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Yearbook^ of Agriculture 1949 



small-owner problems or are willing 

 to take over the management of small 

 properties on a part-time basis. Many 

 of those now engaged in this work 

 claim that they cannot afford to work 

 with owners of fewer than about 500 

 acres. Then, too, there is the under- 

 standable reluctance of landowners to 

 pay a fee for the services of even a 

 part-time technician until they have 

 proof on their own lands that the 

 cost of competent technical services is 

 fully justified. But in time there will 

 be more private foresters specializing 

 in management of small forest prop- 

 erties, and absentee owners, convinced 

 by results obtained on nearby proper- 

 ties, will be willing to pay a reasonable 

 fee for technical service. Public for- 

 esters encourage such developments. 



Important as small forest holdings 

 are or can be to their owners in 

 yielding a substantial extra income, 

 these small forests are even more im- 

 portant to the Nation. Much of our 

 present output of forest products 

 comes from small woodlands. As re- 

 maining virgin forests, mostly in large 

 holdings, are cut, the Nation's depend- 

 ence on small woodlands will increase. 



All of the forest land in public 

 ownership and all of the land held by 

 large sawmill and pulp and paper com- 

 panies, even if managed for continu- 

 ous timber production, will not yield 

 enough timber to meet future national 



needs. Less than half of the country's 

 total acreage of commercial forest land 

 is in those ownership classes; the rest 

 is in small holdings. The outstanding 

 importance of small forests in the 

 private-forestry picture cannot be over- 

 emphasized; nearly 3 of every 4 acres 

 in private ownership is in individual 

 holdings of less than 100 acres. Fur- 

 thermore, despite many exceptions, 

 those small woodlands are not being 

 managed for continuous forest pro- 

 duction. Only 4 percent of the present 

 cutting on small woodlands is good 

 enough to insure adequate future tim- 

 ber crops. Still more disturbing is the 

 fact that on 71 of every 100 acres of 

 small woodland recently cut over, no 

 plan was made for another timber crop. 

 That is a challenge to all of us. 



R. E. McARDLE is an assistant chief 

 of the Forest Service, in charge of 

 cooperative work in State and private 

 forestry. His early life was spent in 

 Kentucky and Virginia. He is a gradu- 

 ate in forestry of the University of 

 Michigan. Among his positions have 

 been assignments in the Forest Service 

 in the Pacific Northwest, a term as 

 dean of the School of Forestry at the 

 University of Idaho, director of the 

 Rocky Mountain Forest and Range 

 Experiment Station, and director of 

 the Appalachian Forest Experiment 

 Station. 



ROOTS AND STEMS AND DOGWOOD BOLTS 



A. G. HALL 



Good advice to the owner of a small 

 tract of woodland is : "Stop, look, and 

 know before you go into the woods 

 with your ax." 



A Florida farmer thought he had 60 

 acres of quite worthless woods spindly 

 pines and dogwood trees because he 

 had not taken the time to find out that 

 sound dogwood bolts were in demand 

 by manufacturers of shuttle blocks for 

 the textile industry. He consulted a 



farm forester, fortunately, before he 

 cleared his "worthless" land for pas- 

 ture. Instead of being a liability, the 

 trees netted him $40 a cord. Today 

 that farmer is in the business of raising 

 dogwood for shuttle blocks. 



Similarly, individual walnut trees, 

 sometimes worth from $50 to several 

 hundred dollars each, are often saved 

 from the fuel-wood pile by the timely 

 advice of a county agent, extension for- 



