FORESTRY AND THE FARMER 221 



down, break it off, and absolutely prevent the start of a new 

 forest. 



Nor does the damage stop there. Cattle and horses pack the 

 earth with their feet until the soft mulch that holds the wa- 

 ter is destroyed and conditions within the forest so changed 

 that after a time some of the older or weaker trees lose their 

 foliage and die. The death of these allows light to fall on the 

 earth which, in turn encourages a growth of grasses and weeds 

 bringing in more cattle and definitely sealing die fate of the 

 forest. There are many woodlands today in just this condi- 

 tion, weedy, grassy areas dotted with the decaying remains of 

 what once were trees. 



Now all this is far from saying that the farmer should not 

 use his land for pasture. It all depends on what form of land 

 use is most profitable to him. If his woodland, in a certain 

 locality, can profitably be turned into pasture, the trees should 

 be cut and sold and the area converted to grassland. But the 

 attempt at making woodlands serve the dual purpose of pas- 

 ture and wood factory is doomed to failure. The better way 

 is to divide the farm into agricultural land and pasture land, 

 and to preserve in woodland the higher, steep and rocky por- 

 tions of the farm that are unfit either for good pasture or for 

 agricultural crops. 



Some day the farmer will be a farm forester. After all, he 

 is in an excellent position to practice forestry with profit. He, 

 of all classes of landowners, can best afford to be a forester. 

 He can not afford not to be. He can not afford to neglect the 

 returns that a few, simple forestry measures hold out to him 

 and this is true even though the farmer never sells a stick of 

 timber from his woodland. For fuel, for fence posts, and ma- 



