100 A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMERICAN FORESTRY 



hay and grain where horses or mules are used in logging. Local 

 farmers can frequently sell directly to the consumers, thus avoiding 

 most of the costs of transportation and marketing, and can thereby 

 receive much better prices than if they had to ship their produce out 

 to more distant markets. 



Forest industries create a market for more than the food products 

 of the farms. They also enable the farmers to dispose of their wood- 

 land products much more readily and at better prices than would be 

 possible if there were no wood-using industries in the vicinity. For 

 instance, farmers within trucking distance of a pulp mill or a wooden- 

 ware factory can usually sell timber to much better advantage than 

 those farmers whose only nearby market is for firewood. 



FORESTS HELP TO LIGHTEN THE FARM TAX BURDEN 



Under the prevailing system of financing local government chiefly 

 by the taxation of property, it is obvious that productive forests and 

 wood-using industries help to support roads, schools and other govern- 

 mental functions. It is equally obvious that when the forests are 

 destroyed and the dependent industries close down or move away 

 they no longer pay taxes. Unless costs can be correspondingly cur- 

 tailed, which is seldom the case, their share of the public revenues 

 must then be paid by the remaining property, or must be met by 

 contributions from taxpayers in other parts of the State. Unless 

 the land formerly occupied by forest can be promptly converted into 

 farms and this can no longer be done in any forest region of the 

 United States the burden on existing farm and village property is 

 bound to increase. This has been the unpleasant experience of 

 farmers in many cut-over land regions. 



FARM ABANDONMENT FOLLOWS FOREST DESTRUCTION 



In many regions where agricultural settlement was directly asso- 

 ciated with the utilization of the forests, the exhaustion of the timber 

 and withdrawal of the industries has worked great hardship. The 

 lack of opportunities for supplementary work, the loss of local markets 

 for farm produce, the dismantling of railroads following cessation of 

 the timber traffic, and the increased burden of taxation with a narrow- 

 ing of the tax base, have made it impossible for many settlers to con- 

 tinue. Widespread abandonment of farms and virtual depopulation 

 have followed, even in localities where permanent agricultural utiliza- 

 tion of part of the land would be economically justified. 



FORESTRY ON SUBMARGINAL LANDS PREVENTS UNECONOMIC 

 USE FOR AGRICULTURE 



There are, of course, many millions of acres which it is possible to 

 cultivate, but which should never be farmed. Yet, as long as cut- 

 over land remains in private ownership, whether in farms or outside 

 of farms, there will be an urge to use it for crops or pasture. These 

 are the only forms of use which most landowners are able to envision. 

 Much inferior land (from the agricultural standpoint) has been more 

 or less temporarily added to the agricultural area for this reason. 

 Its continued operation can only result in disappointment and even- 

 tual failure of the settlers. It also means a loss to the community at 



