REVIEWS 



Guide to the Maltby Tract of the Nezv Haven Water Company. By 

 R. C. Hawley. Pp. 1-17. Jan., 1920. 



Professor R. C. Hawley, of the Yale Forest School, has just pub- 

 lished "A record of the various silvicultural operations on an area of 

 woodlands known as the Maltby tract" — well known by all graduates 

 of the Yale Forest School. The Maltby tract is an area of some 1,200 

 acres of mixed hardwoods and old fields, only two and one-half miles 

 from the center of New Haven, owned by the New Haven Water 

 Company, and capable of intensive management. The practice of 

 forestry began on a portion of the area in 1900, and Hawley was 

 made forester for the New Haven Water Company in 1907. This 

 small forest, because forestry began here in 1900, will be well worth a 

 pilgrimage for years to come. Admittedly much of the work has been 

 experimental; this probably explains in part the planting of such 

 species as Scotch pine, the preponderance of white pine over red pine, 

 European larch, Norway spruce. The use of exotic species is surely 

 to end in disappointment unles they are managed on a very short rota- 

 tion, and the white pine would appear to be less desirable than the red 

 pine. The use of jack pine is clearly experimental. What a pity that 

 some of the plantations have been destroyed by fire ! The silvicultural 

 treatment usually applied to each type is, briefly, as follows : 



"Hardwood type. As the stands reach merchantable size for cordwood, which 

 will ordinarily be between the thirtieth to the fortieth year, a C-grade thinning 

 is made, removing four to ten cords per acre. A second and a third thinning 

 may be made at ten-year intervals, taking out four to six cords of wood. Be- 

 tween the sixtieth and eightieth years the stand is cut clear of lumber, ties, 

 piles, and cordwood. Reproduction which follows consists of seedling and 

 sprouts. The thinnings usually increase the amount of seedling reproduction. 

 Even where a stand is cut clear without previous thinning good reproduction of 

 sprouts and seedlings ensues. 



"If the young hardwood stand, when ready for a first thinning, contains a 

 considerable percentage of chestnut, a salvage cutting instead of a thinning 

 must be made. This will usually remove ten to fifteen cords per acre, and 

 leaves the stand so open that it will need no further thinning during the 

 rotation. 



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