The Forest Products Research Laboratory

When we speak of forest products we include not only the timber from the trees, but also such other products as derive from the bark, the leaves, or the roots. In this address, however, I shall be dealing almost exclusively with timber and its derived products. By a long-standing gentlemen’s agreement the other products, as well as certain aspects of pulping, are dealt with by the Colonial Products Advisory Bureau at South Kensington, and although (or perhaps because) the boundary between us is not closely defined, it has proved over the years a very satisfactory arrangement. The work of the Forest Products Research Laboratory is, then, mainly research on wood. The forester grows or tends the tree until it is felled. From that point it is the business of the Forest Products Research Laboratory. Before I deal with the actual research work, however, I should give you some idea of the setting in which it is carried on. The Laboratory is situated in the Chilterns, about 20 miles east of Oxford. I t has about 36 acres of ground, of which 3 acres are laboratory floor-space. The scientific staff number roughly 100, and there are in addition the administrative and technical services. I t is, therefore, a fairly large organization. The work itself falls into three rough classes: (1) Routine inquiries which are dealt with almost automatically. Some 50000 advisory leaflets are sent out each year on such subjects as dry-rot, furniture beetle, seasoning schedules, and the like. (2) Advisory work, which takes up the time of the scientific staff either in providing an answer from existing knowledge or in carrying out short-term ad hoc investigations. This a t the present time makes the greatest call on the time of the staff—some 5000 inquiries a year are dealt with by letter or report, and many more by telephone, visitors, or visits by the staff. The reason for this huge burden of advisory work is that the timber-using industry is a vast and sprawling one, with no research associations save the newly constituted Furniture Development Council. The Laboratory is thus the only national authority to whom industry can turn with its problems. The burden is embarrassing, but it is 5,lso a welcome one, because through it we get a synoptic view of industrial trend and can not only anticipate their practical problems, but also can gain new ideas for longer-term research. (3) Finally, there is the long-term research itself. Ideally it should employ about 40% of the laboratory resources if scientific health is to be maintained. At the present time, mainly through shortage of staff, it is about half that amount. We are, to too great an extent, living on our research capital. At present, also, I have The Forest Products Research Laboratory