The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1906-10-27
FORESTRY ON FARMS.
Journal Of Agriculture.


The rapid destruction Of forests in the United
States and the consequent warning that unless it
ceases we will soon be confronted with wood
famine. has had the effect of awakening farmers
to the value Of forestry as adjunct to success
full agriculture. While forestry has been prac-
ticed more extensively in the middle west than
in other sections, the general mistake has been
made of planting trees for protection only.
When wood Of all kinds at its present high price
and the certainty that it will go much higher,
necessity demands that the farmer plant trees
that will not only serve as windbreaks. but which
will furnish fuel, fence posts and lumbera as we'll
Timber on a farm greatly enhances the value OF
the property. whether 1t is Of natural growth or
planted. Before planting new trees, farmers
should find out what varieties are best suited to
their needs and whether they are adapted to
that region. In the past, one of the greatest OBJ
stacles in the way Of the small forester was the
almost prohibitive prices charged by nursery
men for young trees. Where it was formerly
considered impossible to raise trees from seed
in sufficient numbers for the farm, it is today
not only possible but profitable. One of the
functions of the United States Forest Service is
to encourage such work by giving advice as to
the most economical and effective methods of
planting and protecting trees. A corner Of the
be used to better advantage than by planting
trees for home use. Nursery planting should
ordinarily be done in the spring. but now is the
time to plan and prepare for it.
The scarcity of timber in Europe has resulted
in the passage of a law prohibiting any man
from telling tree, even on his own land with
out government permit and this permit is not
granted until he has planted another tree to re-
place the one he shall cut. Timber is consid-
cred as a regular crop in France. 1t is cut when
ripe and planted in due season. While such
stringent regulations are not yet necessary in
America. they soon will be if the destruction of
timber is permitted to go on unchecked as it has
E'sssss mas oeciared rnaJ trees
are the lungs of the earth. If that Is true the
United States should become one vast SANTA
rum for the cure of ''tree consumption"
In connection with the study of forestry, it
will be interesting to farmers and others to note
some of the facts and causes that brought about
the conditions bordering on a wood famine.
Where the United States was once the worlds
wood storehouse it is now unable to supply its
own demand. The bulk of the lumber we use
nowadays comes from Canada, which has a
wooded area of 1885, $4,000 acres, against 506,555
coo acres of timber land in the United States.
Canada's entire surplus supply is sent to the
United States. According to Consul William G.
Teichmann, who resides in Eibenstock, Saxony,
the continuation of the present wood consump-
ton without comprehensive reforesting, will,
within a century at the latest, result in a great
scarcity of the worlds supply. While there is
no need for the present generation to worry
about suffering from such contingency, the
value of forestry to farmers makes it worth
studying and practising without delay.