I032 



Rural School Leaflet. 



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WHAT FORESTRY IS 

 Herbert A. Smith 



Forestry is the art of 

 making forests serve man's 

 purposes to best advan- 

 tage. For example: A 

 farmer owns a woodlot. 

 From it he gets fuel, both 

 for his own home and to 

 sell in the neighboring 

 town; also fence-posts and 

 other material for use 

 about the place. Some- 

 times he cuts and sells 

 hardwood ties and tele- 

 graph poles for the rail- 

 road, or spruce logs to the 

 sawmill. How can he use 

 his woodlot to best advan- 

 tage? 



If he goes on year after 

 year cutting out the finest 

 trees of the most valuable 

 kinds, his woodlot will be 

 getting poorer all the 

 while. The trees which he 

 does not want will tend to 

 take the place of those 

 which he cuts, and in 

 course of time he will have 

 a ragged, badly stocked 

 woodlot, with unsound, 

 branchy or worthless trees. 

 Hardwoods or balsam fir 



will come in instead of spruce; dogwood, red oak, and birch instead of 



hickory and white oak. What should he do? 



A satisfactory answer can be given only in the light of information 



about the trees. Suppose white oak wood brings the highest price. 



Should the farmer try to grow white oak in preference to other trees? 



That depends partly on how fast it grows. Where it grows very slowly, 



some less valuable but faster-growing wood will pay better. 





