FORESTRY ON THE FARM/ 



THE VALUE OF THE FARM WOODLOT AND 

 SUGGESTIONS FOR ITS MANAGEMENT. 



BY 



GIFFORD PINCHOT, 



FORESTER, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



BEFORE our ancestors came to this 

 country forestry had already taken 

 an important place in Europe. It was 

 based there entirely on the exclusion of 

 the farmer from all rights in the forest. 

 Forest protection arose purely from 

 game protection, and the farmer was 

 carefully kept out of the forest. He got 

 in that way an extreme respect for the 

 forest and for forest protection ; and 

 when the early Pilgrims came over to 

 America they brought with them the 

 tradition of centuries of respect for the 

 forest. 



The consequence was that when this 

 handful of people landed on the shore 

 of a continent which they did not know 

 stretched westward for about 3,000 

 miles, nearly half of which was covered 

 with forest, one of the first things they 

 did was to provide for the protection of 

 trees, for protection to the forest, which 

 in actual fact was one of the severest 

 obstacles with which they had to con- 

 tend. They began passing laws in 

 Massachusetts, New York, and New 

 Jersey to prevent the cutting of timber 

 which might be used for masts. It was 

 simply a survival of what had come over 

 with them from the other side. Then, 

 as there came a better understanding of 

 their situation, driven into their minds 

 by their contention with the forest for 

 the bare necessities of life, the concep- 

 tion of forestry which until recently 

 held sway practically throughout the 

 United States came gradually into be- 

 ing. The forest was recognized as the 

 enemy of the farmer, and his whole 

 effort for many" years was to get rid of 

 enough of it to give him a place to raise 

 his crops. 



With that conception of their relation 

 to the forest, the pioneers pressed west- 

 ward, and they carried wich them the 

 American axe, which, so far as I know, 

 is the most effective tool that man has 

 yet devised ; and the American axeman- 

 farmer began getting rid of the forest as 

 rapidly as possible. Then came slowly 

 the reaction, the beginning of which we 

 are feeling now, the reaction in favor of 

 forest protection, and the destruction 

 of the forest began to be limited and 

 controlled, partly by the agitation of the 

 forest question, but chiefly by the eco- 

 nomic condition of the nation. This 

 question, like many others, has its solu- 

 tion in the economic situation. The 

 situation in early days was that there 

 was more timber in the country than 

 people at the time had any reason to 

 believe they should need. Timber was 

 cheap, and much of it had to be got out 

 of the way to make room for the farm. 

 For that very reason, until just now, it 

 was not worth anybody's while to look 

 to forest protection. The economic situ- 

 ation was not ready for the agitation 

 which was being made in favor of it, 

 and consequently forest preservation 

 interested very few people and had no 

 hold whatever on the great body of the 

 nation. Now we are getting to the 

 place where it is worth men's while to 

 consider whether forest protection is not 

 to the advantage of their pockets. 



The essence of forest policy, as we 

 understand it now, the basic principle 

 of it in this or any other country, is the 

 putting of ever}- part of the land to its 

 best use. That conception controls the 

 whole forest policy of the national gov- 

 ernment. It controls, likewise, the forest 



* From an address delivered before the New York Farmers' Club. 



(432) 



