The Woodlot Problem 209 



backward. We have aimed at production instead of market. 

 However, we need not feel ashamed of that, as foresters ; the 

 newness has not yet worn off the recently established Office of 

 Markets which is helping the farmer to sell his annual crops. 



I do not need to dwell on the truisms that the average farmer 

 does not know timber values, or the quality of timber which he 

 possesses, and that the average traveling timber speculator can 

 "skin him out of his eye-teeth." To too many farmers a 

 tree is simply a tree. Often they do not know the individual 

 species, or the use to which each can best be put. They know 

 the value of livestock and crops, and what they should bring 

 by recognized units of measure. Outside of the cord and the 

 fence post, they generally do not know any unit of measure for 

 the forest product. 



But for several years various agencies have been approaching 

 the woodlot problem from many angles ; the time is ripe for 

 them to coalesce. 



An organization of woodlot owners is no new idea. In Farm 

 and Fireside, November, 1909, Mr. Zon presented it. He sug- 

 gested then that "if the reason for the general drift from the 

 farm to the cities is the low return from farm products, then 

 there seems no question but that the chief reason for the general 

 neglect of the woodlot is that the returns for the timber make 

 the care of the woodlot scarcely worth while." He said then 

 that the assistance which the Forest Service and State foresters 

 are giving to the farmer is chiefly along lines to secure bigger 

 output of a product on which they are certain to get the short 

 end of the deal, and he advocated an organization which would 

 make it possible for the farmer to get a fair return. 



For a long time the farmers of the middle west were at the 

 mercy of the transportation companies in selling their grain. 

 Cooperative organizations owning their own elevators removed 

 railroad control. Similarly the citrus growers in California, 

 through their cooperative asssociations, solved problems of trans- 

 portation and market. 



I have not learned of an organization of woodlot owners in this 

 country; though in Germany, whence we have borrowed many 

 forest ideas, the small owners combine and employ a forester 

 to help care for and sell their timber, and are fully informed 



