Yet we must admit that, with the exception of such rare occasions, the wood-supply question frequently may not of itself be a sufficient reason for maintaining woodlots.
(2) As a The greatest value of the woodlot is that it is capable of producing more returns from certain parts of the farm than any other crop, from those parts which are not fit for farm use because of soil conditions or topography. We have heard a great deal about unprofitable farming. We feel sure that, in many cases, lack of proper adaptation of crop to soils and lack of con sideration for the small matters, neglect of the apparently unimportant corners of the farm, may account for it. There are on most farms soils that are fit only for timber crops ; there are also every where conditions of farm soils and of markets which make it doubtful whether farming the soil pays ; others, where pasturing is the only profitable use of the ground ; and, again, others where, although farm crops might still be raised, timber cropping alone is advisable.
A German authority on farming matters some years ago made an extensive investigation to find out when, under the conditions prevailing in his country, it was more profitable to abandon farming and to plant to forest. He found that on land fit only for oats and rye, which does not give a net yield of more than eighty cents per acre, or on wheat soil of more than one dollar and eighty cents per acre, it would pay better to plant to forest, pine in the first case and spruce in the second case, provided the owner could wait forty or fifty years for the return. According to various circumstances, the financial result from wood-cropping would then be 15 to 60 per cent higher than the accumulated farm returns, with wood at three to seven cents per cubic foot, and an annual production of sixty to seventy cubic feet per acre, say two-thirds of a cord. Although we cite this calculation from a foreign country, where entirely different conditions of market exist, merely to make it clear that such matters are capable of calculation, yet the figuring may not vary so very much in this country with spruce wood worth now four cents or more, and pine in places bringing twelve to sixteen cents per cubic foot.
(3) Utilizing of labor.— A value not to be under estimated lies in the fact that the work in the woods can be performed at the season when other work is slack. This factor is discussed at length
in the succeeding article.
(4) In its influence on its environinent.—Lastly, we should mention the influence of the woodlot on the climatic, soil and water conditions of the farm, wherein in some situations may lie its greatest value: not only on the wind-swept prairie farms, but in the eastern and southern sections of the country as well. We are not inclined to overesti mate these, influences. But we do know that springs have run dry when the shading wood was cut off and were replenished when forest conditions were reestablished. Not everywhere and under all cir cumstances will this be experienced, for there are other influences at work which give rise to springs and which may be so po tent that the forest influ ence becomes negligible.
Yet the fact that in gen eral on moun tain slopes a forest cover is influential in producing equable water conditions, that it pre vents erosion and washing of the soil, is not doubted by any one who has studied the history of the results of defor estation in France, where thousands of farmers became homeless by the terrible work of the tor rential mountain streams and where, by reforest ing, favorable conditions have been reestablished. In our southern states, especially where the com pact soils are liable to gullying, the proper location of woodlots, together with proper methods of culti vation, will reduce this danger.
The philosophy of this forest influence lies in the fact that a forest cover changes surface drain age into sub-drainage, checking the rush of water over the ground by the litter, brush and tree trunks, and thus giving time for it to penetrate the soil and to drain off slowly. Generally speaking, larger amounts of water penetrate the soil and are stored under forest growth, which prevents rapid evaporation. Later it becomes available by sub drainage, feeding the springs and other subsoil waters, and thus ultimately becoming a benefit to neighboring fields. This action presupposes that the effective forest floor of mulch and litter and shrubs has not been destroyed by fire or by over pasturing and tramping by cattle.