14S2 The Cornell Reading-Courses 



Look carefully at your woodland. Are all the trees of the kinds that 

 you like best ? Are there places where the trees are so crowded that none 

 of them can grow well? Are there young trees growing so far from their 

 neighbors that they will hold their branches most of the way to the ground, 

 and so make knotty lumber? Are there open spaces with no trees at all? 

 Are there decaying, crooked, or forked trees, whose room could be more 

 profitably occupied by better ones? Is there grass in the woodlot? If 

 you care for the woodlot as a place to raise timber rather than to furnish 

 pasture, a cover of grass instead of a leaf mulch is as bad a condition in 

 the woodlot as is a tangle of worthless bushes in the orchard. 



It is sometimes said that the woodlot needs no care because timber will 

 grow without help. So it will. And so will the natural meadow yield a 

 crop, but if we want plenty of the best hay we do not trust entirely to the 

 natural meadow. The woodlot will respond to care just as much as will 

 the hayfield, both in the amount of product and in its quality. 

 I The most serious objection made to giving care to the woodlot is that 

 it takes too long to raise the crop. It is true that many years are required 

 to raise timber of considerable size. This is one of the reasons why the 

 government should practice forestry on a large scale. The national, state, 

 county, and city governments will probably raise most of our large-sized 

 timber of the future. It does not take so long to raise small and medium- 

 sized products, however, and there are several reasons why it is usually 

 good business to raise them on the farm. 



A large amount of farm land is too poor to be used profitably for 

 the regular farm crops. Instead of being cultivated at a loss, or lying idle, 

 such land should be used to raise timber crops. If there is already some 

 thrifty young timber on the land, it will not be many years before it is 

 large enough to cut. By giving such timber a little care, it can be brought 

 to merchantable size much sooner than if left to itself. Even if the wood- 

 lot must be started from seed and therefore a long time must pass before 

 the harvest, its care is an easy and safe way in which to build up a bank 

 account of several thousand dollars for old age or for one's children. More- 

 over, the time is coming when first-class woodlots of thrifty young timber 

 not yet large enough to cut will have a decided value. Such a woodlot 

 will give the farm as a whole a higher value. 



The value of the woodlot should not be judged simply by the sale value 

 of the product raised on it. If there is no woodlot on the farm it will be 

 necessary to buy wood materials ; and the buying price is decidedly greater 

 than the price for which the farmer could sell the same products, entirely 

 aside from the cost of haul. The convenience of having wood, posts, and 

 timbers of various sorts at hand when wanted is in itself no small matter. 

 Further, many woodlots increase farm crops by shielding them from wind. 



