of charred stumps
and logs, producing little but ferns, is a small farm asset at
best. The timber it would grow may eventually be a large asset.
And the labor of clearing applied to a smaller tract of good land
is sure to bring greater returns. An illustration is furnished
by two tracts near the end of a recently completed railroad in
western Washington. Twenty years ago a settler slashed a large
area of presumably worthless sapling fir adjoining his tillable
bottom land, set fire to it, piled and burned the remaining poles,
"seeded down" a pasture, and enclosed it by an expensive cedar
rail fence. The pasture, never useful except in early spring, grew
up to ferns, and was finally abandoned. Even the fence was moved.
The settler on the next claim left his part of the same sapling
growth to grow and this year sold the timber alone for $1,000 to
a tie mill which came into the neighborhood with the railroad. The
moral of this does not apply to cutting alone, but argues equally
for preventing fire in second growth.

It is also poor economy, if mature timber exists, to cut rapidly
growing young timber for fuel because it is nearer the house or
easier to cut. The former has become stationary in production,
while the latter, if left, is earning money by growing in quantity
and quality. If young timber must be used, and the land is not
worth actually clearing for cultivation or pasture, it is usually
far better to thin out the poorest trees, thus leaving the remainder
stimulated to a more rapid growth, which will soon replace those
removed, than to begin on the edge and take everything.

There is no reason why a certain poor-soiled timbered portion of
the average claim should not be considered as a permanent wood
lot, to be treated with the same interest and pride in making it
produce the greatest quantity of forest products for sale or use that
the owner accords his fields. With this point of view established
and consequent study given the subject, it will also be easier to
decide how large this portion should be. In many cases the result
will be abandonment of the idea that all forest growth is an enemy,
to be destroyed on general principles without calculating what
actual profit there is in destruction.

Another point often overlooked in the Pacific Northwest, because
of our local tendency to consider the forest only as something to
struggle against, is the exactly opposite influence of properly
placed tree growth upon