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



tions of farm land wooded. 1 Accompanying the decrease in propor- 

 tion of wooded farm land there has generally been an increase in 

 the number of farms, the proportion of the total land surface in 

 farms, the proportion of farm land improved, and the cash value of 

 the land. 



Of the different elements by which the progress of agricultural 

 development may be measured, such as population, value of farm 

 property, proportion of this value which is mortgaged, aggregate 

 crop values, etc., two have been chosen for illustration as having an 

 important bearing on the decrease or increase of farm-woodland 

 area in any region. These are the value of farm land and the pro- 

 portion of farm land which is improved. A comparison in regard 

 to each of these factors between " woodlot divisions " heavily and 

 lightly wooded brings out clearly the real causes of woodlot clear- 

 ing. This comparison is made in Tables 1 and 2. Table 1 gives 

 the average land value in 1910 for the counties in each woodlot 

 division, and Table 2 the proportion of improved land in 1880 and 

 1910. 2 



1 Exceptions which prove the rule are found in regions in which argiculture has not 

 progressed, but has retrograded. In such cases farm woodlands have practically always 

 increased both in actual amount and in proportion to total farm land. A notable example 

 is New England. 



2 Extract from General Report on Agriculture, Thirteenth Census of the United States 

 (1910), Vol. V, p. 25: 



Definitions of the classes of farm land. — Section 8 of the Thirteenth Census act pro- 

 vided that the schedules relating to agriculture should call for the acreage of woodland 

 on farms. In order that this provision might be carried into effect, definitions of farm 

 land and of the various classes thereof were given in substantially the following form in 

 the instructions to enumerators : 



Farm land is divided into (1) improved land, (2) woodland, and (3) all other unim- 

 proved land. Improved land includes all land regularly tilled or mowed, land pastured 

 and cropped in rotation, land lying fallow, land in gardens, orchards, vineyards, and 

 nurseries, and land occupied by farm buildings. Woodland includes all land covered with 

 natural or planted forest trees, which produce, or later may produce, firewood or other 

 forest products. All other unimproved land includes brush land, rough or stony land, 

 swamp land, and any other land which is not improved or in forests. 



The census classification of farm land as " improved land," " woodland," and " all 

 other unimproved land " is one not always easy for the farmers or enumerators to make. 

 Statistics for these three classes of land may be considered fairly close approximations, 

 but enumerators and farmers in different parts of the United States may have interpreted 

 these definitions somewhat differently, and at the different censuses they may, even in 

 the same locality, have put slightly different interpretations upon them. 



