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Looking Back at 75 Years of Research in Wood Preservation at the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Gjovik, Lee R. |
| Copyright Year | 2003 |
| Abstract | In 1874 Franklin B. Hough was named the first American Forestry Agent for the newly formed Forest Commission with the mission to study forest consumption. In 1880 the Commission was elevated to Division of Forestry status and in 1901 the Division was elevated to Bureau status. Along with this change, Gifford Pinchot was appointed Chief. Now for the first time, special emphasis was put on forest management as it would relate to forest products utilization. This marked the real beginning of Forest Products Research in the field of wood preservation by the U.S. Government. Pinchot appointed Herman von Shrenk (Figure 4) as agent for the Office of Forest Products. His assignment was to initiate studies to show condition, cause, and prevention of decay in railroad ties, which were being used at a rate of 110 million ties / year. The Bureau of Forest was changed to the U.S. Forest Service in 1904. The new Forest Service also got control of the national forests. The first meeting of the Wood Preservers’ Association was held in 1904. Six years later the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory (Figure 1, 2, & 3) was established in Madison, Wisconsin, to conduct research aimed at the wise and efficient utilization of the products from the nation’s forest resource. It was not until 1912 that the Wood Preservers’ Association changed its name to become the American Wood Preservers’ Association (AWPA). At one of the early meetings of the AWPA, the Director of the Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) listed some of the problems in wood preservation that the Laboratory planned to devote research time to. In the intervening years, the AWPA has been a consistent supporter of the FPL and has received much help in return. Since the FPL has just celebrated its 75th Anniversary, the present meeting seemed to be an opportune time to review some of the Government and industry-supported research that had taken place over the years. When possible, we will access the improvements which have been achieved and to consider measures to solve the many problems that still remain. This paper will deal mainly with research at the FPL since that is the subject most familiar to the authors. There will be limited references to the literature. It is assumed that the reader has access to the AWPA Proceedings, and most of the references to papers published in other journals. The authors regret that limitation on their time prevents them from recognizing the many excellent papers by earlier investigators and from mentioning the countless contributions and practical observations made by producers and users of treated wood. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://foresthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/baech86a.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
