A PRACTICAL RKI'ORKST.ATIOX POLICY 3;5i> 



Here or there a coal mine or a quarry supports a local population. 

 Vast areas of State forests are many miles from a railroad. A market 

 for cleanings or improvement cuttings must await the future. 



Yet this is a section of great industrial promise. It abounds in 

 water-power that must be depended upon to replace our vanishing coal 

 and oil. Impounding sites are easily located and will demand no land 

 now used for other purposes. When the time arrives for the utiliza- 

 tion of this power, the timber will be close at hand and greatly in de- 

 mand. Thus the economic conditions point to the necessity of centering 

 attention first on the forests of that section where the present market 

 for small-sized material makes thinnings and improvement cuttings 

 possible. This will accomplish two purposes : it will meet the objec- 

 tions of those citizens who complain that forestry calls for constant 

 expense without return, and it will make financially possible the speedy 

 transformation of the composite forest into a better-paying high forest 

 with coniferous admixture. 



Experimentation has proceeded sufficiently far on the State forests 

 and in other similar regions that a reasonably accurate forecast of the 

 success and expense of reforestation may be made. It is shown that 

 areas which are covered with hardwood coppice of any considerable 

 density cannot be clear cut and planted with any prospect of success 

 unless two or three subsequent cleanings are made. Growth under such 

 conditions in typical plantations without cleaning is : 



Central mountainous region — 



White pine in five years, 12 inches, uncleared. 



Plateau region in five years, 17 inches, cleared. 

 Plateau region — 



White pine in five years, 1 1 to 14 inches. 



Norway spruce in '^wo. years, 9 to 13 inches. 



Where subsequent clearings are necessar\ , the plantatitm costs arc 

 made prohibitive for the given conditions. The first cost of clearing 

 areas for planting has been from $5 to $10 and more per acre, depend- 

 ing upon the density of the brush, .\bout 900 trees are planted at a 

 total cost of approximately $6 per acre. Where subsequent clearings 

 are necessary, $15 per acre is a minimum total cost for all operations. 

 I'urning may eliminate the fir.st clearing cost, but it is often inadvi.sablc 

 because of its influence on public sentiment. For this reason only the 

 most barren areas are now being planted; such do not require anv pre- 

 liminary burning or clearing. 



Richards'" sunnuarizes results of similar operations carried on in the 



"Richards, E. C. M. : "Study of Reforested Chestnut Cut-over Land." Journ.\l 

 OF FoRKSTRV, May, 1017. 



