FARM FORESTRY IN THE LAKE STATES 23 
individual cutters or cooperating groups of cutters to conduct their 
own logging operations, would appear to offer a solution to the prob- 
lems both of unemployment and of low returns to those employed. 
An estimate of the potential returns to Littlefork settlers from woods 
work on State land indicates that the winter income of the average 
worker would be $350 and that of the average family $530, in addi- 
tion to what they can get from their own woods. Off-farm revenue 
of this amount would help to lift the income of Littlefork families 
above the distress level. 
The story of the Littlefork area illustrates the great potential sig- 
nificance of public timberlands in the farm economy of the northern 
forest belt. In all three Lake States, the possible role of Federal, 
State, and county forests in influencing the development and ensuring 
the stability of rural communities is coming into recognition. The 
possibility of integrated use of agricultural and timber resources 
opens up new horizons on the farm-forest scene. 
POSSIBILITIES OF COOPERATIVE MANAGEMENT AND 
MARKETING 
How to obtain higher returns from the farm woods, especially 
higher cash returns from sale of timber, is the pivotal problem of 
farm forestry in the Lake States. The small areas and small output, 
the farmers’ lack of specialized knowledge regarding marketing, and 
the individual owner’s lack of bargaining power are responsible to a 
large extent for the present low cash returns. These handicaps are 
somewhat analogous to those once experienced by farmers in market- 
ing their field crops, which have subsequently been lessened or over- 
come through cooperative organization. May not the solution of the 
farmer’s difficulties as a seller of farm timber, also, lie in the direction 
of cooperative management and marketing? 
The Lake States region, having a long history of agricultural co- 
operation and exceeding all other regions of the United States in pro- 
portion of farm business handled through cooperatives, is a naturally 
fertile field for cooperative development. In the development of 
cooperatives for management of woodlands and marketing of timber 
products, however, progress thus far has been slow. There are at 
present several forest cooperatives in the Lake States but most of 
them are insignificant in size and imperfectly organized. They are 
chiefly concerned with marketing products and little or not at all with 
the management of woodlands—yet both these functions are essential 
for a sound forest cooperative. 
The most obvious function of the cooperative is, of course, efficient 
marketing. A forest cooperative must protect the farmer from un- 
wise or unnecessary transactions with middlemen and enable him to 
reach markets otherwise inaccessible. It must bring together a suffi- 
ciently large number of timber producers to assure a volume of busi- 
ness large enough to provide economies in operation, permit diversi- 
fication of products, and assure to wood-using industries regular 
delivery of standardized products. Farmers acting as a group would 
probably find a great many timber markets open to them in which 
their individual small and ungraded lots would not be accepted. 
Wood-using industries, also, would benefit from the establishment of 
