24 CIRCULAR 661, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
a forest cooperative, since it would insure a steadier and more certain 
supply. Cooperatives should help to develop a stable and permanent 
basis for the wood-using industries in the southern part of the Lake 
States, where manufacture of wood materials is at present on an in- 
secure and somewhat haphazard basis. 
But timber management is an equally important function of farm- 
forest cooperatives. Only if they go beyond the marketing function 
and undertake to assist members in handling their woodlands for 
permanent timber production can they prevent the depletion which 
otherwise is involved in getting increased returns for timber products. 
The experience of the Edgar Equity Association of Edgar, Wis., 
illustrates this fact. The favorable contract which this association 
obtained with the operator of a local sawmill, coupled with the fact 
that the association had direct access with its graded products to good 
lumber, tie, and log markets, allowed it to pay patrons the high aver- 
age price of $20 per M board feet. But the deep inroads made into 
the members’ woods in response to this high price, and the resulting 
depletion of the forest resources during the 3 years of the association’s 
operation in the timber field, were a major factor in causing it to 
withdraw from this field in 1938. 
There are many difficulties inherent in farm woods which handicap 
the organizing of such dual-function cooperatives on a wide scale in 
the Lake States. Perhaps the most serious, especially in the southern 
part of the region, is the fact that timber is a minor farm crop, pro- 
viding less than 5 percent of the total farm returns and therefore 
tending to be of little concern to farmers. The agricultural coopera- 
tives that have been organized successfully are creameries, livestock- 
shipping fo and grain elevators, each of which markets a 
crop of major importance. There is good reason to believe, however, 
that cooperation is fast becoming established as a generally useful 
business expedient and will spread to minor enterprises in which 
savings and economies can be effected through collective effort, per- 
haps as a part of cooperative handling of major agricultural products. 
A second handicap is the generally - run-down condition of the farm 
woods and the difficulty of finding areas with a sufficient volume of 
standing timber to assure an adequate supply on a permanent basis. 
The forest-cooperative movement also may be expected to encounter 
the type of private price competition which proved ruinous in early 
days of cooperative elevators and other associations in the Middle 
West. To protect themselves against such competition most associa- 
tions now include in their contracts the so-called maintenance agree- 
ment, binding members to pay the cooperative a small proportion of 
the amounts received for any products sold outside the association. 
Again, forest cooperatives must combat the indifference of members 
and their unfamiliarity with timber practices. In fact, the whole 
problem of membership relations is of vital importance in an associa- 
tion the members of which would normally have but infrequent con- 
tact with each other. 
To explore the possibility of farmers’ cooperation in managing and 
marketing timber in the Lake States, a study was made of the farm- 
woods area surrounding the village of Yuba, in Richland and Vernon 
Counties, Wis. Here, within a radius of 15 miles of the village, are 
nearly 3,000 farms, having an average area of 150 acres, including 
