50 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



very often be an nnprotitable investment, because the farmer could not 

 afford to buy the wood which noAV costs him very little except the labor 

 of cutting and moving it. Indeed, in very many cases, the wood lot 

 keeps the farmer going. His labor there during the winter, when other- 

 wise he would be idle, makes up for any deficit in the cultivated land, and 

 the ready money he may receive from the sale of fuel, ties or other 

 material, is indispensable to his comfort and prosperity. 



In two directions then, material and money, the x>roduct of the wood 

 lot is of high importance to the farmer. But in the majority of cases 

 this part of the farm is far less useful than it might easily be made. 

 This is true because the farmer does not study its productive capacity 

 as he does that of his fields and pastures, and hence does not make it 

 yield as freely as he might, with little or no additional labor, if he went 

 about it in the right way. But the farmer has been told this before when 

 forestr}' here was a propagandum. We have something better to offer 

 now in the way of a working plan. The acceptance of this plan involves 

 a joint agreement signed by the secretary of agriculture and the applicant. 



WHAT A WORKING PLAN INVOLVES. 



Ten years ago the attitude of lumbermen and other owners of forest 

 land towards forestry was one of a more oj less kindly contempt. Five 

 years ago, the situation had so far changed that there began to appear, 

 little by little, appreciation of the fact that practical forestry for the 

 private owner, like lumbering, aims at the most profitable management 

 of forest land. But there was still the crying need of practical examples 

 of conservative forest management. It was easy enough to tell the lum- 

 berman that this system was wrong, but the American lumberman is 

 influenced by proof rather than propaganda. The most vehement state- 

 ments, that his methods are not financially the most desirable, entirely 

 failed to convince him. For these reasons the bureau of forestry under- 

 took to provide a series of practical examples of improved treatment of 

 private forest lands, in which the owner and the protection and improve- 

 ment of the forest should have equal weight. The bureau made an offer 

 of cooperation with private owners, in the management and handling of 

 their forest lands. This offer is now open, not only to owners of timber 

 tracts but to owners of wood lots of any size, from five acres up. The 

 only distinction made is that the owners of large tracts, which may pre- 

 sent more difficult questions, are required to share in the expense of solv- 

 ing them, while owners of small tracts receive assistance from the bureau 

 without bearing any part of the cost. 



A working plan, the name given to the detailed schemes for the manage- 

 ment of forest lands, which are now being prepared by the bureau of 

 forestry is first of all a plan for lumbering. It specifies the diameter 

 limit to which trees shall be taken and includes estimates of the yield. 

 It fixes the areas to be logged over, forecasts the profits to be realized, 

 and sums up the whole situation from a business point of view. In so 

 far, it treats of what is to be done in the forest, entirely from the stand- 

 point of the lumberman, and is based upon the same study of local con- 

 ditions that any good lumberman makes before he fells a tree. The lum- 



