THE MANAGEMENT OF SECOND GROWTH WHITE PINE 

 IN CENTRAL NEW ENGLAND 



By R. T. Fisher and E. I. Terry 



ORIGIN OF EXISTING STANDS 



The so-called pine woodlots, which make up about four-fifths of the 

 timber cut in central New England, are usually even-aged, and contain 

 from 50 to 100 per cent white pine. Almost without exception these 

 stands have originated on vacant land, abandoned pasture, or mowings, 

 sites which, prior to the settlement of the region, bore forests either 

 of hardwood alone or mixed hardwood and softwood. Except for 

 occasional sand plains and thin-soiled summits, the areas which now 

 bear mainly white pine are usually natural hardwood sites. The result 

 of this is seen in the tendency of cut-over lands, so often remarked, 

 to revert to hardwood. At the time of cutting, which is commonly 

 at an age varying from 50 to 70 years, over 90 per cent of the second 

 growth pine lands contain an abundant advance growth of hardwoods 

 and, in the case of the stands of deficient density and on the moister 

 soils, sometimes heavy thickets of underbrush or woody ground cover. 

 Pure pine in the woodlot region is a transition type. 



SCOPE AND BASIS OF THE STUDY 



The following is a summary of conclusions from an extended study 

 of the management of the white-pine type. It applies to a region 

 including roughly central Massachusetts and southern New Hamp- 

 shire, an area from which the annual cut of pine lumber for the last 

 10 years has averaged not far from 200 million board feet. The 

 material here presented is in process of preparation for a paper on 

 general forest management for the locality in .question, but the present 

 need of definite results bearing on methods of reproduction seems to 

 justify a brief account both of the actual woods practice which has 

 proved successful, and the investigation which has accompanied it. 



The study was intended to correlate the results of experimental 

 cuttings on the Harvard Forest with conditions following the ordinary 

 logging operations in the surrounding region. The Harvard cuttings 



358 



