ECOLOGY AND SILVICULTURE IN THE SOUTHERN 



APPALACHIANS: OLD CUTTINGS AS A GUIDE 



TO FUTURE PRACTICE^ 



By E. H. Frothingham 



Forest Examiner^ Forest Service 



Foresters have long held that silviculture is applied forest ecology, 

 or, as they themselves would term it, applied silvics. The study of 

 the forest as an organism had commanded their attention even before 

 the general recognition of ecology as a distinct field for biological 

 investigation. As the highest form of plant community life, the forest 

 has afforded the most striking opportunities for ecological investiga- 

 tion and experimentation, to which foresters have, of necessity, not 

 been blind. Ecd!ogists may find in the general literature of European 

 and American forestry, including the publications of the Forest Service, 

 many real ecological treatises, though possibly under very prosaic 

 titles. 



Merely as an illustration of how ecology enters into the every-day 

 life of the forester I wish to bring to the attention of ecologists the 

 question as to the best handling of the southern Appalachian hard- 

 wood forest — ^the great remaining hardwood resource of the countrv. 

 some of which now forms part of the eastern National Forests. Here 

 is a case in which ecology is concerned, in a very practical way, with 

 hundreds of thousands of acres and with a population running into 

 the millions. The problem is how to utilize a complexly mixed and 

 heavily culled and burned forest in such a way as to secure a natural 

 reproduction of the more valuable species. 



Before the management of this great forest can be attempted in- 

 telligently we must know more about the species and their habitats. 

 This basic information centers around the selection of species for 

 management as one of the first aims of silviculture. Such a choice 

 must be based partly on economic considerations, but also, and most 

 vitally, on the silvical qualities determining the relative aggressive- 

 ness of the different species common to a habitat, and their ability to 

 produce heavy yields in pure or mixed stands. It is practicable here 

 only to enumerate the principal factors of aggressiveness. They in- 

 clude the habitat relations and adaptability of the species, especially 



* Presented at the New York meeting of the Ecological Society, Dec. 28, 1916. 



343 



