GROWTH AND ITS RELATION TO THINNING— SAMPLE 

 PLOT STUDIES IN MIXED HARDWOODS 



Bv C. H. Guise 



Department of Forestry, Cornell University 



The amount of wood that is produced per acre in the various kinds 

 of woodlands is commonly estimated in a more or less general way. 

 The expression that a thrifty woodlot should produce a cord or half 

 a cord of wood, as the case may be, per acre per year, is one with which 

 we are all familiar, particularly when woodlot forestry is under con- 

 sideration. Obviously such statements will be general, as they must 

 be, until growth studies in specific localities with definite kinds of 

 forest cover, give us the information which will permit talking in exact 

 and decisive terms. Our scanty knowledge about growth and incre- 

 ment is almost axiomatic, and while the following paper does not add 

 much, it will contribute a small bit of information on increment, in the 

 young mixed hardwood stands so common in the Eastern United 

 States. The results are based on sample plots, and cover a period of 

 5 years' growth. 



In the early spring of 1911, the Department of Forestry of the New 

 York State College of Agriculture established three sample plots in a 

 30-acre woodlot near Mapleton, Cayuga County, N. Y. To determine 

 the efifect, if any, of thinnings of various grades in the rate and amount 

 of growth that would follow was the object in view when these plots 

 were laid out. The work was outlined by the late Prof. Frank B. 

 Moody in co-operation with members of the Forestry Department at 

 Ithaca, and actually carried on by him with several assistants of the 

 Department. 



The woods in which the plots are located were cut over 25 years 

 prior to 19] -4. An even-aged stand had" resulted, about 30 feet in 

 height, and composed of a mixture of a great many species ; hard 

 maple, soft maple, basswood, hickory, elm, red oak, white oak, white 

 ash, tulip poplar, butternut, black cherry, and iron wood w^ere all pres- 

 ent in various degrees of mixture, though well scattered over the whole 

 woodlot. Trees had come up both from seeds and sprouts. 

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