of
California wishes to plaoc ths name of Woodbridge >iutcall'. in nomi
nation for one of the American Forestry Association * n 19.^7 Distin->
guished Service Awards o

• •

Metoalf has been a beloved and highly respected member of
this staff for over 1^2 year a „ From his beginning here as an oasis"
tant profeasor in 1911; and through his long, faithful service ea
Extension Forester .from 1926 to his retirement in July 195>6, his
has been R life of cheerful and enthusiastic dedication to the pro~
fesslon of forestry end the teaching of conservation,.

The details of Metcalf's training, professional career, and
technical contributions are listed in the appended material,, The
highlights of this career are irany<> Among them la a record of over
60 publications.,, of both a technical and popular nature, which docu
ment his contribution to be.alc knowledge of several little known
tree species; his work in develop ing the techniques and the economics
which provided the baso of the present industry of plantation grown
.Christmas trees in California; his efforts in organizing early rural
and forest area fire protection organisations; and his contributions
to the literature of conservation or?, the layman? s level which has
reached thousands of school cbilctren, service clubs, garden clubs,
and other related organizations,

Recognition of tha a»ffect5»veuoes of his scientific and organi
zational contributions la abundant. Outstanding confirmation of
his scientific abilities cam© In 195k whon he was elected to the ,
grade of Fellow in the Society of American Foresters » In the words
of the Society, this election is wthe highest membership distinction
that can be conferred by the Society! this grade is awardod in recog
nition of outstanding achievement;''-. In 195& he was appointed chair
man of the United .States DelagatJ.on to the U'or.ld Eucalyptus Conferonco,
Pood and Agriculture Organization- of the United Nations la Rome, Italy
and subsequently traveled as guer.t of forester friends in Turkey,
Italy, and Spain inspecting cuon?.yptus growing sites and utilisation
plant s «

Though substantial, this technical contribution is but one as
pect of the larger iinpact which J'oodbrldge Metealf has had on tha
general field of resource conservation^ In a sense the technical
contribution is that which a capable and intensively interested man

I 16

might make within the normal call of duty,. The accomplishments
we wish to emphasize most for the Committee's attention are those
of planting and nourishing the seedlings of ideas and attitudes
In the minds and hearts of youtho This is a contribution more
difficult to document and measure than the former, but nevertheless
ie and will continue to bear fruit that will far outweigh the Im
portance of the immediate technical achievement",,

Met calf's interest in youth, and one of his most important
expressions of this interest, was initiated with his earliest days
here at this University. Among his first responsibilities was the
development of research and management at Whitaker's Forest,, a
University owned property in the heart of the giant Sequoia country
of the Southern Sierras. Because of hia interest in youth and ita
need for understanding of the basie aspects of management of natu
ral resources, he combined the building of a l±E camp with the devel
opment of the management and research program of the forest* These
camp facilities ware humble in the beginning, built to a large ex
tent with his own hands and those of nearby interested farm groups 0
The unique move quickly developed interest until today that particu
lar forest accommodates over a thousand youth campers per summer,
all of which have the opportunity to live In a managed forest and
as part of the program learn the fundamentals of good conservation
as established .and taught by him.. The idea of ponaervation camping
quickly 'spread to other localities until at present seven or
more such camps exist for l^H use and a good portion of the ij.H mem-
bers of California attend.. Church, scout and medical therapy
groups use the facilities of these camps and in addition have de~
veloped many others of their own. In most, the lessons of conser
vation are taught as Matcalf has outlined them0

The development, the fostoring of development, and the program
planning and participation in these. camp programs, might be con
sidered the ordinary thing for one of such deep interests as
Woodbrldge Metcalf. However, the extraordinary is the way in which
he puts across hla conservation message. Metcalf *s most effective
method of teaching In such informal atmosphere is through the use
of languages of universal appeal ~- poetry and song. Today i^H
members, school children, and ncouts and other groups sing his songs
and read his poems of conservation,,

r

Hetoalf 9a poems and conservation messages are widely distributed
in the conservation literature of the California Conservation Council 9
and through them reach thousands of school children- service clubs
and local conservation groups. His songs are published widely in
song books and used by forestry groups around the nation,.

woodbrldge Metoalf has always considered forest and range fires
a personal enemy o . His personal campaign took the forre'&f organising
over 300 rural and forest community fire protection groups during
'./orld War I. Many of these organizations still exist, others formed
part of the solid fire protection core of the California Division of
Pores try c During World War II ha worked with local citizen^ fire
protection groups which substantially reinforced the organized facil
ities then available. As a strong adjunct to this effort, his youth

I 17

3..

•

work took a special form of visiting and arranging fire protection
demonstrations in many of the rural and urban schools of the state0
While the subject of many of these raeetlngswaa the stopping of
structural fires of incendiary origin, every meeting contained at
least a poem relating directly to natural resource conservation

Metoalf 's interest in youth and conservation has taken him to
many parts of the country and the world* He has taught and sung
conservation in IjJEi camps in many states and has lad singing for
national Ijji groups such as the National IfJfi Club Congress in Chicago.
As a member of the U.S. star boat orew of the 1936 Olympic Games he
sang his message at evening gatherings of the worlds finest athletes 0

Even though l^H and youth work in general has not been a major %
part of Metoalf *s assignment as Extension Forester* his personal
contribution has been great enough to merit the Silver Key Award
for 25 years' service to lj.H workr and at retirement was given a
plaque for "Meritorious Service to

Since its inception* Metcalf has been an active leader in the
affairs and activities of the California Conservation Council*
Through many years of forceful participation as Chairman of Conser-
vation Week activities* as President for the last 3 years and as a
long-time member of the Board of Directors* the organization has
grown in -membership the quality of leadership, and in impact on the
people of this state, Metcalf's hand shows clearly in the scope
and breadth of the organization^ program as well as its literature 0

It is our firm conviction that the principal product of his
effort and life -« the attitudes and. feelings of the minds of youth
toward conservation* and the methods Woodbridge Metcalf developed
and used to bring these changes — are worthy of a most distinguished
award for "outstanding service above and beyond the call of duty in
conservation of our renewable resources"*

Sincerely yours*

The Staff of the School of Forestry
(to be signed by each member)

From the Journal of Forestry, published by the Society of American
Foresters. January, 1947. Pages 52-53

18

WE PRESENT

"L1

Woodbridge Melcalf — The Conservation iet

IKE i» for living," said Woody, when
asked how he had done so muih in
conservation in so little time. Woody.
to his thousands of admirers and friend*, is
Woodbridge Metcalf, California conservationist
par excellence, who carries the title of extension
forester.

Born at Grosse Point, Michigan, June 23,
1888, he had the good fortune of being raised
on a small farm readily accessible to good
schools, advantageously located on the shores
of Lake St. Claire. These influences in his youth
cast the die for his future, because as Woody
recalls, Miss Lillian Conover, a teacher at the
Detroit Central High School, gave him his first
interest in forestry, the opportunity to collect
tree specimens- for classroom study. The lake
and its surrounding forests gave him an oppor
tunity to take canoe and sailboat trips, and to
commune with nature.

Later, inspiration for his chosen profession
came when he met Professor Filbert Roth upon
registering at the University of Michigan in the
.fall of 1907. "My whole college experience was
lightened by his enthusiasm and wonderful teach
ing ability," says Woody. Then, at the end of
his sophomore year in 1909, he was a member
of the first class of University of Michigan Bio
logical Station camp at Douglas Lake. Here he
was stimulated in doing field work under the
guidance of Professor Jacob Reighard, zoologist,
and Professor George P. Burns, botanist. This
station gnve him his first interest in organized
camping as an educational medium, a program
he has developed to a high degree in California.

He was graduated from the University of
Michigan in 1911, and received a master's degree
in forestry from the same institution in 1912.

After two summers of cruising timber on the
Snoqualmie National Forest in Washington, in
the fall of 1912 he directed a planting crew in
the reforestation of the Barlow Pass burn in the
same area. Beginning January, 1913, he worked
in Ontario and Nova Scotia for the forestry-
branch' of the Canadian Pacific Railroad making
timber surveys and fire damage appraisals. Here

he i"et \oiah Clement* of Bala. Ontario, whom
he i».*i rit-d September (1914. Their honeymoon
v>a> * trip Ui Berkeley California, where he
joih'i.1 the faculty of th«* University of Cali
fornia a connection hr hn* refused to sever in
spit»- of attractive offer*.

^ lib his learning responsibilities. Woody as-
sumrtf i-harge of Whituker'* 1'i.rest, a 320-acre
tract '* the big tree c<mniry of Tulare County,
and Two forest units near Santa Monica and
Chico. Then came World War 1, and Woody
took a hitch teaching military mapping in the
S. A. T. C. At the same time he assisted the
state extension service in organizing some 330
farm fire companies for the protection of forests,
forage, and food — a project which was to lay
the foundation for a nation-wide program during
World War II.

In February, 1926, he was appointed extension
forester for California and began a program
which is a model for cooperation and forestry

WOOIIBRIDT.I: METCM.K

52

119

WE PRESENT

53

education among farm people. With the late
M. B. I'ratl. state forester, he developed Whit-
aker's Forest into a rural youth campsite and
a demonstration forest and an ideal retreat for
adult farm people. During the twenty years of
the camp's development 15,000 farm boys and
girls, plus some 5,000 adults, have lived and
learned conservation at Whitaker and enjoyed
a refreshing swim in the properly named Metcalf
pool. Under his leadership the California youth
camp idea has grown until at the present time
some 35 4-H club camps are held each year in
the forests, where approximately 6,000 boys and
girls receive inspiration and education in the
various phases of conservation in the Metcalf
way.

Between the years of 1928 and 1934 Woody
shared in initiating an intensive campaign of
rural fire prevention. Through this program,
it is conservatively estimated that 150,000 people
have been taught fire prevention. When World
War II came he shouldered the job of emergency
farm fire leader and through his efforts over
2,300 farm fire fighting companies were organ
ized and trained in prevention and suppression
of fires. It ha* been estimated that ten million
•iollars worth of resources were saved by this
project.

Who's Who in California lists him as an out
standing forester and public servant. Not being
satisfied with his conservation activities alone,
Woody has for twenty years been chairman of
I he Disaster Preparedness Committee, American
Red Cross, Berkeley Chapter. Through his lead-
•rship an eflicient disaster preparedness plan
cias been developed and maintained. For fifteen
>cars he has been chairman of the building coin-
•uittec and .a monument to his efforts is the Red
''ross Building of 12,000 square feet of floor
-pace which houses all the normal activities of
the chapter, marked "paid in full."

In 1933 the sport of his youth took hold of
•iim. He and an extension colleague sailed in
v acht races in the International Star Class at
l,ong Beach where they won the world champion-
'hip for that class. In 1936, they won the
\incrican Olympic finals at Sayville, L. I., thus
•|ualifying for the Olympic races at Keil, Ger
many, w lii-re thev finished fifth in their class of

twelve star yachts. This travel gave Woody a
chance to visit forests of Germany, Denmark,
Switzerland, France, and England.

The past three years he has served as general
chairman of the California Conservation Week
and has been helpful in arranging the excellent
programs resulting.

As a sparkplug in the state's program to pro
duce more cork, Woody has been largely re
sponsible for the nearly 200,000 potted cork dak
seedlings distributed during the past decade.
This activity resulted in his being a guest of a
cork firm on a trip last year from Berkeley to
Baltimore, during which tons of acorns were
distributed through the southern states.

A resume of Woody's life would not be com
plete without mention of his ability to lead
group singing. He is a natural, and people say
he's the best in the country. At the University
of Michigan he was leader of the University Glee
Club in 1911-1912 as well as one of the "song
birds" during his four college years, and it was
on a club trip to California that made him desire
to locate there. Throughout the length and
breadth of the state he is much in demand for
song leading or performing as master of cere
monies among professional groups, farm meet
ings, or business people. As one farmer put it
on watching Woody in action, "He makes you
feel good inside."

Woody enjoys tree and plant identification,
particularly in the case of eucalyptus, about
which he is the nation's expert. He has com
piled a long list of outstanding native and exotic
trees in California. In recent years he has
pioneered the treatment of local woods with new
preservatives for use as fence posts.

Conservation — as it applies to resources or
human beings — and Metcalf are inseparable in
California. Whenever one goes in that state he
finds Metcalf's friends. Boys, girls, adults, state
leaders, county leaders, professional folk, fire
men — they all know Woody or have heard of
him as a friendly man, an ardent conservationist,
and a great teacher.

J. WHITNEY FLOYD,
A. M. SOWDKR,
Senior members, S.A.F.

120

APPENDIX E
BIBLIOGRAPHY

121

BIELIQCKA: :Y or mamas ar yjopanoGr, USTCALF

Exten«lon Forester, UniYeafeity »f California

191;> Qtmnty (frpnitaticm for Sural Fire Control • 1918 - by *oodbridrc Mctoulf ,
Utdv«rfYtjy'of tfal' Trrrvia £re'e« - 28 p*fj*£, 11 lustrations, tables, Call 'or -
ala Agricultural /.^•.-•rija^nt *Laliotj, Berkeley - Circular 202* (

1913 Tire frotootiy. for -riA^ Fiold« vj.fch Speoial Ifoi'oro'noe to Kiro lY

Tor" rain^IarToVSi'v.; ' aoKinorv/^y' V>oodbr i •'» . « iio t c al f1". ial • .Tor-
' ~"

1918 Kirc- Protec'cic:, for "ra.i> viol.te - 1910 - \letoalf.

i-'ivrro li CA. J''or7-.iaL. Lofcflet 6-1, .'lay Kl, .

1021 "nod for Lanti - i'r-.iuoaf-i Ro'l^io/.1 '>Xtieric;«nt Station - u i>i\f.er pr»B<jat«d to
Forti^r • "staff, I'niWralty of California, Ijj' ^food^ridxp liotcalf. Aigu»t 17,
1921.

1921 Mo tea on M-PJ't^P -^-ne ( Piau • inar 1 c a ta) - Reprint from Jo'irnal of Forastry,
Wo"* d . ..^oetiTscr Ir?2l . . ;

1922 . For «« try Aaong the Oiantg • reprint from Anerioan Foreetrv ^iacailn* f,pr , ^
Hov«nV«r 152^ article Iry '.Voodlaridgo Uetoalf,

192J County OrcaaigatiT^. for Sural T'j.re Oontrol (Part ll, Circular v;'7, California

' fca ~o Boiurd . ' 1* " "oroatry) by" V. -.nxibr id'^s iJo^

1923 Koy «. iJlg^cr .."inr ;;.icl('.ed .-, iio'iontc of Ca'. it'rrda1 a
lt«r. by Wooclbri^-^ ' ^vcali - April 15

1925 V»'ood i'lay.j a:*

.
tem y 'o -icb1" j. Uccal - ; r cS, 25*

1024 Artificial Kgyruduot/. c y. oi" lotJiwo^ ( :j«q./oia »eiujggnr1r_yD«) - reprint from

Journal ->^ 'forestry; 'Vol. YV'lT 5.^. :>"," ;x»o. 1224 - p. 875-805 - by TVoodbridge
Uwtoalf.

i' r>aou.\: ^ L-ua j \ jJa; A C y ^ 1 •_, .>lantati_ong by Woodbridj-* ilatceJLf.
, t,1?*. \lxn» itatior" jfclljtln SoO,"

1925 Ar tirioicl Kq^ro^otioff jof GHX: f orria ^tmej^ by 7;oodbridr« J^^oalf . Kaprint
Frcaa." JoiArnaj "xf- ^'"ores'&yj Vcl. T"*1!1"!, No, 1"7 J«ur-»

1926 Fostorii >' Tte&cr 'Toyir,;- by Uoff-Triag, ?ajcet_ by '-<oodbrid('o Metoalf . An article
for fr-e "Sso. .^«s-., ?aciric iij'x,al 3aiidin'f, Lo« An^oles., L»eo» 6, 1926.

Fxtsd_zatinr y.r L'terilifin^ iYoo oe.-c\ hy T'oodbridfio Metcalf* Kopri
Jwirnal of I'or««try (?v; ?) (/Lo-.-t 1 S 2G )

1927 • A Cag4 ;'ri-feT .Li^j-jj^ A:gr«ooiqr ''or __'*-&_ Olut Uaapg by '."oodbrid«-e l^t
I- "dmeo ^r sipnV'

192S "gthaenane Cypraiia ^u''* ^' '""3vV..-i \~c JJp-.cAli', Article - Jar.. 19, ID 23.

122
- 3 -

1941 Growing; Cork Oak ?****_ ,n p^H**0*17:** b? *oodfcrld>*« Uetoalf anc R. ii. Y.alts«
£jq>eria*mt« witk Oak .In CaV fornia .

1942 Cork Oak PlantiUA .'.a California - In Cooperation mdth the HniTereity of
Callfwnda wad i5io *fat« iM/rlaion of Forestry, Department o.r Hatural tfeeo^
epaa*or«4 V>y the Croiu Cork; ar-' ;'«eal Corapany, Inc., by .Todfarid <" Uetoalf.

1942 O.aru arid P*»of Eftf^. Fjlre ^Plffht.!?!^ Kquigment - Le«»cn II of v

Irotieotlon Project, """.'i^'io-'ilvirial Ex^enaioa orrloe parophlet*

1942 iteady for iho Itty .:»oa_eon - "To J'alj;. i-Yotect Rurui GiU'. Cornea Trots ^'yy
^ Fjje"1 '•'.' ' 7odbridro So^ealf . fex'teiiol >T» ;«nrlloo ^:«riew ftf July

042 1 7oLim. 13, Kc. 7.

1945 • ^cffiv CorkOak_ (Cjaeroua euborj iu California by ^oodntn-idge Motoalf»
'"eprint ~fro-( "^••tern Snide ^roec nf vreno** 1945, 19th Proo««din^t of.

1945 B\o tTopaqatij!'i ?-.c Care jf Cork Oaka (Qaweui y^bor) lr/ V/oodlarid^ Uotoalf •

A.-yre liairal ' t^voTs1 . ,-n 'iervioe ni r«orTaph« Agjg'lleaiion Blank for Cork Oak
'froe«» AuthpyftU*ic>T. jor Cork Oak Planting 1 tocjc Uo^toard)

19-14 California Cork Oaks by V'oodbri.lr,o i£*itoalf and <';«or,?e !>. < rcenan* Arbor

Lay ir. California^ HLU44 -« Oor*.c •'*&!: 'iree Plant ing«

1944 Hoforqpoe on Conoervg.t.iov. g>f ll»tairal ^wuroaa- (Vevi»ed 1944) by 'Vy>/«brid.re

""

others"."

1944 Talk :_:iade .Before roar t-_ ..>. t'orefc-'j'^ Iry ^ .'O<ibrldge uotoalf (Cork Oak,
f! t'oreat w'. '.'. J.tftJcorr« '^or'os-L) j-'i May 11, 1944,

1944 t^efjonetra^ions oa ^trippin^ •?<' Cor' '-a:-: Troe« - 1944.
1946

::«t»alf . "
1946 ^ :wl Club CeroTiOKial i-^ V.oodprio o ^toolf. (Wgod at :ho rtate 4-K Club

nn, Davia. 1346)
1947 MgMorandun on Foretttr^ ^bctoation ^^j^alifornAa - January 1947 by ?» -odbrid^e

1917 .illin^_ Trcoa, -.. (:J^>»JL w<\ Jruaj'^ I;;Ql'Klln£ Poiaon Oak by «oo<!bridre

1947 QiQ__ Cork (>ak- Treo iv (lal '•..€ urnJ.a l;y . ^odbridce Ueto«lf . Reprint fron
x>Uony, January-1 -afoh, 1947, Vol. 1. No. 1, pa^;e» 26-44»

1947 •.ofer«noo« o. Tr«o« ^'. r'oreatii by V-oodbrid, « Mctoalf .
iJ-x»A.a or. Ti-n'os/^wYo" .nl roforehoo tr C'aliforn a*

...jl _Y_ear« />C i:.-. i^ 7>eo "r>y "; ' oodbriclf,* Mo-OAlf. Heprin* fro»u
iHooovm-y (Vol. 1, Ho. s7 r-lay-Axno , 1048, 4>a(;ee 4-10), a bi-monthly
OR^ion of the Callfomiu /oadecrr;/ of .-ci»nc«8, ^as1. '"

123
- I •

1928 DiM«r Pin* -A »»e Jfred TVhioh May Be ViO»abl« by Uoodbridj;* Uetoalf .
An artlol*. March 15, 1928.

1929 Hill firo Promotion 3w Berkeley, California

1929 A C«mpflr«\ Ceremony for 4-£I Club Cmr.pa by Wooebridge ttetealf • k

1929 Cork Oak: - A Pornst !?_•« with ?os<ibilitie» in California • prepared by
TToodbridge ileloftl* f-jr Special oattJvFt^ee on Cork Oak Cultivation of the
Saoranentc K»£i. r> Citi*en«

1910 Illurtratiorui ; :f_ al.. fomia Trde»t Part I •» ConiTorsj Fart II - Hardwoodf
by ^ooabridjpB tt::': dlf. A

U»C» Graduate to Plmiv California flr««« i:> !RArk»y - ft news it«m by ^oodbridgw
Hetc*lf.

1981 Dgaaattrfctl^on Foregts fcr Calif orr.ijt by TJoodTrridg* Ifetoalf « A mlawograph,

1951 A Camp )F^» CarjKaor.^ for 4-H Cl'tbij 1981 - by Wbodbrid^ K toalf* A nimeo*
graph - "~ "

1982 aural Dlstriot >'ir? Or'ranlsation. 19S2, Rural Fire lYotection an R«oomend«d

by th» California l*.iral Fl?<i In«4:5fcute in 1952. ?. 8-9.

1982 A Short Firo Llchtivvj Cereriopy for Wfl Clubs - 1982 bj' Woodbridj*

A tdraeocTa'.sh o" ? PH -««.

1955 Tank Truckf for Hural an.' Dorset r'lre. Firt\t.laj by T«oodbridg«
A«prtat. from Journal of Forestry,' vol. XXXI, So. 5, l^ay 198S.

1933 Hie Mystery Ifothor. cf U^ting tiic Cq-qp-Firo by YVoodbridge Metoalf .

A rdjaco.sriph - 1" .;:fvi"e.

The InTiueiioe yJ >,iadbreftkn iji t'rotfectinfi Citrua Groharda by WoodbridK«

nt'ei! frou Jotural ci'' Vorettry, Vol. XXXlV, Ho, 6, June 1986*

1933- Monthly Forestry Sota« b; ,v>o«!hri:Vc Mefcoalf - Jan.

1989 guoalyytua 7r*o* - ->f ^"^Cfer* -J'X^ y^ Ornaraent by Foodbrid^e
A ciiwosraph, Oct.'^sS.1^ 5 ?a|»e B .

Foro«tr^- for t-R 'a Cangst I. Life -j- ,'ttx ore,»': CoKcujaityj II, jlc-.y to
" Tree 8^

T7^ i 'tribut;iina < t Porogt . yioodKaaiiahlp by
oi

1930 List of Refe-oRoes OG OoneervatlQi-. ' y Woodbrid^e lietcalf «md other*.

3040 'qpe Cal i f orrti a Pr ea a of ^Tt-« t^md JL.I lEtore st by WoodbridfG M

Ttcprlhto-v fro:ri *:hc ?rooe«d"iri;-a of f."^ T.trrcn^h Veatern .Shade -re« Conference,
Lo , A-i,olc». Calvfornla, *iay 23, 2":, 2f>, 1940.

124
- 4-

1948 S<ti«ing Cccifwoua Por««t Troe Se+dlingg flrota S««<i by tfoodbridp* Ifetoalf

and R, F« Grah. ^

1948 JJBib^r <»owtb Studi»» » ar»e Growth in lihitaker'a yoregt^ TUlare County,
(Wing ^Year I'-erio^t 1S15 to 1948 by Ttoodbrid,re Kfttoftlft Article in
C&li^orniis, Asric -Vt-iro for A.^ac 1948 1 Vol. 5» Swalxsr 8. IVtbliohod by

the VJiiiT«r8ity oi' Co.i:.fom.id Colle,;o of

fra;.\ iac-ific Fftsrtu. ireaa - ffoedbridf,« ii^toalf - 1046-I949r

125
PUBLICATIONS OF WOODBRIDGE METCALF -

1. 1950 Eucalyptus serves many purposes. U.C. Agric. Ext. Ser. Bull.

August 1950. •

2. 1952 (with R.F. Grah) Growing Christmas trees for California. U.C.

Agric. Ext. Ser., \k pp. May 1952.

3. 1953 Christmas trees in California, 1953. U.C. Agric. Ext. Ser. 1953.

*+. 1955 Pines for Christmas trees and holiday decorations. Berk. U.C. Agri .
Ext. Ser. pp. }-k Jan. 1955.

•< 5. 1955 Calif. Christmas trees - 195^; production, shipments. Utilization

markets. Berk. Agric. Ext. Ser. U.C. 1955. 21 pp.

i

*6. 1955 Old Whltaker comes home. Los Tualres, 23: 1, 3. June 1955.

*1 • 1955 Ornamental plants for low-elevation desert areas of southern
California. By Mildred E. Mathias, Marston H. Kimball, et al.
Berk. 1955. 35 pp. Calif. Agric. Exp. Sta. Bull. 750

8. 1956 Interesting trees In California Berk. U.C. Agric. Ext. Ser., 227 Pp.

1956.

9. 1956 Planting Eucalypts. U.C. Agric. Ext. Ser. Berk. 3 pp. July 31, 1956.

MO. 1956 The Christmas tree situation in California. Berk. Agric. Ext.
Ser. U.C. 1956. 25 pp.

*" 1 1 . 1956 Wood preservation for freshly cut fence posts, (And Ed. E. Gilden)
U.C. Agric. Ext. Ser., Berk. 1 pp. 1956.

12. 1956 Eucalyptus species for California. U.C. Agric. Ext. Ser., \k pp.
Oct. 1956.

•* 13- '957 A California tree alphabet. Santa Barbara, California 1957 (Calif.
Conservation Council. Leaf. No. C-928) 2 p.

*'**• 1957 Sav/e space for beauty. (Verses of Calif. Cons. Council) Santa
Barbara, Calif. Cons. Coun . 1957. 2 p.

*15. 1958 The trees of Walnut Creek, Contra Costa County, Calif., Berkeley,
1 v. (various pagines) (no copy available)

*16. 1958 Some trees of the Berkeley campus, University of Calif. 8 pp.
No copy avai labl.e

1 17. 1959 (R.Z. Callaham) Altitudinal races of Pinus ponderosa confirmed.
J. For. 57 (8):500-502. 1959.

'18. 1959 Native trees of the San Francisco Bay region. Calif. Natural Hist.
Guide No. k., Berk. U.C. Press, 1959. 72 pp.

'9. 1959 Trees and forests in a changing world. National Shade treet Conf. Prod.
1959- 185-191 P.

126
- 2 -

20. I960 (The) Eucalyptus grove on the Berkeley campus of the University of

California. Calif. For. and Forest Prod. No. 23, 3 pp. Nov. i960.

21. 1961 (with Mildred E. Mathias, Marston H. Kimball, Robert S/Ayers,

Chester L. Hemstreet and Dean D. Halsey) Ornamentals for low-ele
vation desert areas of southern California. Calif. Agric. Exp.
Sta. Ext. Ser. Circular No. ^96, 35 pp. February 1961.

22. Growing coast and Sierra Redwoods — outside their natural range.
U.C. Agric. Ext. Ser. OSA # 102.

23. 1963 The influence of windbreaks in protecting citrus orchards. Jour.

For. 3M6): 571-579- June 1936

2k. 1963 Native California Plants for ornamental use. U.C. Agric. Ext. Ser.
Pub. AXT-99. Pp. 1-9. July 1963

INDEX

A I corn, George, 91
Austin, Lloyd, 81

Bainer, Dean Roy, 3 1

Barker, Paul, 52, 55

Barnes, John, 82-83

Black, Rex, 72-25

Blake, Anson, Mr. and Mrs., 50

Board of Tiro Underwriters of the Pacific, 37

Burnsides, F. P. , 37

Bush, Loren, 31, 37

California Conservation Council, 69-72

California Forest Protective Association, 24-25

California Rural Fire Association, 36

Chase, Howard, 69

Chase, Pearl, 69

Christmas tree farms, 62-65

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), 49-53

Clar, Raymond, 20-21

Coke, Earl, 91

Colgan, Richard, !7

Conservation, 87-89

Control burning, 40

Crocheron, B. H., I, 13, 35, 53, 55, 89

Crown Cork and Seal Company, 59, 61, 62

Dav is, V i rrj i I , 17

Diabetic Children's Foundation, 56

Eddy Tree Breeding Station

See: Institute of Forest Genetics

Erosion control, 33

Evans, Morgan, 46

Extension Service

See: University of California

Fairbank, James, 12, 14, 29, 32
Farm Bureau, 14
Fire protection:

demonstrations, 28-34

development of, 35

equipment, 29-31
Forest Practice Act

See: Legislation
Forest Practice Committees, 77

I '.i.

137

Forest products, 48-49
4-H camps, 50-58

Clubs, I, 91-92

programs, 50-58
Fritz, Emanuel , 18-19
Fulmer Act

See: Legislation

Garhardy, Carl, 17
Gi Iden, Ed, 64
Gi I 1 igan, Jim, II
Gi I man, Herb, 20, 23
Grah, Ruddi, 9-10
Greeley, Col. William, 20
Greenan, George, 59-61

Hammett, Richard, 79
Hi I I , Gary, 63
Hi I I, Leroy, 16
Homans, Morris, 35
Hunt, Dean, 35

Ingham, Norman, 44

Institute of Forest Genetics, 81

Isle, Ray, I I

Jackson State Park, 52
Jones, Burl, 13-14

Kotok, E. I., 16
Krable, Charles, 16

Las Posadas 4-H camp, 50-53, 55
Legi s I at ion :

Clarke-McNary Act, 2-5, 24, 38, 76

Forest Practice Act, 19, 76

Fulmer Act, 76

Norris-Doxey Act, 76
Libby, Wi I I iam, 64
Lorenzen, Coby, 43
Lowdermilk, Walter, 20, 33

McManus, Charles, 59

Marsh, Warren, 22, 23

Mason, Dave, 17

Mendocino Woodlands, 51

Merriam, Governor Frank, 25

Mirov, Nicholas, 59, 81

Mott, Wi I I iam Penn, 88

Mulford, Professor Walter, 35, 53

Nurseries, 17-18 138

Olney, Dr. Mary, 55

Pardee, Dr. George, 21

Peterson, Maurice, 92

Plumb, Herbert, 89

Pratt, Merritt, 21-26, 36, 50, 53, 68, 79, 84

Price, J., 79

Private industry:

forestry, 17-18, 24, 27-28

Ralston, Robert, 12, 52-55, 93
Roosevelt, President Franklin D. , 89
Rosecrans, William, 22
Rural Fire Institutes, 5, 37

equipment committee, 29-30

public relations committee, 31-32

Shory, Elbert, 46

Sinclair, Don, 16

Small Woodlands Council, 73-75

Society of American Foresters, 84-85, 87

Soil Conservation Committee (state), 83

Soil Conservation Districts, 82, 84

Soi I Conservation Service, 82

Southern California, 42

Southern California Association of Foresters and Fire Wardens, 36

Spurrier, — , 12, 52

Stalnaker, R. H., 31 , 37

State Board of Forestry, 19-25

Stephens, Governor William D., 35

Stevenot, Fred, 36-37

Stockwell, Palmer, 59, 62, 81

Swai Is, Bob, 17

Sweely, Jack, 45

Ti I lotson, Claude, 79
Tippett, J. B., 13

United States Department of Agriculture, 6
United States Forest Service:

college relations, 46-47, 59, 79-82

forest and range experiment station, 10

industry relations, 59, 63

state relations, 38-39, 47, 59
University of California:

Agricultural Extension Service, 1-15
Agricultural Engineering, 11
Forestry Specialists, 12-13

Berkeley campus, 1-15

Davis campus, I I

Policies, 85-86