IMPROVEMENT OF THE WOODLOT.
What then can be done to show the man most concerned, the farmer, the importance of the improvement of his woodlot? First, an attempt will be made to set forth the matter as clearly as possible in print, which is the object of this bulletin; and the necessary steps will then be taken to furnish an ocular demonstration of the facts herein set forth by the establishment of nurseries and the maintenance of model woodlots. On the big majority of farms in Kentucky, there are certain areas which are not good farm land and never will be for a variety of reasons (inferior soil, rocky soil, too steep a slope, etc.); but these lands in most cases can produce timber crops and should be producing them, since they are a commercial adjunct to the farm and bring in a revenue. As Mr. W. F. Cook, of Hickman County, says, “It is a great deal more valuable than giving the land over to weeds and wild briars.”
Ordinarily, there is little or no attention paid to the woodlot on a farm, and without attention a woodlot is in much the same condition as a corn field in which no attention was paid to the kind of corn planted, and which was not cultivated during the growing season. You commonly find in a woodlot a great variety of trees, some of a valuable species and some of more or less worthless species. You also find crooked and defective and diseased trees, and further you ordinarily do not find in any particular woodlot one-half the trees that the ground will support, which is about the worst feature of all, since here is an economic waste.