WOOD LOTS AND WOOD CROPS 123 



heavy transportation costs. The United States 

 Forest Service tells the story of one farmer in New 

 Hampshire who owned a strip of practically worth- 

 less sidehill. Forty-five years ago he set out four- 

 teen hundred pine seedlings obtained from a nearby 

 thicket. The three acres thus planted were recently 

 sold to a lumber company for something over 

 $1,000. Assuming an ordinary land value of five 

 dollars an acre, and a charge for taxes and over- 

 sight for the period averaging two dollars per acre 

 a year, the operation has yielded a return of five 

 per cent, on the total investment in land, labor and 

 annual outlay, and in addition a sum equivalent to a 

 yearly net profit from the start of over five dollars 

 per acre. 



No one better than the farmer understands the 

 necessity of making the soil produce the maximum 

 of income. There are comparatively few farms, 

 however, where all the soil is suitable for food 

 crops. American pioneers had no soil survey and 

 no handbook of land economics to tell them that a 

 farm cleared from the woods back on the hill would 

 not give them a living; but occasionally some men 

 went in and cut down the trees, tried to make a 

 living and failed. Then, when several generations 

 later the forest cover again grew up, the land began 

 for the first time to pay. Fortunately, however. 



