EARLY CUTTINGS IN THE LODGEPOLE 

 PINE TYPE OF ROCKY MOUNTAINS 



By E, R, HODSON 



LONG before the organization of 

 the present National Forests 

 there were heavy cuttings in 

 many parts of the West. Where min- 

 ing centers were developed these cut- 

 tings were particularly severe as the 

 illustrations with this article show. 

 Around the Butte mining center in the 

 lodgepole pine region the cuttings were 

 clear and on a large scale. The age of 

 the cutting varies from about seven to 

 twenty-five years. Near Butte itself 

 there was some cutting done even prior 

 to that time, but the majority of the 

 larger areas were cut from ten to fif- 

 teen years ago. 



The cutting was started at the stream 

 and proceeded up the slope, clearing 

 everything as it went to the top or so far 

 as it was practicable to haul the tim- 

 ber. The brush was almost invariably 

 piled in long, unbroken windrows fifty 

 to seventy feet apart, the width of the 

 windrows being about twenty feet. 

 There was then by this method twenty 

 to thirty per cent. of the area covered 

 by brush ; and, as the photographs 

 show, no reproduction has come up 

 through it. 



In all of the views shown the cuttings 

 have never been burned and the repro- 

 duction on them is quite typical of un- 

 burned lodgepole pine clear cut areas. 

 It will be noted that it is quite thin for 

 lodgepole and it is also seen that the 

 young growth is much more thrifty in 

 the more favorable places toward the 

 bottom of the slope and near the small 

 side gullies. The thinness of the repro- 

 duction and the situations on which it 

 thrives show pretty clearly that an un- 

 burned cutting is not an especially fav- 

 orable one for reproduction. In the 

 younger cuttings there is very little re- 

 148 



production unless burned over soon af- 

 ter cutting. On some of the cuttings it 

 does not seem to make much dift'erence 

 whether seed trees are near at hand or 

 not. Even on narrow strips there are 

 often no seedlings. The soil is of a 

 limy nature and grass is quite abundant, 

 tending to form a sod as soon as the 

 stand was opened up, which perhaps ex- 

 plains the lack of reproduction. 



Fig. I shows a clear cutting of lodge- 

 pole pine on a north slope. The stand 

 was cut fifteen years ago and the repro- 

 duction which has come in here is about 

 the best to be found on unburned cut- 

 tings. The brush is in windrows and 

 very few seedlings have come up 

 through it. Although the general ap- 

 pearance is good, especially at the lower 

 part of the slope, the density is nowhere 

 sufficient to insure a good quality future 

 stand of lodgepole pine. 



Fig. 2. A seven-year-old cutting in 

 the lodgepole pine type. There is prac- 

 tically no reproduction except the few 

 suppressed seedlings present before cut- 

 ting. The conditions here are not fav- 

 orable as it is near the lower limit of 

 lodgepole 



Fig- 3' 

 unfinished strips in the center and to 



the right side. This cutting was made 

 seven years ago and is on limy soil 

 on a northeast slope near the lower 

 limit of timber. Very little reproduc- 

 tion has come in. 



Fig. 4. A windrow of brush on a fif- 

 teen-year-clear cutting of lodgepole 

 pine. The brush is very little decayed 

 and scarcely a single seedling has been 

 able to come up through it. Clearly in 

 these cases the brush has been no help 

 to the reproduction while it is always 

 to some extent a menace. When it is 



Clear cuttings with some 



