FOREST MANAGEMENT AND REFORESTING. 



Keprinted from the Report of the New Hampshire Forest Commis- 

 sion for 1885. 



In this couutiy the attempts at forest culture, and the plautiug 

 of wa'ite lands, have been so few that there are no examples for the 

 people generally to imitate. Our ragged forests are said to pre- 

 sent the most marked contrast possible to those of Europe, where 

 many years of careful working have produced woods containing 

 trees of uniform height, evenly distributed over the ground The 

 trees there a';e usually planted, or the seeds sown thickly and then 

 thinned at stated periods, so as to produce a tall trunk with few 

 branches. The product of the various thinnings pays a handsome 

 profit above the expense of the care and work. With us, the winds, 

 birds and squirrels are the chief tree-planters. In some cases they 

 do their work effectually, but on the highest and most ex| osed 

 lands sparse seeding results in a scrubby, heavy-branched growth, 

 fit for little except fuel. 



The common custom of allowing cattle to run into young wood- 

 lands is almost as injurious as to allow them to be overrun by fire. 

 They destroy the greater part of the seedlings, and browse the 

 young trees so as to greatly injure them for making good timber. 



It is the European practice, in order to quickly re-seed a forest, 

 so that it will take the place of one cut oft" on the same ground to 

 first remove a portion of the trees — say one half or three-fourths. 

 The remainder being thus opened out to light and air. will, in the 

 course of two or three years, seed very freely ; and the undurltrush 

 and dead branches having been removed, the young seedlings 

 spring up thickly and evenly over the whole ground. The large 

 trees are then carefully removed, and the young forest comes for- 

 ward Vt ry rapidly. 



This method could be adopted with great advantage in the work- 

 ing of New Hampshire forests, for it would give an even young 

 growth, without vacancies, in far less time than the usual method 

 of cutting clean and leaving the biush upon the ground to smother 

 the seedlings, and liable to fire. 



