68 Forestry Quarterly. 



" As for conservative cutting of spruce woods, I will say first 

 and most emphatically that we find it a difiicult and risky process, 

 one that is likely to bring more loss than gain unless done with 

 great care and considerable skill. It may be different in other 

 countries, but that is the case here. Our timber is typically large 

 and tall ; much of it stands in exposed situations, on ridges and 

 mountains ; much is on extremely rocky land. The winds are 

 constantly damaging our native uncut stands, and the thinning of 

 woods in all such places as above is either entirely impracticable 

 or must be done with the greatest caution to insure that what is 

 left standing will not blow down." 



' ' According to my observation a logging boss trained to hard 

 cutting when told that we wish to cut conservativel}' is pretty 

 sure to leave what he does leave not in the shape of small growth 

 so much as in strips of scattering timber and odd corners on rough 

 and difficult ground. This makes the logging show up cheaper, 

 but it may be, on the other hand, that what is left standing is the 

 very stuff that most needs cutting of any on the land. In other 

 words as a first result instead of thinning or conservative cutting 

 we are apt to get simply slack cutting. 



When this has been corrected and the man gets a better notion 

 of what we are about, his next move is to leave the small growth 

 uniformly all over the land. This may do in some countries, but 

 it means loss here. Tall and slender trees left too open, an}^- 

 thing less than a full stand on divides and knolls, tall timber 

 shoally rooted on rocky land, these items together may amount 

 to a good deal in a logging job and all of them are such that 

 sooner or later they are sure to blow down." 



And, finally, this passage is worthy of note, not merely for its 

 bearing on this particular problem but as a general opinion of one 

 of our most successful practitioners : 



"What has been lately written gives a clue to the motive for 

 conservative cutting as we practice it. We have not .settled down 

 to the European idea of sustained yield, of running a business of 

 a certain volume for ever from a given tract of land. Whatever 

 has been said, I do not believe that any business concern in the 

 United States, knowing what it means, has settled on that. The 

 reason is that we have large tracts of timber that badly need cut- 

 ting, and the sooner we can get over them, saving the dead and 

 declining stuff and putting them in shape to grow, the better it 

 will be. This is the chief motive, and, balanced by considerations 

 of cost and practicability, is the key to our operations along this 

 line. Of course, expected growth is a consideration as far as it is 

 not offset by windfall. Then we believe that in the future better 

 stumpage can be had on the smaller classes of timber." 



