Part 6 (2/2)

The early lu the tilected to provide for the future production of the woodlands after the virgin timber was removed Those who followed in their steps have learned by these errors what mistakes to avoid Our luenuity They have worked outthe trees Many foreign countries have long practiced forestry and lu, yet their lumbermen cannot coenuity in the woods A are peculiar They would no n systems be suitable in this country A to devise and follow a con forestry revised to apply to our conditions

We can keep our re forests alive and piece out their production over a long period if we practice conservationforests can be lureat expense to the owners In the long run, they will realizethe woods in this way This work of saving the forests should begin at once It should be practiced in every state Our cut-over and idle lands should be put to work Our forest lands should be handled just like fertile far crops The farmer does not attempt to take all the fertility out of the land in the harvest of one bumper crop He handles the field so that it will produce profitable crops every season He fertilizes the soil and tills it so as to add to its productive power Similarly, our forests should be worked so that they will yield successive crops of lumber year after year

Lumbermen n forests from which they desire to harvest a timber crop should first of all survey the woods, or have some experienced forester do this work, to decide on what trees should be cut and the bestto follow The trees to be cut should be selected carefully and marked The owner should deter lus he will make to replace the trees that are cut He should survey and esti trees and decide about when they will be ripe to cut and what they will yield From this information, he can determine his future inco the woodlands

Under present conditions in this country, only those trees should be cut from our forests which are mature and ready for the ax

This means that the harvesttrees to take the place of the full-grown trees that are re the winter when the trees are dor or surowthtrees The trees should be cut as low to the ground as is practicable, as high stumps waste valuable timber Care should be taken so that they will not break or split in falling Trees should be dropped so that they will not crush young seedlings and sapling growth as they fall It is no more difficult or costly to throw a tree so that it will not injure young trees than it is to drop it anywhere without regard for the future of the forest

Directly after cutting, the fallen timber should be tri down any young growth or seedling In sorowth is so thick that it is i the back into place again if the heavy branches are removed at once The top of the tree should be triround Under such conditions it will rot rapidly and be less of a fire round are erous sources of fire as they burn easily and rapidly

The lumbermen can also aid the future develop the logs to the yard oroperations not to tear or da timber If possible, only the trees of uni corduroy roads in the forests This will be a saving of valuableoperations as practiced in this country, the logs are usuallyrailroads If streas are run into the water and floated to the h, special daathered for the drive, the dam is opened and the captive waters flood away rapidly and carry the logs to the s are often fastened together in rafts Expert log drivers who ride on the tipping, rolling logs in the raging river, guide the logs on these drives

On arrival at the saws are reduced to lumber Many different kinds of saws are used in this work One of the most efficient is the circular sahich performs rapid work It is so wide in bite, however, that it wastesfour boards of one-inch luhthat is one-quarter of an inch in width Band saws, although they do not work at such high speed, are replacing circular saws in h saw slabs and short pieces into laths and shi+ngles, large as, are burned each season As a rule, only about one-third of the tree is finally used for construction purposes, the balance being wasted in one way or another

CHAPTER XVI

WHY THE FARMER SHOULD PRACTICE FORESTRY

The tree crop is a profitable crop for the average far the comparatively sure and easy incoed, farlect their timber Not infrequently they sell their tinorance of the real market value of the wood In other cases, they do not care for their woodlands properly They cut without regard to future growth They do not pile the slashi+ngs and hence expose the ti trees into hewed crossties which would yield twice as great a return if allowed to grow for four or five years longer and then be cut as lurow into money if allowed to land is interesting Forty-four years ago the far pines which were growing in a clump and set them out on the sidehill

Twenty years later the far pine for 300 Fifteen years later the woodlot again changed hands for a consideration of 1,000, a lu it Today, this small body of pine woods contains 90,000 board feet of lumber worth at least 1,500 on the stump

The farmer who set out the trees devoted about 35 worth of land and labor to the rown into a valuable asset which yielded a return of 3409 a year on the investment

[Illustration: ON POOR SOIL TREES SUCH AS THESE ARE MORE PROFITABLE THAN FARM CROPS ]

A New York farmer who plays square with his woodland realizes a continuous profit of 1 a day frorowth of this well-ed farm forest is 65 cords of wood per acre, equivalent to 75 cords of wood--mostly tulip poplar--a year The farmer's profit amounts to 468 a cord, or a total of 36450 from the entire timber tract Over in New Hampshi+re, an associate sold a two-acre stand of white pine--this was before the inflated war prices were in force--for 2,000 on the stump The total cut of this farm forest amounted to 254 cords equivalent to 170,000 board feet of lue of about 85,000 feet an acre The trees were between eighty and eighty-five years old when felled This indicates an annual growth on each acre of about 1,000 feet of luross returns from the sale of the woodland crops amounted to 1220 an acre a year These, of course, are not average instances

Farmers should prize their woodlands because they provide building eneral repairs The farm woodland also supplies fuel for the farm house Any surplus s, posts, poles, crossties, pulpwood, blocks or bolts The fars It supplies shelter for the livestock during stor slack times, it provides profitable work for the farm hands

There are approximately one-fifth of a billion acres of farm woodlands in the United States In the eastern United States there are about 169,000,000 acres of farether in a solid strip one hundred miles wide, they would reach from New York to San Francisco They would ae as the combined forests of France which furnished the bulk of the ti the World War

In the North, the farether there are approxiross income of about 162,000,000 annually to their owners Surveys show that in the New England States more than 65 per cent of the forested land is on farms, while in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa from 80 to 100 per cent of the timber tracts are on corn belt farms Conditions in the South also eion there are more than 125,000,000 acres which yield an income of about 150,000,000 a year In fact the woodlands on the farms compose about 50 per cent of all the forest lands south of the Mason-Dixon line In Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky and Oklahoma, over 60 per cent of all the forest land is on far is very profitable in the Eastern States because there is plenty of cheap land which is not suitable for farrowth Furthere cities which use enormous supplies of lumber The transportation facilities, both rail and water, are excellent This section is a long distance froin forests of the Pacific Coast country

The fare of about 82 worth of tree crop products a year New York, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania each sold over 15,000,000 worth of lu a single season In 1918 the report showed that the farms of the country burn up about 78,000,000 cords of firewood annually, equal to approximately 115 cords of fuel a farm The Southern States burn more wood than the colder Northern States In North Carolina each farhteen cords of fuel annually, while the farms of South Carolina and Arkansas used seventeen cords apiece, and those of Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Kentucky from fifteen to sixteen cords Even under these conditions of extensive cordwood use, our far only about one-third to one-half of the wood supplies which they could grow if they were properly ed

The far for his ho howa period of twelve months The Government reports that where the farm woodlots are fully stocked with trees and well-cared for, an acre of hardwoods will produce from one-half to one cord of wood--a cord of wood is equal to about 500 board feet of lumber A pine forest will produce froreater in the war season is much shorter Expert foresters say that posts and crossties can be grown in fro trees will make saw timber in between twenty and forty years

After the far trees will develop from seeds or sprouts from the sturound in the cut-over woodlands to aid natural reproduction, or to turn hogs into the ti as these ani the seed under favorable circuorous sprouts come from the clean, well-cut stu the late fall, winter or early spring before the sap begins to flow The top of each stu so that it will readily shed water The trees that reproduce by sprouts include the oak, hickory, basswood, chestnut, gu short-leaf and pitch pines

In order that the farm woodland may be kept in the best of productive condition, the farmer should remove for firewood the trees adapted only for that purpose Usually, re trees by giving therowth has been stunted because trees of rowth crowded them out

Diseased trees or those that have been seriously injured by insects should be felled In sections exposed to chestnut blight or gypsy moth infection, it is advisable to reed seriously It is wise ement to cut the fire-scarred trees as well as those that are crooked, large-crowned and short-boled, as they will not ood lumber The removal of these undesirable trees i space for the sturdy, healthy trees Sound dead trees as well as the sloing trees that crowd the fast growing varieties should be cut In addition, where such less valuable trees as the beech, birch, black oak, jack oak or black guar maples, white or short-leaf pines, yellow poplar or white oak, the for operations should be done with the least possible da trees The ”weed trees” should be cut down, just as the weeds are hoed out of a field of corn, in order that the surviving trees rowth