760 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



per cent of the intermediates, and some few dominants, so that for all 

 practical purposes it may be termed a C-grade thinning. 



In all 792 trees were marked on the acre. These were immediately 

 felled by a cutting crew, and the poles stacked in convenient piles for 

 subsequent delivery to the cutting and splitting machine which had been 

 set up close by. The thought may suggest itself to the reader that an' 

 ordinary circular saw should be sufficient for use with sticks of such 

 small diameter, and that the added expense of splitting could be omit- 

 ted. There is, however, no sale for pine as fuel wood unless thorough- 

 ly dry. In the round, this drying out process is very slow and unsat- 

 isfactory, and if the wood is cut in the spring, as in the present in- 

 stance, the cambium at once becomes infested with larva and the pine 

 sawyer. A simple halving of the sticks not only hastens the seasoning, 

 but so quickly dries the cambium that the pine sawyers do not attack 

 it at all. 



After running the poles through the cutting and splitting machine, 

 the wood was carefully ranked up and measured. The total yield from 

 this thinning was thus found to be 11 cords. (These cords were 

 slightly under normal size, since 3 ranks of 15 inch sticks makes 45 

 instead of 48 inches.) * 



A tabulation of the trees left standing is as follows 



D.b.h. Dominants Intermediates 



2 9 63 



3 140 142 



4 362 42 



5 91 11 



6 57 3 



7 23 



8 11 



9 2 



10 _ . 1 , 



Total 796 261 



Grand total 1,057 



which by cordwood volume tables equals 15.5 cords. 



This table shows that there are still over a thousand trees to the 

 acre standing on the plot. On the best quality sites for loblolly pine in 

 Maryland, fully stocked natural stands will not contain more than 

 375 trees to the acres at financial maturity, that is, 35-40 years. The 

 way has thus been left for successive thinnings at 5-year intervals, 

 thinnings which will at the same time stimulate the growth of those 

 trees that are to remain to the end of the rotation. 



