UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



DEPARTMENT BULLETIN No. 863 



Washington, D. C. 



Issued September 30, 1920; revised February 13, 1925 



FORESTRY LESSONS ON HOME WOODLANDS 



By Wilbur R. Mattoon, Extension Forester, Forest Service, and Alvin Dille, 

 formerly Specialist in Agricultural Education, States Relations Service 



CONTENTS 



Page 



Introduction 1 



Sources of information 2 



The survey 2 



Illustrative material 3 



The home project 3 



Lesson I. Forest trees and forest types 4 



II. Location and extent of woodlands. 9 



III. Economic value of the forest 9 



IV. Products from the home forest 12 



V. Using farm timber. 14 



Lesson VI. Measuring and estimating timber. 15 



VII. Marketing farm timber. 17 



VIII. Protecting the woods 18 



IX. Improving the home forest by 



cutting 21 



X. Growth of trees and forests 23 



XI. Forest reproduction 25 



XII. Woodlands and farm management 28 



Supplement 31 



INTRODUCTION 



The right handling of the home forest has come to be a matter 

 of recognized importance in farm management. Farming touches 

 forestry at a number of different points. The farm requires timber 

 for the building and repair of houses, barns, sheds, fences, and tele- 

 phone lines. It needs more or less wood for fuel, and it should have 

 some woodland also for protecting the soil against erosion on steep 

 slopes, for shelter for growing crops and livestock against the hot, 

 dry winds of midsummer, the cold winds of winter, and likewise for 

 the comfort of man and the home of game animals. 



A farm without some woods is less attractive as a place to live 

 and usually less valuable than one with at least a little woodland 

 and some forest trees scattered about. Thus woodlands have a 

 place both in the management of the farm and in the development of 

 the community. 



The lessons which follow present the subject of farm forestry from 

 the standpoint of the important local kinds of forest trees and their 

 uses, the proper location of woodlands on the farm, their economic 

 value to the farm, the different farm timber products, measuring and 

 marketing timber, utilizing timber rightly on the farm, protecting 

 and improving woodlands, and planting young timber. A knowledge 

 of farm forestry, applied along simple lines, should make farming 

 more profitable. These lessons have been prepared to give to the 



