210 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, [Jan., 



ture was primitive and wretched. Agricultural progress was 

 necessary before a larger population could be supported, and 

 great parts of England were waste at that time which are now 

 highly productive, thanks to the improvements which the 

 study of scientific farming introduced. This kind of study, 

 which virtually adds to our territory because it adds to the 

 supporting power of our land, is what the Department of Agri- 

 culture exists for. 



Now our way of treating the forests has not advanced so 

 much over the method of those early days. We leave it largely 

 to take care of itself. We oftentimes turn our cattle out to 

 pasture in it. We do not attempt to use the land to its full 

 power. Farmers' holdings are small individually, but in the 

 aggregate they are of tremendous importance to this country. 

 Something like two hundred million acres of land — upwards 

 of one-third of all the forest in the United States — is held 

 in farmers' woodlots. It is a work most emphatically of 

 national importance to see that this land is well used, that it 

 yields its fullest contribution to the individual and to the na- 

 tion, that instead of being only half as productive as it might 

 be it shall have as many trees growing upon it as it will 

 properly bear, and of the best possible kinds, and that these 

 shall be utilized in the best way. The needs of this country 

 for timber in the future are going to be far more pressing than 

 you probably realize. Lumber prices have risen steadily dur- 

 ing the past century, and rapidly in the latter half of it. Good 

 timber in the woodlot, if it is not deteriorating, is exactly like 

 money in the savings bank. Interest is accruing on it irre- 

 spective of the growth, and the woodlot is in fact a most ex- 

 cellent auxiliary savings bank for a farmer. He has the 

 equivalent of money in it. He can get more in it. He will 

 not have to withdraw money from other purposes in order to 

 do this. He can get more money in his woodlot, and at the 

 same time use it for the production of ties and cordwood 

 which he can sell, as well as for the production of fuel for his 

 own use. That is to say, he can use it under such methods 

 that the woodlot timber will be getting better all the time. 

 The ordinary way is just the opposite. The forest is allowed 

 to deteriorate through the use of careless methods by the 

 farmer. When he goes into his forest he takes his axe and 

 cuts the best trees, or those which are the easiest to work up. 



