1906.] FOREST SERVICE FOR FARMERS. 213 



is getting out his supply of fire^A'Ood, because he thus makes 

 room for better trees. As he ctits he wants to look about and 

 see which are going to take advantage of the cut. Perhaps 

 he will see that he had better cut some young sapling or some 

 half-grown tree which is ready to push into the opening he 

 will make, but which he will not want. He must pick the 

 trees that he wants left, and provide for them. There is a very 

 striking picture in the back of the room, of a chestnut tree 

 which had grown seven inches in diameter in thirty-four years. 

 The rings showing the growth which the tree made are very 

 close together for these years ; the tree had been too crowded 

 to have a fair chance. Then the trees about it were cut suffi- 

 ciently to give it an opportunity, and in the next eight years 

 it doubled its diameter. In other words, it made four times 

 as much wood on the same length of trunk in eight years as 

 all that it had made in the preceding thirty-four years — since 

 the ratio of volume increase is the square of the ratio of diame- 

 ter increase — besides the increase due to its greater height. 

 You can see in the picture the wide rings which are the indi- 

 cation of this rapid growth. So that thinning is an important 

 means of making your timber add to itself at the fastest rate. 



When the farmer goes in to cut he is very likely to lay 

 about him with the axe pretty freely. The little stuff in his 

 path is regarded as brush, and is cut out of his way without 

 much thought that it has any value. • Very likely just the trees 

 that should have grown up are thus sacrificed, and the next 

 cutting may be set back a dozen or fifteen years. You all 

 know that the growth of sprouts, which start from the stump 

 after cutting, is much more rapid that the growth of seedlings. 

 This is because the sprouts do not have to establish a root sys- 

 tem of their own, but are virtually branches of an old tree 

 which has been pruned back to the very ground. Conse- 

 quently, in this region of second-growth hardwoods, almost all 

 of which sprout from the stump, by far the largest volume 

 of wood can be secured under a system of sprout, " coppice," 

 management. But it must always be borne in mind that the 

 vigor of sprout growth declines as the root systems age, for the 

 sprout is itself, as has already been said, only a branch. Con- 

 sequently new seedlings are needed in a sprout forest to replace 

 the enfeebled stock. 



