Forest Farm
| Forest Farm | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Farm Type |
| Location | The Farm |
| Skill | Foraging |
| Tillable Tiles | 1413 |
| Buildable Tiles | 1490 |
The Forest Farm is the layout that keeps handing things over for free. Its border is built from the same dense trees and foliage as the Secret Woods, and the clearings along its western side grow eight Large Stumps that come back every morning, seasonal forage that appears on no other farm, and an odd weed that always drops Mixed Seeds. Soil is the tightest of all eight layouts, but most of the ground that refuses a hoe still accepts a building, so the farm gives up far less than the bare figures suggest. Its ponds hold the forest's own fish and, on a lucky day, the Woodskip that is otherwise locked behind a steel Axe. A map chosen at the start cannot be traded in later, so this one is for a farmer happier with a basket than a hoe.
Layout
Trees and grass do the dividing here. The outer edge is woodland, several ponds sit inside the boundary, and broad grass patches run between them, which is why the plantable soil ends up so narrow. The useful part is that those grass patches and the ground under the trees take buildings, so the Barn, the Coop, the Shed and the machine yard can all go up without costing a single crop row.
Sixteen bushes stand about the place, more than any other layout carries, and a copper Axe is what finally removes them. Each one taken out opens a corner that would otherwise stay dead. Several of the bushes are berry bushes, which are worth leaving alone rather than felling.
The western clearings are the working heart of the map. The eight Large Stumps stand there, the seasonal forage spawns there, and the weeds that drop Mixed Seeds appear there. Anything built on top of a stump stops it coming back, so the clearings are the one part of a Forest Farm that should be kept bare.
Farming
This map asks for a different crop plan rather than a smaller one. The soil comes in strips and pockets instead of a field, so blocks of eight or nine tiles watered by a Quality Sprinkler fit the shape far better than the long rows that suit an open map. Every building moved onto untillable grass is a handful of tiles handed back to the crops, which makes building placement the real farming decision here.
The Greenhouse carries more weight on this layout than on any open one, because it is flat, square, watered and immune to the seasons, and later the farm on Ginger Island does the same job at a larger scale.
Mixed Seeds are the map's quiet bonus. The weeds in the western clearings always drop them, and a Mixed Seed planted outdoors becomes a crop of the current season, so a Forest Farm can keep a corner of soil busy all year without a single purchase from Pierre.
Fishing
The ponds inside the boundary mostly hold the Cindersap Forest pond list, with the remainder of casts coming up as rubbish. The prize is the Woodskip. Its chance on each cast is small, and daily Luck moves that chance up and down, so a fortunate day on this farm is the easiest Woodskip in the valley.
That matters because the fish otherwise lives only in the pond in the Secret Woods, behind a fallen log that will not break until the Axe reaches steel, and one is wanted for a Community Center fishing bundle. A Forest Farm can therefore close that bundle in the first Spring, long before the Secret Woods open.
Crab Pots sit in these ponds as freshwater pots, which gives the water a second use on days when the rod is not cooperating.
Strategy
The first upgrade on this map is the Axe, and everything else follows from it. A copper Axe breaks a Large Stump into two Hardwood, so eight stumps renewing each morning make the farm the steadiest Hardwood supply in the game, well ahead of the stumps in the Secret Woods, and Hardwood is one of the slowest materials to collect anywhere else. The same round of stumps pours out foraging experience, which pushes the skill up fast enough to raise the yield of everything else gathered.
The forage follows the calendar. Spring puts out Dandelion, Leek, Morel and Wild Horseradish, Summer brings Common Mushroom, Grape, Spice Berry and Sweet Pea, and Fall adds Chanterelle, Purple Mushroom and Red Mushroom alongside more Common Mushrooms. Mushrooms of that kind grow on no other farm, which saves a daily trip into the woods for the cooking and bundle items that need them.
The berry bushes keep their own short calendar. Salmonberries fill them for four days in mid Spring and Blackberries for four days in mid Fall, the bushes refill overnight through each window, and a higher Foraging level means more berries from every shake. Those two weeks are worth clearing the diary for, because the haul is free food and free gold at a point in the year when both are short.
The trap on this layout is tidiness. A farmer who clears the western clearings flat, fences them and builds on them has thrown away the reason for choosing the map.
Notes
The forage, the renewing stumps and the Mixed Seed weeds all spawn in the western part of the map, so paths and fences are better routed around that strip than through it.
Repairing the ruined building through the Pantry bundles, or by paying Joja, turns it into the Greenhouse. A restored Greenhouse is portable afterwards, and Robin or the Wizard will shift it to a better spot.
A Forest Farm farmhouse comes decorated in its own woodland style indoors, although the house looks no different from the lane.
All Farm Types
The table lists every layout with the skill it favours and how much of it can be farmed or built on.
| Name | Skill | Tillable | Buildable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard Farm | Farming | 3427 | 235 |
| Riverland Farm | Fishing | 1578 | 516 |
| Forest Farm | Foraging | 1413 | 1490 |
| Hill-top Farm | Mining | 1648 | 930 |
| Wilderness Farm | Combat | 2131 | 444 |
| Four Corners Farm | Multiplayer | 2952 | 562 |
| Beach Farm | Foraging and Fishing | 2700 | 1928 |
| Meadowlands Farm | Farming | 2066 | 2141 |