54 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



plantations in the form of wood lots, shelter belts and wind-breaks are 

 worth considerably more per acre than those without them. There is 

 another value. 



AN INCIDENTAL VALUE OF FOREST PLANTATIONS. 



To the majority of people nothing is so attractive about a home as 

 trees. A well planted wood lot, in two or three years after its establish- 

 ment, will provide the farmer with trees to plant along roads and for 

 ornamental and other purposes. 



COMMERCIAL PLANTATIONS. 



A small number of plantations have been developed for profit. Most 

 of these are located in the Middle West, and consist principally of hardy 

 catalpa, locust, black walnut, green ash and red cedar, the purpose 

 being the production of timber for use as posts and telegraph poles. 



A ten-year-old block in the hardy catalpa plantation of Mr. L. W. 

 Yaggy, near Hutchinson, Kansas, showed a net value of |197.55 per 

 acre. The trees were grown for posts and telegraph poles and had 

 reached an average height of 25 feet and an average diameter of 3% 

 inches. A 25-year-old plantation of red cedar near Menlo, Iowa, showed 

 trees averaging 15 feet high, 5I/3 inches in diameter, and had a net value 

 of slightly more than .|20() per acre. A number of other plantations can 

 be pointed out that give returns exceeding those to be obtained from 

 agricultural crops on the same land. Such returns are leading many 

 persons to establish forest plantations purely as a matter of investment. 



FOREST EDUCATION, 



In closing this part of my talk I want to say a few words about what 

 the bureau of forestry is doing in an educational way. And, by the way, 

 just as some of the brainiest statesmen have come from the farm, so 

 there is need in the profession of forestry of young men with the healthy 

 virtues and strength which the farm home can give. To such young men 

 as have the natural fitness for forest work, and are willing to properly 

 equip themselves for the profession, forestry in the government service 

 and in that of private corporations and bther operators of extensive 

 forest properties, there is practically a new profession oftered. In respect 

 and importance it is one, moreover, which is second to none of the 

 higher professions of the day. The demand for foresters trained to deal 

 with American forest conditions is far greater than the supply. 



There are but three forest schools in the United States where a young 

 man may be fitted for the profession. In view of the fact, however, that 

 it is most difficult to discover one's fitness for such a life work, the 

 opportunities oftered to young men by the bureau of forestry for answer- 

 ing this question are of unusual importance. I refer to the position of 

 student assistant which the bureau ofl'ers. It has been created to aftord 

 young men who are thinking seriously of making forestry a profession 

 an opportunity of becoming sufficiently familiar with some lines of forest 



