Keep the cattle, horses, hogs, and sheep out of the farm woods in the central hardwood region, and timber will grow there just as thriftily as it ever did. If stock are not kept out the timber in the smaller farm woods appears to be doomed to slow but sure extinction.

Livestock eat and break down the young growth, bend it, strip it of bark, and tramp it out. Also by tramping the soil around the roots of older trees they pack it so tightly that air and water are excluded from the roots, and the trees gradually die. Hogs eat the seeds of oak and beech and thus interfere with the establishment of seedlings. Heavily pastured woods are easily recognized; they are almost or entirely devoid of bushy undergrowth, a sod of grass has begun to creep in, and the old trees are beginning to die in the tops.

Using the wood lot for pasture is an expensive way to raise livestock. The value of the forage grazed in a year from a woods that is at all dense is generally less than the value of the wood added in a year in a well-managed wood lot. A year’s forage production is estimated to be worth from 25 cents to $1.25 an acre. In the same time a well-managed wood lot will add from one-half to 1 cord of wood. In addition there is the convenience of having a near-at-hand supply of the cordwood, poles, posts, and lumber which are constantly needed on every farm.

Livestock undoubtedly benefit from the shelter afforded by woods. Two or three acres, however, will ordinarily give them all the shelter they need; the remainder of the woods had better be fenced off to grow a wood crop.

A wood lot, like a herd of cattle, will develop in quantity, quality, and value if given common-sense treatment. If the owner of cattle were continually to sell off or kill for meat the best individuals in the herd, he would in time have on his hands only scrub animals. The farm wood lot responds in just the same way. If the best trees, such as ash, yellow poplar, black walnut, red gum, hickory, and red and white oak, are the only ones removed from the wood lot, and the inferior beech, black oak, elm, soft maple, and black gum and similar trees are left in possession of the ground, the result is bound to be scrub woods.

Do not sell to prospective buyers all the choice trees in the woods unless it is possible to cut out at the same time the poorer species. In cutting cordwood for home use or sale, take out the scrubby, limby, and less valuable trees, thus making the cuttings pay double by giving the valuable timber more space to grow.

Fires must be kept out of the farm woods. They kill back to the ground young trees in the brush stage or even those up to 4 or 6 inches in diameter; they burn into the larger trees at the butt, so that the value of the butt log is greatly reduced, either because of the fire scar or because rot or insects enter through the fire-caused wound. Sometimes this wound becomes so deep that the tree is broken off by the wind. In addition, fires destroy the fallen leaves, small twigs, and the partly decayed vegetable matter of the soil (the natural manure) and thus greatly impair the soil fertility.

A farm woods that has become badly run down through mistreatment, or an old field that has played out to such an extent that it will no longer grow a good field crop, can be planted to forest trees at the rate of about 1,000 to the acre. Ordinarily the softwoods, such as pine and spruce, do better on such land than the hardwoods, like oak, ash, and gum. Before selecting the kind of trees to plant, the owner should find out what others in the region have done or should ask the advice of the State forester. In Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, and Oklahoma, to mention only the States of the central hardwood region, small trees for forest planting can be obtained from State nurseries at a very reasonable price, on application to the State forester.

FIG. 265—A well-managed second-growth forest uninjured by grazing animals, with plenty of reproduction and growing rapidly

FIG. 266.—A forest in which grazing by cattle and hogs has prevented reproduction and has caused s s injury to the trees through exposure of the roots

Having brought his timber to merchantable size, the farmer who wants to get the best return for his good management will do well to consult the articles in this volume on measuring and marketing timber. Instead of selling hurriedly when an offer is made, he should make sure that he is in position to make a good sale; that he knows how much timber he has and approximately what it is worth, just as he would if he were selling hogs. Consult the State forester. It is one of his functions to assist farm woods owners in estimating and marketing timber. Timber has an advantage over other farm crops in that it does not have to be sold until the market is favorable.