136 FARM FORESTRY 



is the owner himself. By his lack of judgment as to the trees 

 to cut for fuel, always selecting the most vigorously growing 

 and best formed trees and leaving the poor ones, the woodlot 

 becomes filled with old, crooked and misshapen trees. By 

 giving no thought to the trees that start to grow in the space 

 left by the removal of a tree, allowing nature to fill in the 

 opening with any tree that happens to come up, the woodlot 

 often becomes filled with weed trees that have little use on the 

 farm. Only by the removal of the weed trees and by favor- 

 ing and planting trees of good species can an owner secure 

 trees in the woodlot that will be of use. Many woodlots after 

 years of cutting are in a culled condition, all the valuable 

 species having been removed. The kinds of trees that could 

 not be sold were left to sow the seed for the future woodlot. 

 Many woodlots formerly filled with useful and valuable trees 

 now contain only inferior kinds of trees. The surest way 

 to secure valuable trees in the woodlot is to plant them when- 

 ever a tree is removed. 



By not growing his trees closely enough together the 

 trees become limby and grow short trunks. By not thinning 

 out the trees as they gradually grow larger he permits the 

 trees to expend most of their energy in fighting neighboring 

 trees rather than in rapid height and diameter growth. By giv- 

 ing to each tree the amount of light and space it needs by 

 frequent and light thinnings, removing the weaker and in- 

 ferior species the owner can greatly increase the annual yield 

 of the woodlot. Too many farmers leave the growing of 

 their trees to nature. Nature's methods are usually not profit- 

 able and in the woodlot she will often grow but one-fourth 

 or less of the amount of wood product that can be grown by 

 proper care and attention. By not making provision for trees 

 to grow up to take the place of those removed, breaks occur 

 in the canopy causing a loss in yield. By not encouraging the 

 fastest growing species that will serve his purpose, he pro- 

 duces annually but a small part of the wood product he might 



