384 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



land for forestry and for agriculture is not dependent on its timber- 

 producing capacity, but on its ability to produce any agricultural crops. 



The forester must decide what land is best adapted to the growing 

 of trees. No one else can decide properly for him, though many will 

 try. He is justified in taking a "show me" attitude with regard to 

 turning over land for agricultural purposes, but how senseless this at- 

 titude is if he does not really know the capacity of the land for timber 

 production. 



In view of the fundamental character of the statement and its vital 

 importance to every activity in forestry, it has been rather surprising 

 to have this statement questioned by foresters. Perhaps, however, the 

 questions concern the use of terms rather than the fundamental idea. 

 It may, therefore, be desirable to clarify the situation by defining 

 every term. 



In using the words "only final" I have in mind "only satisfactory," 

 hence the thing Wie must ultimately come to, whether we come to it 

 now or get along for half a century with makeshifts. There is, per- 

 haps, a more final and more refined criterion of site quality than mere 

 quantity production. That would be quality production, or the pro- 

 duction of the highest grade rather than simply the largest amount. I 

 think, however, we may safely assume that high quality, as regards 

 size and clearness of sticks, will go hand in hand with high quantity 

 production under sane forest management. There is, then, still the 

 question of the density and strength of the material, which may not be 

 at all proportionate to rate of growth. We are still much at sea with 

 regard to the relation of the physical or mechanical quality of the wood 

 to site, but it appears that we may expect to influence this quality also 

 by proper management, and there is little probability that a complete 

 understanding of the subject will disrupt our idea that land is valuable 

 in proportion to its quantitative productivity. 



The expression "current annual increment" obviously cannot refer 

 to a single year's growth of the stand, which it would be impossible to 

 measure with sufficient accuracy. "Current periodic annual" would be 

 better, but it makes an attempted concise statement too awkward. 

 The main idea is that the current growth must be measured with ref- 

 erence to the number of living trees in the stand. If we go back too 

 far in this calculation it is impossible to determine how many trees 

 now dead may have made some growth during the period of our cal- 

 culation. If we make the period too short, there is danger of serious 

 error due to high or low rainfall and other factors which vary consid- 

 erably from year to year. Ten years will ordinarily be the most con- 



