292 ANNUAL EEPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



ers. New York has the largest forest-tree nursery in the United 

 States ; this and two other nurseries have a combined yearly capacity 

 of 15,000,000 young trees ready for field planting. Pennsylvania 

 distributes to private owners about 4,000,000 trees annually at a low 

 charge. 



The farm woodlands represent a great opportunity for develop- 

 ment under modern extension methods. Already enough has been 

 done to demonstrate that farm-raised timber is capable of taking a 

 place of importance alongside of other agricultural crops. This is 

 especially apparent when it is realized that forest land on farms 

 aggregates 150,000,000 acres, or about one-third of the total forest 

 area of the United States. 



The extension service of the Department of Agriculture has devel- 

 oped through its county agricultural agents and local project leaders 

 an educational machine which spreads like a vast network over the 

 entire country. It comes in intimate contact with a large percentage 

 of the woodland owners, and because of the character of the organiza- 

 tion makes possible the widespread influence of a comparatively few 

 leaders. 



Extension methods should increase the volume of timber pro- 

 duced, and within a comparatively few years, through practicable 

 methods of conservative cutting, they should materially improve the 

 quality of farm-grown timber. Hand in hand with increased pro- 

 duction there must develop a service dealing with the values of 

 timberland products and suggestions for more satisfactory market- 

 ing. Such a program gives promise of increasing the annual re- 

 turns to the farmer and greatly relieving the impending timber 

 shortage. 



There has been a rapid rise in the value of timber in the United 

 States, particularly in the Eastern States, whose virgin stands are 

 largely depleted. The commercial pressure for timber growing is 

 steadily becoming stronger. Many indications point to the conclu- 

 sion that timber growing as a private enterprise is rapidly becoming 

 feasible in the regions more accessible to the principal markets and 

 having favorable natural conditions as to the rate of forest growth 

 and the cost of securing it. In these regions, which ultimately will 

 embrace the greater part of the forest lands in private ownership, 

 there is no necessity for the assumption of timber growing as a pub- 

 lic activity in any wholesale way. It will be the wiser course to give 

 free play to the commercial impetus already evident by making the 

 growing of timber a more secure and attractive business. 



Organized forest protection with public financial cooperation will 

 greatly reduce one of the principal hazards confronted by the timber 

 grower. An equitable adjustment of taxes on growing forests will 

 reduce or at least more exactly define a second handicap which now 

 deters many business men from commercial reforestation. Forest 

 planting is seriously held back by the lack of nursery stock avail- 

 able at costs which justify its use on a large scale, a lack which pub- 

 lic agencies might well supply. The development of technical for- 

 estry practice adapted to the enormous range of conditions in the 

 United States by research and its dissemination among the timber 

 growers or possible timber growers of the country will meet an- 

 other real need of the present situation. It will be the part of 

 wisdom to concentrate public efforts at the present time upon these 



