CUTTING AT XE-HA-SA-NE PARK, IN THE ADIRONDACKS 383 



by two conditions observed while taking growth data in connection with 

 this study. Several spruce suppressed by trees cut fifteen years ago 

 had not recovered, in spite of the fact that they had had plenty of room 

 ever since. Also several spruce, although seemingly freed by the same 

 cutting, actually showed a retarded growth. On the other hand, the 

 surrounding hardwoods showed an accelerated growth. In these cases 

 the hardwoods had taken very good advantage of the openings made 

 by the cutting and are presumably responsible for the retarded growth 

 of the spruce. 



To what extent spruce growth has been retarded by situations of this 

 kind cannot be determined without more study. The fact that the 

 average current annual diameter breast high growth curve obtained 

 from this study is considerably lower than that obtained by Graves 

 indicates that spruce growth may have been considerably decreased by 

 the acceleration of the hardwoods (see figure 3). 



Since the suppressed spruce has little chance of making even a good 

 fight, the real struggle lies between the free spruce and the total hard- 

 woods. The unevenness of the fight may be seen by comparing the 

 curve representing the per cent of free spruce of all live species with 

 the per cent of hardwoods of all live species (see figure 2). Because of 

 this overpowering domination of the hardwoods over the free spruce, 

 the prospects for large future cuts of spruce seem to be very poor. 



SPRUCE REPRODUCTION 



The conditions which have been observed are not favorable for the 

 development of spruce seedlings if present silvicultural ideas along this 

 line are correct. Even if a large percentage of the seedlings were 

 spruce, only a few of them could hope to mature. However, only 12.8 

 per cent of the seedlings on the second area and only 8 per cent on the 

 first area are spruce. Thus spruce seems to be doomed to a continually 

 decreasing position in the stand. 



A LOOK FORWARD TO 1 934 



Data are not available for accurate predictions about the condition of 

 these areas fifteen years hence. It seems evident, however, that after 

 any cutting of spruce the remaining spruce and other species make a 

 competitive fight for the space thus left in the forest. Assuming that 

 the sample acres for 1898 and 1918 are comparable, and that the com- 

 peting species will divide among themselves the space left by the cutting 



