Marketing Forest Products 

 in New Hampshire 



By Lewis C. Swain and Oliver P. Wallace""" 



r ilHE KEY TO successful marketing of farm woodland products may rest 

 X with a knowledge of what, where, and when to sell. 



It is quite probable that you can place one thousand seedlings in the 

 hands of a farmer sometime during the early spring with reasonable assur- 

 ance that, without instruction, he will take the necessary steps which will 

 result in one acre of land planted, and that barring drought or fire, a 

 high percentage of the planted trees will survive. In the hands of the wood- 

 lot owner, you can place a pruning saw with confidence that he will prune 

 those trees of proper size and quality in his woodlot. Furthermore he has 

 knowledge of the fire protection system in New Hampshire and he can be 

 expected to know where to secure information about forest insects or dis- 

 eases which he may observe. Thus you may say the farm woodlot owner 

 in New Hampshire is quite well grounded in forestry. But growing trees to 

 sizes large enough to become merchantable, is only a part of forest man- 

 agement. The other part — always essential — is marketing. How does the 

 woodlot owner measure up to the requirements of what, where, and when 

 to sell. 



Adoption of Methods 



The marketing of forest products in New Hampshire became a research 

 project of the University of New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Sta- 

 tion as a portion of a regional study encompassing the northeastern states 

 in 1952. 



Fifty-five sample areas were selected in such a manner as to eliminate 

 bias. A graduate forester made the actual contacts and secured information 

 which he recorded on uniform schedules. He visited all of the land owners 

 in the selected areas and completed 241 schedules which represent forest 

 ownerships of 10 to 500 acres. It was necessary to make 835 contacts to 

 obtain 241 qualifying ownerships. The average size of holdings of the 241 

 landowners was 127.3 acres. Of this average ownership 89.7 acres represents 

 woodland and the remainder is in field, pasture, and tillage. It is of inter- 

 est to note that farms of less than 100 acres have an average of 50.8 per- 

 cent in woodland. In the larger division — 100 to 500 acres — 84 percent 

 is wooded. This figure is the same as the ratio of forested to total land 

 area for the whole State. 



*Mr. Swain is Associate Forester and Mr. Wallace is Assistant Forester in the 

 Agricultural Experiment Station. 



