ACCELERATED GROWTH OF SPRUCE AFTER CUTTING IN 

 THE ADIRONDACKS 



In the course of the work being conducted by the Department of 

 Forestry at Cornell on a tract of privately owned forest land in St. 

 Lawrence County, N. Y. (northwestern Adirondacks), some interest- 

 ing measurements showing increased growth after thinnings were 

 recently secured. The history of the stand is as follows: In i898-'99 

 the original stand of mixed hardwoods and conifers was culled for the 

 spruce and hemlock above a certain diameter limit, leaving the smaller 

 sizes of these two species and some of the larger, but less desirable, 

 specimens growing in a stand so thinned that much additional light 

 was admitted. The growth on the remaining conifers was stimulated 

 to a marked degree — a fact first noticed this year when spruce, hem- 

 lock, and balsam have been cut for pulp and bark. The market for 

 pulp has been so good this season that the owner has been induced to 

 cut his pulpwood down to a rather low diameter limit, and in nearly 

 every case the stumps of the trees cut this summer show a period of 

 accelerated growth dating from 1899 or a year or two thereafter. 

 It was a simple matter, during the course of the work of making 

 measurements for volume tables, to ascertain whether or not the 

 growth of a given tree had been accelerated, and in the case of 130 

 trees out of a total of 235 examined, increased growth was found, 

 beginning about 1899. The stumps of the surrounding trees, cut in 

 i898-'99, were often sufficiently well preserved to prove beyond the 

 possibility of a doubt that their removal had been the immediate cause 

 of the liberation of the younger conifers, and the consequent accelera- 

 tion in growth. 



In 19 1 5 estimates by the strip system showed a total stand for this 

 type (spruce flat) of 5,432 board feet per acre, of which spruce, bal- 

 sam, and hemlock amounted to 36 per cent. Computed in terms of 

 cubic feet, these three species yield approximately 900 cubic feet per 

 acre, allowing for the utilization of tops to a diameter of 3 inches. 

 The trees were most of them between 6 and 12 inches d. b. h. (89.5 

 per cent of the total number per acre fell between these extremes). 



Complete stem analyses were made of some of the typical specimens, 

 with the following results : 



