While forestry is an agricultural subject, it is also a public policy subject, a fact that is expressed in the German custom of associating forestry instruction with the schools or departments of economics. Forests are concerned with the public welfare in the maintenance of water-courses, regu lation of floods, and modification of wind and weather ; and they afford a means of utilizing pub lic and communal lands and of providing public supplies. In other countries, whole towns or com munities own forests in common. There are regions in this country in which it would undoubtedly pay the town, county or state to purchase lands for the purpose of setting them aside as long-time invest ments in timber-growing. Under wise management, a town forest might go a long way toward pay ing town expenses, at the same time that it pro tected the streams, held back the rainfall, afforded labor in the winter, encouraged thrift in the in habitants and contributed to the attractiveness and wholesomeness of the region. A man might do far worse than to bequeath a forest to maintain a school (at the same time that it kept the children close to nature and to home), or to aid a charity, or to provide for dependents. The United States and Canadian governments are fully alive to the public policy aspects of forestry questions, as is evidenced by their growing forest services, a sub ject that will be considered briefly again in Volume IV of this work.
There is still another aspect of the forest that must not be overlooked. It is essentially native, natural and wild. It maintains an area of abun dant and free life in the midst of a civilization that razes and levels the surface of the earth. It is part of the real out-of-doors, comparable with the mountains and the sea. No child should be for bidden the influence of a forest ; and no nation can afford to lose the forest if it hopes to foster free dom and inspiration.
Farm Woodlot : Its Place in the Farm Economy.
When the first settlers in the northeastern Uni ted States hewed their farms out of the forest, turning into pasture and field the larger part of their holdinn, they left parts uncut for their domestic wood -supply,-- the farm woodlot. This was to furnish fence-posts and rails, repair wood for buildings and implements, and, above all, fuel. It was natural to clear the better land first and to leave for the woodlot the poorer parts; and this is proper. Unsuitableness of the ground for farm use and inconvenience of location were probably the main or only considerations by which the woodlot was reserved. It is not likely that the idea of a timber crop, which could be reaped and re-grown at will, like other farm crops, had been present either ui locating or in using the crop. It was con sidered merely a storehouse of material from which the farmer might draw at any time to supply his needs. if the intention had been to make it serve
its purpose continuously, it was certainly, in most cases, treated most improperly,—culled and cut without any regard to reproduction. Instead of using first the dead and dying, the crooked and inferior trees, the limbs and leavings, for fire-wood, and thus improving the condition of the remaining growth, body-wood of the best trees was considered none too good for the stove, and the best trees of the best kind were chosen for posts, fence-rails and other inferior uses.
As a consequence of this culling system, which ]eft only, undesirable kinds and trees,—the weeds among tree-growth,—many woodlots have become well-nigh useless, mere weed patches. Many have ceased to supply even the domestic fire-wood. The soil, which was of use for anything but a timber crop, is rendered still less useful under this treatment. In addition, the compacting of the soil by the constant running of cattle makes the start ing of a crop of seedlings nearly impossible. It would not pay to turn it into field or pasture ; the farm has by so much lost in value, simply because the woodlot was worked like a mine instead of like a crop. If, after cutting the original growth, a new crop sprang up, this was merely an accident or natural sequence, not a result secured by a deliber ate effort or premeditated plan, except in sporadic cases. In the deciduous forest, composed of broad leaf trees, the sprouting capacity of the stumps was responsible for re-growth, and many woodlots became sprout-lands, which were cut over and over again, also without any care for the stocks, and by this neglect and the browsing of cattle became poorer and poorer. In this way, notably in the southern New England states and Atlantic coast sections, a regular system of coppice, as this kind of sprout-forest is technically called, being cut over every twenty to thirty years, established itself.
There are cases on record, however, and probably many cases have remained unrecorded, in which farmers in the East have deliberately sown or planted pine and other trees for a timber crop. Again, abandoned fields and pastures have been seeded to pine and other kinds of trees by natural processes, increasing the woodlot area. Undoubt edly, there have also been sporadic efforts to im prove the resulting timber crop by thinning, and other practices of conservative treatment have existed here and there ; but until very lately such efforts have been extremely rare.
In many of the southern states, the proportion of woodland to field in farmers' hands is still such that the woodlot forms the larger part, and the farmed area is shifted by making new clearings, the exhausted farm land relapsing into woodland. Similar conditions are also still prevalent in the western forested sections.