16 Alaskan Science Conference 



forest could support a heavier cut on a sustained yield basis. 

 That's for the far distant future. We are concerned now as to 

 how the climax should be logged to get the best stand of repro- 

 duction and how to predict, even in rough terms, what kind of 

 a stand will come back. Also, logging for pulp over large areas 

 must not damage other present values, the most important of 

 which are the salmon spawning streams. 



Forest Management Problems and Preliminary Results 



Cutting the climax stands. Probably most of you have seen 

 the older logged-off areas in the western states where miles of 

 timber were clear-cut and burned— sometimes reburned several 

 times. Many of these areas had to be replanted at great ex- 

 pense. It has been commonly accepted by many people that 

 pulptimber cutting in Alaska will result in similar blackened 

 areas unless special precautions are taken. We cannot say that 

 such a thing could not happen in Southeast Alaska. We can 

 say that it would be very unlikely because: 



1. Rainfall is so heavy and so well distributed over the year 

 that forest fires are extremely rare. 2. Logged areas are covered 

 at once by dense vegetation and in 10 years are dense forests 

 of tree reproduction (4, 8). 3. If large continuous areas are to 

 be clear-cut they will be broken up by using staggered settings. 

 That is, areas probably no larger than 80 acres will be alter- 

 nately logged leaving green forest as a protection from fire 

 spread and as a source of seed. 



Large pulptimber areas have been examined by research men 

 during the past two years. It is obvious that few extensive clear- 

 cuttings can be made unless pulpmills can economically log the 

 many interspersed areas of scrub. Bands and islands of uncut 

 submerchantable forest will be left, and all through the mer- 

 chantable tracts live cull trees will be scattered. This may pre- 

 sent a problem in getting full stands of reproduction. The Sta- 

 tion is now experimenting with costs of girdling or poisoning 

 these culls. 



Predicting future growth. This problem is mainly one of 

 trying to tie our present even-aged yield tables to the all-aged 



