750 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



occupying a small piece of bench land, which "shozved no discernible 

 difference in site quality." 



Number j"e"rly ^^^^^ Average Average 



Plot number. .°' growth nefacre d- b. h., height, 



^^^^^ per acre, ^^^ 7'* inches. feet, 



per acre. eubic feet. square feet. 



4 8,902 49.5 154.0 1.78 20.4 



7 941 81.7 112. 6 4.68 40.0 



9 305 56.5 82.5 7.07 41 -I 



The current growth here varies on a piece of land of the same quality 

 by 60 per cent and does not impress one as being a very "exact" meas- 

 ure in this case. What the table does seem to tell rather clearly is the 

 fact that crowding even in lodgepole pine (which can stand a good 

 deal) reduces height growth (contrary to claims made on page 387) ; 

 that it reduces volume growth, and that it is ruinous to quality growth, 

 as shown by 1.78 inch average diameter of trees. 



That this quality growth may also enter into the situation ; that we 

 are not in ordinary forestry practice concerned merely with pounds of 

 organic matter as in a hay field, and that even the matter of dollars may 

 be involved, is charily admitted. In the above case of lodgepole pine it 

 may be that plot No. 9, with its 300 trees and only 56 cubic feet of cur- 

 rent growth, may be the best stocked of the three. 



Interesting in the table is the fact that plots 7 and 9, though differing 

 more widely in stocking than would appear admissible in good forestry 

 practice, present the same height growth (40 and 41 feet), and thus 

 prove most conclusively that as long as a stand is not seriously over- 

 stocked (starved) the height growth does tell the truth regarding site, 

 even though current volume growth may vary by over 40 per cent on 

 the same area. 



Bates claims very emphatically that height is not a proper measure 

 of site, and that "height is solely controlled by the moisture of the soil," 

 so that height is not competent to measure anything but the moisture 

 factor of the site. But why is the spruce and fir on top of the moun- 

 tains mere scrub, when often the moisture conditions of both air and 

 soil are of the best? This "controlled solely" by moisture seems unten- 

 able, and the attempt to prove that crowding stimulates height growth, 

 while an old story, seems disproven by the lodgepole-pine table, just as 

 it is di.sproven by Mason's figures {see F. S. Bull. 154, pp. 7ff). 



The claim that sufficient study has been made of many of our forest 

 trees, so that the current growth in volume is accurately known and 

 may be used as measure of site, seems equally doubtful. With all due 



