The Woodlot in Relation to Farm 

 Management 



E. R. HODSON, '98 

 U. S. Forest Service 



When one thinks of forestry, lumbering, and kindred sub- 

 jects there come to mind pictures of a wild and distant region, 

 pioneer conditions and things* done on a huge, rough scale. 

 The idea of forests and their utilization seems inseparable 

 from that of vast tracts of timber, remote from settlements 

 and cultivation. Particularly does this seem true to dwellers 

 of the prairie who are not usually familiar with timbered 

 regions. In fact it is true to a large degree, for many exten- 

 sive forest areas are wildernesses, rough and mountainous, 

 and most of the lumbering is done under pioneer conditions. 

 In other places lumbering is the forerunner of cultivation as 

 in the central hardwoods and southern pine belt where the 

 topographic and climatic conditions are favorable. 



While this is true, that many forests are in wild places 

 and lumbering most frequently carried on remote from cul- 

 tivation and settlement, yet there are also many thousand 

 small bodies of timber distributed among the farms in the 

 cultivated districts which are in eastern sections called "wood- 

 lots." These tracts of timber are intimately connected with 

 the farm and its management and are usually remnants of a 

 more extensive forest which has been gradually cleared away 

 to make the farms. On the prairies they are, for the most 

 part, planted. 



These small tracts of timber are a part of the forest wealth 

 of the country and their disposal and treatment is of both 

 public and private concern. On account of their location and 

 distribution the utilization of the woodlots is different from 

 the use of large lumbering tracts, as a rule, and is closely re- 

 lated to the general system of management of the entire farm 

 in their respective localities. 



In the aggregate those small woodlot holdings are enor- 



