STATUS AND VALUE OF FARM WOODLOTS. 3 



what the tendencies appear to be, and, in general, what value the 

 woodlot actually has to the Nation, the rural community, and the 

 individual farm. As a means of reasonably complete and convenient 

 assembling of the facts the farm land of the eastern United States 

 will be considered in six divisions, each consisting of the counties 

 having similar ratios of woodland to total farm land according to the 

 Thirteenth Census (1910). These divisions, shown graphically on 

 the map on pages 4 and 5, are as follows: Division I, less than 10 

 per cent of the total farm land wooded ; Division II, from 10 to 20 

 per cent wooded; Division III, from 20 to 40 per cent wooded; 

 Division IV, from 40 to 60 per cent wooded ; Division V, from 60 to 

 80 per cent wooded ; and Division VI, more than 80 per cent wooded. 

 These divisions should not be mistaken as indicating the proportion 

 of the total land surface which is in farms nor the general timbered 

 condition of the region, although incidental relations between these 

 and the proportion of farm land wooded do exist, as will be shown 

 further on. All areas of county size or over are shown. 1 The tables 

 in the bulletin are based on these divisions, so that the chief facts 

 relating to the status of woodlots in any part of the Eastern States 

 can easily be ascertained by first finding on the map in what woodlot 

 division the area in question is located and then obtaining from the 

 tables the data for that division and State. 



HOW THE GROWTH OF FARMING HAS AFFECTED THE WOOD- 

 LOT. 



The history of the woodlot is a part of the history of agriculture 

 in general ; the status of farming in most regions and the extent and 

 character of the farm woodland have been so related that if one 

 were known the other could be determined with a fair degree of 

 accuracy. Thus in most parts of the East the early stages of farm- 

 ing involved a bitter struggle with the timber, and only a small area 

 was actually cleared; then, in proportion as settlement progressed, 

 more and more of the wooded area was claimed for cultivation, until, 

 in the long-settled farming lands of the north central States, the 

 woodlot is now either a mere fragment of the original forest or a 

 new growth which has been allowed to spring up in place of the old. 

 Meanwhile there has always been a frontier of development (as there 

 is now in the northern parts of the Lake States) where the newly 

 acquired farm land is still mainly woods, and as this frontier has 

 advanced it has left behind it regions representing progressive 

 stages in the clearing process having smaller and smaller propor- 



1 The tables do not include statistics for the District of Columbia, and tables 1. 2, 3, 

 and 5 also exclude those for counties whose location and average farm-land values 

 showed that the land probably had a speculative value far in excess of its actual pro- 

 ductive value for farm crops. In the aggregate this is a very small area. 



