CONCERNING SITE 385 



venient period for calculation, especially as nearly all stem analyses are 

 made by decades. The growth for a ten-year period can hardly be far 

 enough from the normal, by reason of the climatic element, to count 

 for much. 



The cubic-foot increment is taken as the only exact measure of vol- 

 ume increment in English units. Obviously, there are needed for a 

 thousand practical purposes converting factors from cubic to board 

 feet for trees of all sizes, kinds, and conditions and growth. This, 

 however, is no argument for taking such an inexact (and for small 

 sizes, impossible) measure as the board foot for a standard. 



A "fully stocked stand" may appear to be a vague thing. The ex- 

 pression is, however, susceptible of exact definition, even if the deter- 

 mination of the condition of stocking is next to impossible. For- 

 tunately, trees are greedy things and quickly appropriate any root 

 space or crown space which is made available to them. Full stocking 

 is, then, delimited by two conditions, namely, spacing so wide that 

 light or moisture or both are going to waste, and, on the other ex- 

 treme, spacing so close that the trees are kept in a chronically starved 

 condition and hence cannot function properly. 



"The species under consideration" is just another way of saying 

 that site quality must be determined in terms of the growth of a given 

 species. In this case, "What is sauce for the goose" may not be "sauce 

 for the gander." We all know that the very best site for western yel- 

 low pine may have no value whatever for growing white oak or wal- 

 nut. Hence the proposal that all sites be classified on the basis of pro- 

 ductivity, regardless of species, seems to me very objectionable. Such 

 a proposal, further, assumes that nature or man has already grown on 

 every site the species which will ])roducc the greatest volume growth. 

 This may be true in most cases. lUit one of the primary objects in site 

 classification is to enable us to compare dift'erent species for the same 

 kind of ground and to m;ikc certain that the best use is being made of 

 the ground. If one sim])ly described a site as "Quality III," meaning 

 that it would produce no cubic feet of wood per annum, he would be 

 giving the same descriptif)n to thousands of sites over the country 

 which are in nowise comjKirable from a technical point of view. Fur- 

 thermore, the "site finality" must ultimately be reduced to productive 

 and capitalized values in dollars and cents. In this reduction species 

 is a most important element. 



In suggesting that foresters ui Anu-nca recogni/e a standard plan 

 whenever there is occasion to speak of the ([uality of site. I wish to 

 propose a rather rc\olutionarv one. Tlir primary idea i-- to have the 



