2 BULLETIN 481, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Considering the small size and the separate ownership of the -wood- 

 lots, which has prevented their exploitation by any systematic plan 

 such as is used in large-scale lumbering, the aggregate income which 

 the farmers receive every year from the sale of their woodlot prod- 

 ucts is surprisingly large. In 1909, 1 for example, it amounted in 

 the eastern States alone to nearly $170.000,000 — more than the value 

 of the entire potato crop in the East, nearly double that of the 

 tobacco crop, and over twice that of the combined barley and rye 

 crops. This income, however, can not be regarded as a perpetual 

 income; it is secured very largely through the destruction of the 

 woodlot in clearing land for cultivation. While the aggregate in- 

 come from the sale of farm wood was increasing over 90 per cent 

 between 1880 and 1910, the aggregate area of the woodlots was de- 

 creasing nearly 15 per cent, or at a rate of one-half of 1 per cent per 

 year. A still further reduction in woodlot area must be regarded 

 as inevitable. Although such a reduction, if carried to an extreme, 

 would mean the loss of a convenient and cheap local timber supply 

 for the farms, yet when the land cleared is at once devoted to raising 

 more paying crops the removal of farm timber is entirely justifiable 

 and desirable. 



However the woodlots may be reduced in area, they will not dis- 

 appear; for timber can be made an activety growing crop, often 

 capable of yielding better returns than any other that can be grown 

 on the poorer soils and situations of the farm. By proper manage- 

 ment the quantity of wood products raised within a given time can 

 be increased and the quality improved, and the woodlot can either be 

 put on a self-sustaining basis and made to yield a few trees every 

 year or every few years, or it can be clean-cut and reproduced at 

 intervals of from 30 to 50 years so as to yield large returns on a rela- 

 tively small investment. The farmer has a certain advantage over 

 the lumberman who might wish to grow timber in that the funds 

 invested in his timber are smaller in the aggregate, while the benefits 

 to be secured are varied, and the labor that is necessary can be sup- 

 plied by farm hands and teams when otherwise they would be idle. 

 As a region becomes settled it becomes easier for the farmer to 

 market his woodlot products profitably, because markets are more 

 numerous and more accessible by good roads or railroads. Further- 

 more, the woodlot is the source of a great many indirect benefits to 

 the farm, which are often themselves sufficient to warrant its being 

 maintained permanently. 



The purpose of this bulletin is to show as nearly as it can be done 

 from available census statistics what the relation of the woodlot has 

 been to the agricultural development of different parts of the East. 



1 Thirteenth Census. 



