UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



| BULLETIN No. 481 



Contribution from the Forest Service 

 HENRY S. GRAVES, Forester 



Washington, D. C. 



May 11, 1917 



THE STATUS AND VALUE OF FARM WOODLOTS 

 IN THE EASTERN UNITED STATES. 



By E. H. Frothingham, Forest Examiner. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 



Woodlots of the Eastern States 1 



How the growth of farming has affected the 



woodlot 3 



Thirty years' change in woodlot area 11 



Increase in value of woodlot prod- 

 ucts 23 



Amount and quality of woodlot timber. 



23 



What the woodlot promises for the future. 



Woodlots and community forests 



Woodlots and public forests 



The woodlot as a farm resource 



Home supply 



Protection 



Page. 



As a poor-land crop . 



25 

 27 

 28 

 29 

 34 

 37 

 30 



WOODLOTS OF THE EASTERN STATES. 



In the farming sections of the eastern States 1 the farm woodlot is 

 a conspicuous feature. Small woodlots are almost always in sight, 

 and sometimes' fill so much of the view that they seem more extensive 

 than the greater areas of cultivated land which are shut off by the 

 screen of trees. In the longer settled regions and near the prairies 

 the woodlots are relatively small and scattered; but as the topog- 

 raphy grows rougher or a region is approached in which the farmer 

 is really a pioneer settler, the woodlots increase in- size until they 

 become indistinguishable from the forest. The average size varies 

 from about 5 acres in the older farming sections to 150 or 180 acres 

 in the newer ones, such as northern Minnesota and one coast county 

 of South Carolina. For the eastern States, as a whole, the Thir- 

 teenth Census (1910) showed the average size to be a little less than 

 30 acres. 2 



1 Except where the contrary is specified, this bulletin deals only with the States as far 

 west as, and including, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana. The 

 southern part of Florida (21 counties) is excluded. 



2 Since the statistics do not show the number of farms with woodlots and the number 

 without, it is necessary to assume that every farm has one. As a matter of fact, there 

 are many farms with little or no timber growth, especially in the longer-settled and the 

 prairie regions, so that the average woodlot is really a little larger. 



63299°— Bull. 481—17 1 



