FARM FORESTRY IN THE LAKE STATES 13 
In the western prairie belt, the main problem is successful estab- 
lishment of shelterbelts and farmstead plantings. 
Throughout the southern woodland belt, farm-woods problems 
have a particularly intimate relation to the farm economy as a whole, 
and the main problem is how to integrate woodland management 
with management of the rest of the farm. On most of these farms, 
forestry may be dovetailed with other farm activities. ‘Timber pro- 
duction provides profitable employment for farm labor at times when 
other work is slack. Also, it can be carried on profitably on land 
unsuited to other uses. Yet relatively few farmers regard woods 
work as an integral and potentially productive part of farm man- 
agement. 
In southern Minnesota, as a result of the run-down condition of 
most farm woods and the scarcity of wood-using industries, oppor- 
tunities for marketing commercial timber are limited, and the prob- 
lem is that of maintaining a continuous supply for home needs. In 
southern Wisconsin, an important dairy region, one important 
problem is finding the best use for lands now used simultaneously as 
woodland and pasture. In the rugged sections of southwestern Wis- 
consin and adjacent sections of Minnesota, an additional problem is 
that of increasing the effectiveness of farm woods as a preventive of 
excessive soil erosion. 
Southern Michigan and other districts where woodlands are ca- 
pable of producing a surplus of products over home needs present 
the problem of improving utilization and marketing of home-grown 
timber, thereby helping to maintain forest industries. Cooperation 
in managing and marketing timber, now practiced by an almost 
negligible fraction of woodland owners, offers to farmers a means 
of placing their forest enterprises on an efficient basis. Through 
collective action they can surmount the handicaps arising from small 
volume of production and lack of specialization. 
In central Wisconsin and throughout the northern forest belt, 
where field-crop yields are relatively small, the chief problem is 
that of supplementing farm income by work in the woods. Here 
farm woods are potentially of greatest value, since agriculture alone 
in many cases fails to provide adequate farm living. But it is in 
this part of the region that farm woods have been most depleted by 
large-scale logging and fire and least is being done to improve them. 
FARM WOODS AS A SOURCE OF TIMBER SUPPLIES 
Since the peak period of lumbering in the Lake States, which cul- 
minated in 1891 with an estimated volume for that year of about 9 
billion board feet, the output of sawmills in this region has declined 
precipitously. In 1936 the total saw-timber cut was estimated at less 
than 114 billion board feet. Lumbering in the Lake States is no 
longer a matter of booming sawmill towns, with great bands of migra- 
tory lumberjacks following the crest of the wave of timber depletion. 
During this period, the number of individual sawmills in the region 
in operation at least intermittently has changed little. But today, 
save on the few areas of northeastern Wisconsin and upper Michigan 
where patches of old-growth saw timber still remain, lumbering is 
largely a matter of little mills, most of them portable, fed by local 
