WEST VIRGINIA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



351 



lias been cleared for cultivation but, as a rule, eacb farmer has 

 preserved a small boundary of woodland. 



The branch of forestry work, therefore, which has received 

 most attention in Ohio is the improvement of the farmers' wood- 

 lots. The 2 forestry publications, issued from the Ohio Agri- 

 cultural Experiment Station before the establishment of a de- 

 partment of forestry in that institution, explain methods of 

 growing profitably for farm use such species of trees as catalpas, 

 osage orange, mulberry and yellow locust. In 1906 this import- 

 ant work for the farmer was taken up vigorously by the first 

 forester of the Experiment Station, and has been made a promi- 

 nent feature in all forestry work. Several hundred farmers are 

 cooperating with the Forestry Department of the Station in the 

 management of their woodlots, and the number interested in this 

 is increasing each year. 



Cooperation in forestry work with public institations, also, 

 is being successfully carried on. According to the third annual 

 report of the forester 4 state, 1 county, 1 municipal, 2 educa- 

 tional and 2 charitable institutions are cooperating with the 

 state. Nurseries have been established at 3 of the institutions 

 • where about 300,000 tree seedlings have been grown for planting 

 purposgs. Other institutions throughout the state have ex- 

 pressed a desire to establish forest plantations for parks and to 

 be used in the protection of water supplies. 



Other lines of work being pursued are a study of natural 

 forest conditions by counties; experiments to obtain data rela- 

 tive to rate of tree growth and the conditions favoring the 

 growth of various species; a study of problems peculiar to the 

 rough hill lands ; experiments with certain trees in the construc- 

 tion of windbreaks; a study of methods of prevention and con- 

 trol of forest fires. 



The outline below, prepared for this report by Mr. Edmund 

 Secrest, Forester of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, 

 shows the beginning of interest in forestry and its progress in 

 Ohio through a period of more than 50 years. 



**1853 — Publications on Forestry, through the Western 

 Horticultural Review, by Dr. John A. Warder of 

 Cincinnati, Ohio. 



