624 JOURNAI, OF FORESTRY 



Left to nature, this tract may come back in the course of several 

 hundreds of years, and it may never come back. This for several rea- 

 sons, the chief of which are: (1) The soil is much harder and more 

 thoroughly baked than before the timber was stripped from it, and 

 the only seedlings that could possibly start might be classed as acci- 

 dental, being planted by the hoof of some animal or possibly by falling 

 into a sun crack in the earth. (2) This accidental seedling must then 

 depend for its continued existence upon an almost unimaginable series 

 of fortunate circumstances to assist it past the dangers of a parching 

 sun, unchecked winds, and competition for soil moisture with the grass 

 and oak brush, to say nothing of grazing and fire, both of which are 

 however more or less under our control. 



Apparently a condition has been set up here under which it is im- 

 possible for the pine to reproduce. Are we daily bringing about similar 

 conditions elsewhere ? The Forest Service, of course, had nothing to 

 do with the cutting of the above area, but that is not earthly reason 

 why we should tail to observe the results and endeavor to profit by 

 our observations. 



All the foregoing is old stufl:. Many of us. doubtless, have made 

 the same observations whether we kept them under our hats or put 

 them on paper. The cold, hard fact is we are not securing satisfactory 

 reproduction in this type. Another equally stubborn fact is we must 

 do so. There are two alternatives, neither very pleasant to contemplate. 

 (1) Quit cutting the timber, and (2) frankly admit to the people that 

 we are in the timber mining business. 



We will resort to neither alternative, but will. I believe, be forced 

 to amend our marking policy somewhat, as well as apply the emergency 

 brakes good and hard to certain classes of grazing. 



But to tackle the eternal problem of "how to secure yellow pine 

 reproduction." In the first place, we must realize fully that we are 

 working under a set of conditions here in our Southwest that are prob- 

 ably parallel nowhere else on earth where forestry is practiced. There- 

 fore we cannot afford to rush blindly forward using methods foreign 

 to our country and local conditions, and of the favorable outcome of 

 which we are not at all assured. We have no right to jeopardize the 

 people's interest for generations to come in further exploration of a 

 trail which it now appears certain is leading up a blind canyon. We 

 are burning our bridges behind us. 



It has been noted that there is a strong tendency for seedlings to 

 come in around trees dying or newly dead. Theoretically these seed- 



