Cooperatives and Small Woodlands 



tives. Usually an urgent, temporary 

 situation has stimulated organization. 

 They are relatively easy to organize. 

 Often they can be a strong influence 

 in getting better management prac- 

 tices into the woods. Frequently, how- 

 ever, the situation that stimulated the 

 formation of the association has not 

 been identified by members with a de- 

 mand for technical guidance in for- 

 est practices. 



Two ORGANIZATIONS that have come 

 into being in the Northeast in the past 

 few years are organized for the purpose 

 of stimulating better forestry. One 

 functions primarily as a marketing 

 group, the other provides technical 

 services in growing and harvesting for- 

 est products. Neither is legally consti- 

 tuted as a true cooperative, but both 

 function much the same as coopera- 

 tives. They are carrying forward their 

 objectives in forestry and for that rea- 

 son are of special interest. 



Because the laws of Pennsylvania do 

 not recognize forest products under the 

 agricultural cooperative laws, a re- 

 cently formed association in that State 

 has organized as a corporation. In so 

 doing, the organization has foregone 

 some of the advantages afforded by 

 agricultural cooperatives. The organ- 

 ization is a true cooperative, however, 

 as it follows all the principles in its re- 

 lations with patrons that distinguish a 

 cooperative from a simple business 

 corporation. 



The New England Forestry Founda- 

 tion, organized and incorporated in 

 1944, is a unique organization that had 

 its origin in a need expressed by wood- 

 land owners for forest-management 

 services. It has a nonprofit basis, partly 

 endowed and partly financed from the 

 income from its operations. It operates 

 through management centers in charge 

 of foresters. Six such centers, each em- 

 bracing about 200,000 acres, were in 

 operation in 1948. 



The services of the Foundation in- 

 clude drawing up management plans, 

 marking timber, and providing assist- 

 ance in arranging logging and mar- 



keting of timber products. Of increas- 

 ing importance is the work of training 

 logging crews because the Foundation 

 has found, as have others, that manage- 

 ment plans are more likely to be put 

 into effect if work crews that are 

 trained to do the work in accordance 

 with cutting plans can be furnished the 

 owners. Thus far, the New England 

 Forestry Foundation has undertaken 

 work on 58,000 acres for 172 clients, 

 who own 118 million board feet of 

 timber that is valued at $866,000. The 

 Foundation has marketed more than 

 5 million feet of timber for owners. 



Associations that function as coop- 

 eratives, yet are not legally organized 

 as such, have an advantage because 

 they do not have to follow a number of 

 the rigid requirements demanded of 

 cooperatives. Their responsibilities to 

 stockholders are different, and the ac- 

 counting is simpler. The manager's 

 responsibilities are restricted to a com- 

 paratively small group, and greater 

 flexibility is possible. 



On the other hand, the groups do 

 not have certain important advantages 

 of cooperatives. The interest of the 

 members is apt to be less than when 

 each member has an equal vote in the 

 affairs of the organization. The 

 chances for joining into federations to 

 influence forest practices over wider 

 areas may not be as good as in the case 

 of cooperatives. 



MANY PROBLEMS, not all of which 

 have been solved, have been encoun- 

 tered by the pioneer forest cooperatives. 



The problem overshadowing all the 

 others has been in getting the volume 

 of business needed in the early oper- 

 ating period to carry a minimum but 

 necessary overhead. Failure to obtain 

 such a volume has resulted from sev- 

 eral causes: Inadequate and inaccu- 

 rate initial surveys of timber available 

 to the cooperative; inadequate initial 

 financing; lack of qualified manage- 

 ment; and lack of a thorough under- 

 standing among organizers and early 

 members of cooperative principles and 

 sustained-yield forestry. 



