UNBURNED CUT-OVER I.ANDS IN THE ADIRONDACKS 393 



trees taken from the area logged for both hardwood and softwood. All 

 these trees have had top light since the logging operation, except as 

 interfered with by hardwood seedlings which have started since the 

 logging. The trees made no recovery from suppression for the first 

 three years but at the end of seven years are growing at the rate of 

 .79 feet per year. It is shown that two-foot trees recover more quickly 

 and grow faster than ten-foot trees. (See fig. 2.) 



SUMMARY 



Either method of logging increases the percentage of hardwood. 

 Logging to a diameter limit, while it leaves the woods clean, and com- 

 paratively free from fire risk after a decade, makes no progress toward 

 future softwood production, or the disposal of the poor grade of hard- 

 woods which are taking space and making no timber growth of value. 



Any heavy cutting of hardwoods will make a large amount of slash, 

 increasing the fire risk until the crown cover has become dense enough 

 to retain the moisture, and decay the slash. In the meantime a good 

 growth of hardwood saplings will start on every area of this type if the 

 woods are opened sufficiently, and fires are kept out. Freedom from 

 overhead interference will cause a straight growth of hardwood sap- 

 lings and produce a stand of hardwood much superior to that found 

 in the original forest. 



Softwood trees, released by heavy cutting of hardwoods, will mature 

 more quickly than under the shade of a diameter-limit cutting, but 

 the slow growth and late recovery of spruce will necessitate subsequent 

 cuttings of hardwoods before the spruce will make a free growth. 



If the production of a large percentage of softwood in mixture with 

 hardwoods is to be the purpose of management of this type in the 

 Adirondack forest, then the destruction of the bulk of the hardwood 

 crown cover is essential. Whatever the ultimate method used to 

 produce as large a number of softwoods per acre as possible, it must 

 not be overlooked that a dense crown of hardwoods will damage se- 

 verely the young hardwoods which succeed in starting, and that this 

 type is primarily a hardwood type, and will for several rotations remain 

 so in spite of all efforts short of cutting clean, burning, and planting. 

 It is as much the purpose of management to produce good specimens 

 of hardwoods in the mixture as to produce the largest possible per- 

 centage of softwood. 



