20 CIRCULAR 661, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
INTERRELATIONS BETWEEN FORESTRY AND FARMING 
The conflict in the use of farm-forest land for pasture and for 
timber production in the southern part of the Lake States has already 
been noted. Here 5.5 million head of livestock are grazed. Since the 
8.7 million acres of open pasture within this belt represents an average 
of only 11% acres per head of stock, the chief concern of many farmers, 
especially those whose farms are small, 1s to provide enough addi- 
tional forage to maintain a full dairy herd, keep farm labor occupied, 
and bring in as large a cream check as possible. Thus farmers are 
inclined to regard their woodland as supplementary pasture and 
today use 7 million acres of it for that purpose, bringing the total 
pasture area per head of stock to nearly 3 acres. 
There is question, however, whether so much pasture is actually 
needed. In individual cases, woodlands are pastured, not because of 
necessity or even because they offer much forage, but simply because 
no fences separate them from adjoining open pastures and cattle 
are free to wander into the woods. Again, pasture studies made in 
the LaCrosse area have shown that while 1 or 2 acres of good open 
pasture will support one head of livestock, it takes 5 to 10 or more 
acres of woodland to provide forage for one head of steck, since the 
presence of trees interferes with the growth of grass. All studies of 
pasturing in the farm woods, in fact, point definitely in one direc- 
tion—the need of increasing forage production on the existing pasture 
lands by better management and in some cases of actually clearing a 
part of the woodland for pasture (perhaps leaving a few trees for 
shade), reserving the remainder for timber production. 
The question of the use of land for pasture or for forest, the ques- 
tion of the use of labor for woods work or for other work—in fact, 
the whole question of the place of forestry in the farm business— 
resolves itself into a matter of budgeting the use of all the farm 
resources for the greatest sustained return over an extended period 
of years. 
A complete farm-budget analysis of the place of forestry in farm 
management in the southern part of the Lake States has not been 
made; but pertinent facts and figures are available for a number of 
farms in southern Minnesota. 
One example is a typical 160-acre dairy farm in Carver County, 
containing two tracts of wooded land. One tract of 20 acres is located 
about one-half mile from the farmstead, is relatively inaccessible 
to the cattle, and is used as pasture only occasionally. The tim- 
ber stand is of fine quality and adequate density, averages 30 cords 
per acre in volume, and has excellent management possibilities. The 
other tract comprises 15 acres of heavily grazed woodland lying 
near the farmstead, with a timber volume of only 15 cords per acre. 
The farm contains 36 acres of open pasture in addition to the grazed 
woodland, and normally carries 24 head of grazing livestock. 
Several possibilities of reorganizing the land use on this farm were 
studied. It was estimated that if grazing were eliminated from both 
tracts and they were devoted to timber production, the better growth of 
timber on both woodlands would increase net returns to the farmer at 
least $25 per year. On the other hand, if the trees were cut from both 
the tracts and the land converted to open pasture, the livestock returns 
less the value of present timber growth per year would represent a 
