277 
tained in the two hundred million acres and over of farm woodlots 
will form a supply of saw logs that will last this country for many 
years. 
The woodlot is not only of value to the country at large, but it 
is of special value to the farm to which it is attached. In many 
regions it is a necessity. It has been said that every farm should 
have one-eighth of its area in a woodlot, which should furnish the 
farm with fuel and posts and enough saw logs to supply what 
lumber is needed for farm use. It should also furnish products 
for sale to help pay for taxes and other expenses connected with 
the woodlot. A woodlot should be a source of income as well as 
any other portion of the farm. It should furnish this amount of 
material indefinitely, without injury to the woodlot and without 
lessening the forest capital. 
There are three reasons why farmers' woodlots are not produc- 
ing this amount of material : they do not contain the right species 
of trees, there are not enough trees grown to the acre, the woodlot 
is not sufficiently protected from its enemies. 
In forestry the aim is to make use of those trees alone which 
will give the product desired in the shortest time. Among the 
four hundred or more species of trees which are native to this 
country only a comparatively few are of any use in forest manage- 
ment. It should be the aim of every woodlot owner to determine 
what trees are best to grow in his woodlot. The owner usually re- 
lies too much on nature to make the choice of what trees shall 
grow. He cuts trees here and there and gives no thought as to 
what species shall grow in the place of those removed. As a result 
nature fills in the gap with the tree that happens to get a start, 
whether that tree is a slow or a fast growing species, or whether 
the timber is of value for farm use or is a weed tree. It is just 
as essential to remove the weed trees from the woodlot as it is 
from the garden crop. Nature grows the plant or the tree that 
will the quickest respond to the conditions, and it usually happens 
that the weed is better able to survive than the more desirable 
plants. Nature is no more capable of making a proper choice of 
. trees in the woodlot than she is capable of discriminating in a gar- 
den crop. If the farmer wants to grow certain species of trees in 
his woodlot, he can do so only by judiciously thinning and weed- 
ing out the undesirable species, so as to give the trees he wishes to 
grow the advantage. 
It usually happens that when a tree is removed from the forest 
there are no young trees of desirable species ready to respond to 
the increased light and fill in the gap. It has been the custom to 
look on young seedlings as of no value. The farmer reckons the 
value of his woodlot only on the larger trees. He does not reahze 
that the future of his forest depends on the young seedlings and 
saplings that come in under the older trees. He allows these to 
be destroyed by grazing or by repeated fires or even cuts them 
out, as he thinks to better his forest conditions. The result is 
