Epsilon Open Archive

Abstract

Acting Professor EINAR HUSS and Professor ERIC STEFANSSO of the Department of Reforestation at the Royal College of Forestry in Stockholm, Sweden, commissioned me in 1959-1960 to study methods of converting abandoned farm land into forest. The background to this study was the continuous depopulation of the Swedish countryside which has involved an increased number of closures of smallholdings and farms on inferior land. Surveys have shown that between 0.5 and one million hectares of land used for agricultura1 production may go out of use. At present each year sees the conversion of approx. 20,000 hectares of arable land into forest in Sweden. One can calculate that if approx. 0.5 million hectares of arable land is turned into productive forest land the value of the yield of Swedish forestry will increase by approx. ten per cent provided that such planting yield the expected result.