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Woodlot That Pays — Part 3

It is almost as easy to grow good trees as poor ones, to cut out the right ones as the wrong ones, to cut down a tree properly as to do it improperly. A bit more time and thought, only, and the result is a vast improvement. Leave a sprout forest to itself and you get defective, crooked trees unfit for any use but fuel. Take out some of the sprouts and the rest grow at greatly accelerated speed into straight trees bringing much higher prices. An increased yield of 20 per cent. to 40 per cent. is recorded in experiments made by farmers working at odd days with no outside help. The farmer's great advantage is that during the winter he has leisure to improve his woodland, and with boys to help him, need hire no labour. Then, too, a series of improvements may extend over a period of years. Harvesting is always to be done as a part of the maintenance of the woodlot. This means a constant income. It is the man who goes to his woodlot only to chop and haul out poles and firewood that gets the lowest rate of interest on his investment, and who declares truthfully that his woodlot doesn't pay.