WOOD LOTS AND WOOD CROPS 125 



hundred thousand square miles. This is equivalent 

 to an area of continuous forest as large as the whole 

 of the New England states, New York, New Jersey, 

 Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. In the 

 south there are still large areas of so-called farm 

 wood-lots growing on good soil which will eventu- 

 ally be diverted to food growing, but on the other 

 hand statistics for the New England States show 

 that every year several thousand acres, which are 

 no longer sufficiently productive for general farming 

 purposes, are reverting to forests and being more 

 profitably worked for the wood crop than previously 

 for food. There one may find today men who make 

 more money out of the annual wood crop than they 

 do out of the rest of the farm, and still others who 

 just manage to break even on dairying or food 

 raising but make their real livelihood from the sale 

 of wood. American farm wood-lots are today far 

 from reaching a maximum of productivity, as only 

 here and there has mere chance taught the profit- 

 ability of effective forest cultivation, but it is no 

 dreamer's theory to estimate that, without In one 

 whit impairing their forest capital, the farmers of 

 the country could supply every year approximately 

 one-fifth of all our wood needs ! 



The forest crop, like any other, has its seasons of 

 sowing, cultivating and harvest, but those seasons 



