FARM FORESTRY IN THE LAKE STATES 5 
trol is necessary to prevent the wastage of these resources or their 
destruction, and to lend unity and coordination to their management. 
Woodland depletion, like soil erosion and flood damage, is a matter 
of public interest. Thus viewed, the farm-woodland problem is a 
problem also of some form of land-use regulation. 
A program for improving the farm-forest situation, including bet- 
ter timber utilization and marketing, education (including technical 
service to individual farmers), and land-use regulation, becomes an 
integral part of a regional and national program for the sustained 
use of basic resources. 
Such encouragement of farm forestry must be based on a far- 
sighted weighing of the benefits from forest use of farm land and 
from alternative uses. From the viewpoint of the individual farmer, 
returns from timber sold and timber used at home, plus returns from 
the farmwoods as a protective and aesthetic asset, must be balanced 
against the benefits which could be obtained from the land now wooded 
if it were converted to cropland or pasture. The protective and 
aesthetic values, difficult if not impossible to measure closely, yet have 
ereat and in some cases decisive importance in determining whether 
farm forestry is worth while. Returns from the farm woods as a 
means of erosion and flood control must be judged also on a broader 
basis— the needs of the community and of the people within an entire 
watershed. 
From the public viewpoint, possible returns from farm timber as a 
merchantable crop must be estimated according to the prospective 
regional and national output of forest products and the regional and 
national requirements of such products. The best regional policy for 
commercial farm forestry cannot be determined on the same grounds 
as the best policy for individual farmers. Needs of wood-using indus- 
tries, trends in the use of forest products, and trends in the production 
of timber on large commercial holdings must all be considered. Fur- 
thermore, the immediate prospects for the sale of wood need to be 
distinguished sharply from the long-run prospects, for timber is a 
slow-growing crop and timber supplies cannot be quickly adjusted to 
changing requirements. 
The economics of farm forestry rests ultimately on a wide field 
of conditions in both agriculture and forestry, knowledge of which 
is necessary for the formulation of a sound woodland policy. An 
essential part of the farm-forest program, therefore, is a program 
of research. 
In the study reported here the attempt has been chiefly to present 
the broad aspects of the various phases of the farm-forestry problem, 
to point out the obvious and essential needs, to recommend the logi- 
cal lines of attack on the problem, to indicate the need for well- 
thought-out programs and the remedial measures which they should 
include, but not to embark upon any detailed solution such as only 
further research, planning, and experience can develop. In the 
course of this study, weight has been given not only to available 
statistics on the extent, condition, and productivity of the farm 
woods, as well as to the quantity and quality of domestic and indus- 
trial demands upon them, but also to case studies made of eight 
typical localities in the principal producing units of the region. 
These have made it possible more effectively to interpret the general 
