14 Alaskan Science Conference 



permanent year-round employment. Our work is in connec- 

 tion with its development. Forest research started in a small 

 way in Southeast Alaska twenty-five years ago with the pulp 

 industry in mind, but there were no funds to continue it 

 through the depression. The results of the work done at that 

 time have been very useful. 



The Research Center started operations in July 1948. In 

 August the first preliminary contract for the sale of pulptimber 

 in the Ketchikan region was made. Twenty years previously I 

 had completed a study of the yields of even-aged second-growth 

 and as a result the Forest Service had set up a management plan 

 for pulptimber cutting which envisioned an 80-year rotation. 

 With an estimated 78 billion board feet of timber on the Ton- 

 gass National Forest and second growth that resulted from clear- 

 cutting maturing in from 75 to 80 years, it was planned that the 

 annual cut could not exceed one billion feet (1). There was 

 little concern over the correctness of the yield figures as no 

 pulpmills were planning immediate operations. Now, how- 

 ever, it seemed advisable to check the growth estimations. 



The yield tables had been made from 288 sample plots 

 scattered over the Tongass National Forest. In 1948 twenty- 

 five of these plots having stands somewhere near rotation age 

 were relocated and remeasured. Actual growth was compared 

 with predicted growth. Actual growth of the aggregate of 25 

 plots was 6 percent less than predicted and the standard error 

 of any one plot was 12 percent. Predictions of growth would 

 be based on many plots in a small range of age classes which 

 would tend to reduce the error. The accuracy of the yield 

 tables is of less consequence when we consider that: 



1. Areas cut over for pulptimber will be examined periodi- 

 cally and corrections in predicted yield made as a result. 



2. The young stands that follow cutting for pulptimber may 

 differ from the stands on which the yield tables were based. 

 The yield table plots were in old blow-downs and abandoned 

 Indian village sites, and a few old Russian cuttings where the 

 area had been pretty well cleared of the previous growth. Saw- 

 timber logging also clears the area of all but a few culls and 



