[FARM FORESTRY IN THE LAKE STATES 27 
Under laws recently enacted in each of the Lake States, soil con- 
servation districts are being organized as local units of government 
and are operating with the assistance of Federal, State, and local 
agencies and individuals to aid farmers in the prevention and control 
of soil erosion and the conservation of soil and soil resources. 
Until recently, in the whole of this broad program of public aid 
to agriculture, farm forestry received scant attention. 
In the Lake States, as in most other farm-woods regions of the 
country, the burden of farm-forest education has rested largely upon 
the shoulders of a single extension specialist in each State. The 
extension forester has been charged with the duty of carrying out 
educational work among farmers through lectures and demonstrations, 
and promoting forestry-mindedness among county agents and other 
extension workers. But his efforts in these directions have, of 
necessity, been spread too thin to bring about rapid progress. Some 
of the educational and service activities of the State conservation 
departments and forestry schools have been aimed to bear directly 
on farm forestry, but the attention of these agencies has been directed 
chiefly to other fields. 
Attempts have been made to improve the farm-forest situation 
through special tax laws designed to induce woodland owners to 
abandon woods pasturing and to practice good cutting methods. 
One type of law, in effect in Wisconsin, offers complete exemption 
from property taxes on a limited acreage of fenced and ungrazed 
woodlands. Another type of law, on the books of each of the three 
Lake States, provides for a merely nominal annual tax on protected 
woodlands, supplemented by a tax on timber harvested. Michigan 
passed such a law in 1917, but today has less than 2.500 acres of 
woodland classified under it. Even less woodland has been entered 
under a law of this type in Wisconsin, and in Minnesota none has 
been entered. 
The failure of-special tax laws as a farm-forestry measure has 
been due in part to the disfavor of local governmental units, which 
feared loss of tax base and therefore disapproved such applications 
as were submitted for entry under the law. In part, also, failure has 
been due to lack of general knowledge among farmers of the provi- 
sions of the laws, and because the degree of tax reduction offered 
was not sufficient to counterbalance certain additional costs or dis- 
advantages, such as those resulting from requirements for fencing 
and restrictions on grazing. 
The Clarke-McNary Act of 1924, which resulted in appointment 
of State extension foresters, also provided for Federal-State coopera- 
tion in furnishing forest planting stock to farmers. The States of 
Michigan and Wisconsin have cooperated with the Federal Govern- 
ment in this activity since the law went into effect in 1925; about 
271% million trees have been supplied to farmers and nearly 20,000 
acres of successful plantations have been established. In 1937, 5,000 
Michigan and Wisconsin farmers purchased 31% million trees from 
the Clarke-McNary and State nurseries. In Minnesota, however, no 
acceptable arrangement has been made to take advantage of the 
planting-stock provisions of the Act. Federal funds provided for 
this activity in Michigan and Wisconsin have been increased since 
1939 from appropriations made under authority of the Norris-Doxey 
Act. 
