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if every wood-lot had merchantable timber that could be sold every year, 

 not all of the owners would have the time to cut and market it. The 

 most common product of the wood-lot is fire wood for home consumption, 

 but only 13.63 per cent of farmers who cut wood sell it to others, while 

 only 7.34 per cent of wood-lot owners cut cross-ties for sale. Lumber 

 is largely cut on the farms for home use, though in most instances when 

 this occurs some surplus is sold. The number of wood-lot owners cut- 

 ting lumber, according to data based on farm woodland questionnaires, 

 was only 60.66 per cent. Fence posts were produced on 86 per cent 

 of the wood-lots, but largely for home consumption. All of this goes 

 to show that the number of farmers reporting wood-lot products for 

 sale is not a reliable index of the total number of owners, but that the 

 number is very much greater than 37,874. 



The number of famis having wood-lots may be based on the amount 

 of wood fuel burned on the average farm, which was found to be 16.1 

 cords. The farmer who produced cordwood, according to the farm 

 woodland questionnaries, cut an average of .332 cords per acre annually, 

 which for 2,863,764 acres of woodland in the state would make a total 

 production of 950,770 cords. Farmers own 93.166 per cent of this wood- 

 land, and on this basis would produce 885,792 cords of fuel wood per 

 year, which at 16.1 cords per year would supply 55,018 fanns with fuel. 

 Since the number of wood-lot owners producing their own fuel annually 

 was 87.36 per cent, this gives the number of wood-lot owners as 62,973, 

 which is about twice the number of those selling forest products from 

 the farm. This gives an average area per wood-lot of 42.36 acres, and 

 an average area of woodland for all farms of 11.25 acres. 



A calculation based upon forest survey figures for certain counties 

 where they have been completed, supplemented by crop-report returns 

 from county assessors, shows a total of 2,668,050 acres of woodland on 

 farms owned by 98,307 farmers. This would give an average wood-lot 

 area of 27.14 acres per farm, or for all the farms of the state one of 

 11.239 acres, and for each person living on farms one of 2.44 acres. 



It has been shown that to supply the wood consumption of the 

 state requires the product of from one to two acres per person, depend- 

 ing upon the fertility of the soil and the skill of the owner in forest 

 production. This area of 2.44 acres per person on farms indicates that 

 the woodland owner can, if he desires, supply the entire needs of the 

 farming population of the state for wood in the future but that little or 

 no surplus would be left for the remaining industries or population. By 



