12 THE AMES FORESTER 



importance of taking into consideration the influence of local 

 economic factors. The ancient expression that "what is one 

 man's meat is another man's poison" has its truthful parallel 

 in classification work in what is one country's forest is another 

 country's farm. 



In one locality where market conditions are unusually fa- 

 vorable as the result of a certain combination of conditions 

 as in the vicinity of Telluride, Colorado, where a large mining 

 town is located at some distance from any important agricul- 

 tural districts, and into which herse feed and dairy products 

 can be shipped only upon payment of a heavy freight rate 

 aspen land at an altitude of 8,500 feet may be chiefly valuable 

 for agriculture. Because of such unusual market conditons, 

 which conditions appear to be as permanent as the mining 

 camp itself, it may actually pay to clear such land of its timber 

 and put it to such agricultural use. Even though the only 

 crop it is practicable to raise is a crop of grain hay, the barrier 

 of mountain gives such an advantage over outside produce that 

 the price received offsets the disadvantages of soil, topography, 

 and climate. And yet, less than 200 miles away exactly the 

 same kind of land may be very valuable for its timber and 

 for watershed protection and utterly valueless for farm pur- 

 poses. Its location upon an important watershed, where water 

 is of great value for irrigation purposes, and its nearness to a 

 large agricultural region where great areas of alfalfa land are 

 producing several crops a year, and where, in consequence, 

 farm produce brings only an average price, while lumber, posts, 

 and fencing are in great demand, so influences permanent val- 

 ues as to absolutely control the classification. 



Because economic conditions differ as widely in the different 

 States as topographical and other physical conditions, it has 

 been found necessary to work out the problem in each region 

 independently, taking into consideration the general factor of 

 interdependence, which constitutes the economic sympathetic 

 nervous system of the Nation. In the Black Hills region it is 

 found that there is very little timber land suited for farm pur- 

 poses or which, if cleared, would yield an agricultural return 

 sufficient to justify the destruction of the forest, and that the 

 local public understands this fact as clearly as it is understood 



