PAPER COMPANY'S FORESTRY PRACTICE 



By B. A. Chandler 

 Assistant State Forester of Vennont 



y^:;'HE Champlain Realty Company 

 \^j which is a land holding company 

 ^^"^ of the International Paper Com- 

 pany is taking a very progressive stand 

 in forestry in Vermont. It is carrying 

 on three main lines of work; fire pro- 

 tection, nursery and planting work, and 

 marking their timber for cutting. 



The fire protection work consists of 

 cooperation with the State in every pos- 

 sible way and in independent patrol 

 work. 



Their planting policy is very progres- 

 sive. For the last eight or ten years 

 the Company has been buying aban- 

 doned farms which were coming up to 

 spruce and hardwoods. It is esti- 

 mated that it has at present about 10,- 

 000 acres of open land to be planted 

 connected with these farms. Besides 

 there will probably be about 100 acres 

 each year cut over where it will be 

 impossible to get natural reproduction. 



For the past three years including 

 this coming spring, it has purchased 

 and planted about 100,000 Norway 

 spruce in \'ermont. It maintains a 

 nursery at Randolph, \'ermont, from 

 which it intends to produce 1,500,000 

 trees yearly. The present stock in this 

 nursery is estimated as follows : 75,000 

 Norway spruce, 1 year transplants ; 

 400,000 Norway spruce, 3 year seed- 

 lings; 1,100,000 Norway spruce, 1 year 

 seedlings. The Company expects there- 

 fore from this nursery in the spring of 

 1913, 450,000 transplants. It will prob- 

 ably be five years before this nursery 

 will reach the full capacity of 1,500,- 

 000 plants yearly. 



1,500,000 plants will plant 1,240 

 acres. Substracting from this the 100 

 acres added each year by clear cutting, 

 leaves 1,140 acres of land to be planted 

 yearly. Thus it will take about nine 

 years to plant up the present open land 



320 



and what will probably be cut clear in 

 this time. 



MARKING WORK 



The policy as mapped out by the 

 Company is to have all the timber cut 

 in Vermont marked, using a 12" diame- 

 ter limit as a guide in the marking, with 

 the idea of cutting over this same land 

 again in fifty years. This marking is 

 being done under the general direction 

 of the State forester's ofifice. 



There are two very general types of 

 tree-growth in this region : mixed hard- 

 woods with scattered spruce, and pure 

 spruce. The pure spruce may be fur- 

 ther divided into ridgetops and spruce 

 slopes. A few sections were so heavily 

 culled in former years that nothing can 

 be done now but to cut clean and plant. 

 In the more inaccessible valleys which 

 have never been cut over, it is possible 

 to do more. Even here, however, the 

 lower slopes are usually covered with 

 mixed hardwoods and scathed spruce 

 type, where it will be impossible to get 

 spruce reproduction until market con- 

 ditions permit the cutting of the hard- 

 woods at a profit. It has been the aim 

 in this type to move all the trees that 

 will make growth enough between now 

 and the next cut to earn a good rate of 

 interest on the money invested in them 

 at present stumpage values. In doing 

 this the diameter limit has been only a 

 very rough guide. All trees below the 

 limit which showed signs of disease, 

 injury by porcupines, or had such poor 

 crowns that they would never recover 

 and make good growth, were cut. All 

 rapid growing trees above the limit 

 were saved. In this hardwood type the 

 wind is not a very important factor for 

 it occupies the lower slopes and the 

 hardwoods protect the spruce. Al- 

 though no especial attempt was made 



