FARM FORESTRY IN THE LAKE STATES 15 
ing their own logging operations and obtaining a good share of their 
timber requirements by purchase in the open market of timber offered 
by farmers and by small contractors who operate partly in farm 
woods. This, for example, has been the policy of the Cloquet mills, 
which have purchased much of their material from farmers and 
settlers, and have logged their own lands largely on contract. In 
many other cases owners of large mills, who formerly conducted 
their own logging operations, have turned to the contractor and 
the farmer in an effort to escape certain operating risks—notably 
labor difficulties, which have become increasingly formidable in 
recent years. This, in turn, has occasionally resulted in conflict 
between timber workers and farmers. 
In some cases the remaining commercial holdings are at a dis- 
advantage because of inaccessibility, which involves high costs of 
logging and transportation. Some mill owners hold their own forests 
as a reserve, obtaining timber elsewhere as long as the supplies 
last. Taxes and fire risks discourage this policy, however. 
Under present conditions in the Lake States, the small operator, 
such as the farmer, has several immediate advantages in timber 
production over the large forest owner. Asa rule he is located close 
to centers of population and industry, and close to good roads. 
Living near his woods, he is better able to protect them from damage 
and can use his spare time to advantage in managing and harvesting 
his timber, getting the most out of the potentialities for forest growth 
offered by the good soils of the agricultural areas. He can meet 
current taxes with current small harvests of forest products. He is 
seldom concerned with labor troubles. Although only about one- 
sixth of this area is in reasonably fair condition, the farm woods 
as a whole are receiving better treatment than other private forest 
lands in the Lake States, probably less than one-tenth of which are 
under forest management. 
The advantages are largely overweighed, however, by disadvan- 
tages that are difficult to avoid. The small size of the farm woods 
tends to be unfavorable to growth. A patch of timber open on all 
sides is exposed to drying winds. In other ways the forest condi- 
tions may fall short of those on large timber tracts in encouraging 
natural reproduction. Furthermore, a farm woodland is usually 
subject to grazing and trampling by cattle, and, in general, to being 
used as the backyard of the farm. In the long run, the small scale 
of his operations constitutes a great disadvantage for the farmer as 
a timber producer—and one which he is slow in correcting. He has 
difficulty in avoiding inefficiencies arising from lack of specialization 
in managing, marketing, and processing his timber. His woods may 
be in poor shape for timber production simply because he does not 
know how to take care of them. He often loses much of the value 
which he can produce because his logs and lumber are graded, sawn, 
and seasoned poorly and in such small quantity. 
One serious disadvantage the farmer faces in timber production 
is well illustrated in the present practices of the great furniture 
industry of Grand Rapids, built upon the hardwoods of Lower 
Michigan, and of the woodworking plants of the Twin Cities, which 
long drew upon the pine and hardwoods of Minnesota and the other 
Lake States. These now use little timber from the nearby farm 
