Cooperatives and Small Woodlands 



183 



opment; and practice intelligent hus- 

 bandry and conservative harvesting, so 

 that continuing crops may be assured. 



A. G. HALL is forester for the Amer- 

 ican Forestry Association and associate 

 editor of the magazine, American For- 

 ests. Beginning in 1933, he was em- 

 ployed with the Forest Service and 



with the States of Pennsylvania and 

 New Jersey and, during the war, with 

 the War Production Board on prob- 

 lems of lumber and lumber products. 

 Since 1945, with the American For- 

 estry Association, he has conducted a 

 department in American Forests deal- 

 ing with the problems of small-wood- 

 land management. 



COOPERATIVES AND SMALL WOODLANDS 



ALLEN W. BRATTON 



Seventy-six cooperatives in 26 States 

 have attempted to solve some or all of 

 the problems of growing, harvesting, 

 processing, marketing, and purchasing 

 forest products. Mostly they have been 

 small, local organizations. Thirty have 

 handled forest products as the major 

 part of their business. Pulpwood, logs, 

 fence posts, fuel wood, and Christmas 

 trees are the products most frequently 

 handled. Two cooperatives have proc- 

 essed and marketed maple products 

 exclusively, and one has dealt with 

 naval stores. 



Not all of the 76 cooperatives are 

 now in existence. Several failed. Not 

 more than one in every four is active 

 and is following its original objectives. 

 A few, established to serve a special 

 and temporary service, have done the 

 job and wound up their businesses. 

 Several are inactive ; their services may 

 be less important now to their members 

 than when markets were harder for in- 

 dividuals to find. 



Some of the forest-product coopera- 

 tives, the pioneers, have contributed to 

 better forest practices. They are estab- 

 lishing invaluable patterns for future 

 organizations that are bound to spring 

 up. In that they are marketing or pur- 

 chasing or service groups, they follow 

 generally the pattern of agricultural 

 cooperatives, which, it is estimated, 

 handle about one-fifth of the products 

 sold by farmers and about one-sixth of 

 the farmers' expenditures for supplies 

 and equipment, and which number 



more than 10,000, have more than 5 

 million members, and do a volume of 

 business of over 6 billion dollars a year. 



The problems that the forest coop- 

 eratives have tried to solve develop 

 from the smallness of the small wood- 

 land, which, as a rule, produces only a 

 part of its owner's income. It is usually 

 cut-over at long intervals when there 

 happens to be a chance for a cash sale. 

 Most of the owners have acquired no 

 real knowledge of forest management. 

 They tend to assume that the growth 

 of trees, like the succession of the sea- 

 sons, is something they can do nothing 

 about. The woodland now does not 

 produce enough income to justify 

 much effort in trying to find out how 

 to manage it. Owners have cut what- 

 ever happened to grow on the land 

 whenever they needed money or con- 

 sidered the woodland ready to cut 

 once or twice in a lifetime. More and 

 more of their time has gone elsewhere, 

 and many of them have lost the skills 

 of the woodsman. Much antiquated 

 equipment is still in use because mod- 

 ern logging devices are too expensive 

 for small owners to buy and operate 

 for their small logging jobs. 



Nearly all woodland owners are oc- 

 casionally faced with the problem of 

 marketing products from their lands. 

 Though they may cut timber for posts, 

 poles, fuel wood, and lumber, it is rare 

 that surpluses do not develop, espe- 

 cially in the managed woodlands. 

 Hardwoods may be abundant where 



