gE We FORESTER IN THE LAKE STATES 29 
special allowance has been reduced for later years to $15 per farm. 
The Lake States region has led all others in the country in par- 
ticipation in the forestry provisions of the Agricultural Adjustment 
Act. Although in 1939 less than 45,000 acres in the three States— 
only 0.3 percent of the total woodland area—was planted or improved 
under the act, in subsequent years this area has more than doubled 
and continues to increase steadily. In the prairie belt, where wind- 
breaks are considered almost a necessity, the A. A. A. has stimulated 
establishment and care of tree plantations. In the northern forest 
belt, on the other hand, farmers apparently give woodland improve- 
ment low priority in conservation practices undertaken, supposedly 
because of the large acreage of tax-delinquent and State-owned forest 
land to which they already have access. Some farmers in the north- 
ern counties, in fact, have stressed the need of clearing land at the 
expense of the farm woods. But in the southern woodland belt, 
A. A. A. payments have provided many farmers with the necessary 
incentive to undertake regeneration of badly depleted woods. 
The Nation-wide forest survey, authorized by Congress in the 
McSweeney-McNary Act of 1928 and begun in the Lake States region 
in 1933, is almed at providing a physical inventory of all forest re- 
sources, together with data on the production, and use of forest prod- 
ucts. It will furnish in part, the information necessary for broad 
forestry programs and for proper integration of farm forestry into 
regional and national plans for timber production. 
Coordination of public activities bearing upon rural land utiliza- 
tion has been envisioned in a number of planning projects begun in 
recent years. Under the agricultural planning program, launched in 
1938 as a cooperative Federal-State project, specific plans for land use 
were developed, on a county basis by the public agencies, working 
in cooperation with farmers in each locality. In wooded regions like 
the Lake States the farm woods necessarily played an important part 
in these plans. Through coordinated planning it may well be possible 
to determine what extent of farm woods and what type of farm for- 
estry will best meet the needs of each community and each region. 
Several programs of education and demonstration in farm forestry 
have been inaugurated or have gained new momentum in the Lake 
States region in recent years. Since 1939, some of the appropriations 
made under the Norris-Doxey Act have been used to expand extension 
activities in farm forestry. These resources, matched with additional 
State funds, have been used to employ an assistant to the extension 
forester in each of the three Lake States. Through the encourage- 
ment of extension foresters and county agents, a number of 4-H club 
projects in farm forestry have been developed. Projects of this type 
are valuable in that they promote an interest in the farm woods and 
an understanding of woods management among the younger genera- 
tion of farm people, who are the woodland owners of the future. 
In various parts of the Lake States, the Civilian Conservation 
Corps has cooperated with the State extension services in establishing 
woodland demonstration areas. Altogether, more than 100 5-acre 
demonstration plots have been laid out. 
A particularly interesting program in farm-forestry education was 
begun in St. Louis County, in the northeastern cut-over region of 
Minnesota, in 1937, where the county department of education suc- 
