FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



433 



policy of a good many of the large land- 

 holders who are taking up this question, 

 and in some respects most important of 

 all, it should control the policy of the 

 practical farmer on the ground. As a 

 producer, the farmer is vitally inter- 

 ested, necessarily, in this point of view ; 

 as consumer, his conception of the mat- 

 ter is a totally different one. 



First, then, a word as to the relation 

 of the farmer to the forest as a pro- 

 ducer. If it be the policy of the farmer 

 to put every bit of his land to the best 

 use, it must be his policy to make his 

 bit of woodland as productive to him as 

 possible, and usually in one of two 

 ways either by giving him his mate- 

 rial for fence posts, building materials, 

 and cord wood, or by yielding its money 

 equivalent. The farmer, as a rule, is 

 not interested in his woodlot as capital; 

 he does not care especially what the 

 interest on his capital thus invested 

 amounts to (that is for the lumber com- 

 pany) ; the farmer thinks that his wood- 

 lot must either give him as much usable 

 material as possible or the largest re- 

 turn in dollars and cents. He takes up 

 the question usually from the point of 

 view of immediate profit, and he begins 

 to cut his w r oodlot in order to get from 

 it what he most immediately needs, and 

 usually that is his cord wood, his fence 

 posts, and timber for his house or his 

 barn. He goes at it generally in the 

 wrong way, because the material he 

 needs is usually the best material on 

 the ground. The farmer wants straight 

 timber, his wife wants clean split stuff 

 for the stove, and he himself wants 

 rails that will split easily. So he takes 

 the best there is. The result is shown 

 over thousands of square miles in wood- 

 lots producing a very small fraction of 

 what they might easily yield. 



It is one of the most difficult things 

 to give more than general directions for 

 handling woodlots unless you go on the 

 ground and see what they need. The 

 forester who attempts to give advice as 

 to handling any tract that has been cut 

 over in this way has a piece of work on 

 hand very much like that of a doctor, 

 and he is constantly obliged to compro- 

 mise with the things he would like to 

 do, because of mistakes already made. 



There are, however, certain general 

 directions which may be very briefly 

 touched upon. 



The first is, in cutting out your wood- 

 lot, take the bad trees and the trees of 

 the kinds that you do not want repro- 

 duced. The composition of any piece 

 of forest is necessarily determined by 

 the seed trees which produce the trees 

 from which it grew. It is perfectly 

 obvious that if you want White Oaks in 

 your woodlot, you must leave the White 

 Oaks and cut out the other trees. The 

 selection of the best and most useful 

 species by the farmer has led to very 

 serious deterioration in the character of 

 the woodlots over the eastern parts of 

 the United States. As I came across 

 by rail from San Francisco a little while 

 ago, I was immensely struck by the 

 wretched condition of the woodlots 

 along the line of the railroad. Every- 

 where the best timber had been cut. 

 The wood had been taken out almost 

 entirely without regard to the future 

 crop, and, as the leaves were off, I could 

 see the extremely poor and unproductive 

 condition of a great majority of the 

 woodlots along the road. This matter 

 is of enormous importance, because be- 

 tween one-third and one-half of the forests 

 of the United States is in the hands of 

 farmers, and depends for its preserva- 

 tion and right treatment on the point of 

 view that the practical farmer takes of 

 the handling of his woodlot. 



Having stated these obvious things 

 about selection of species, the next 

 thing is the choice of the individual 

 trees. Pay no attention whatever to 

 the distribution of the trunks on the 

 ground. It makes no difference that 

 the intervals between the trunks of the 

 trees are unequal. A tree's health is 

 almost entirely determined by the 

 crown, and that is the place to look in 

 deciding what trees to take and what to 

 leave, remembering always that the 

 more valuable kinds of trees are to be 

 left for seed and the unsound trees taken 

 out everywhere. The place to look is 

 at the crown. Select your trees so that 

 what remain will be so spaced that each 

 one will have the best possible amount 

 of growing space. 



In a growing forest it is not less un- 



