146 Forestry Quarterly. 



they are two years old ; only rarely are one-year old seedlings 

 transplanted ; 3,020 to 4,800 plants per acre ; the cost seldom ex- 

 ceeds $10 per acre. Where the soil is sod-bound the sod is re- 

 moved in strips. Where pine and spruce are planted in mixture 

 (the latter as an understory) 3,200 pine and 1,600 spruce are 

 used per acre — a total of 4,800 plants. 



This mixture of spruce and pine is advocated wherever pure 

 spruce stands are out of the question ; the spruce, with occasional 

 hardwoods, forms an understory which maintains the soil in bet- 

 ter condition than does an open stand of pure pine. 



The only system (or method) of silviculture in the spruce 

 stands of Saxony is clear cutting with artificial regeneration. The 

 cutting proceeds against the direction of the prevailing wind 

 (that is usually from East to West) in strips ordinarily not over 

 200 feet wide. The result is quite steplike. After logging, the 

 cutting area is often left a year, for the roots and other debris 

 to decay, before it is replanted. Before cutting the adjacent strip 

 to windward, six years are usually allowed to elapse, in order 

 that the young growth may become well established. All at- 

 tempts to regenerate the spruce by natural means have been un- 

 satisfactory. Regeneration by means of shelterwood cuttings 

 gave such poor results that, in the words of the Working Plan 

 for Tharandt: "Even expensive underplantings could not bring 

 about a satisfactory regeneration- Broken, sod-bound, over- 

 mature stands are now awaiting the axe ! It should, however, be 

 left to the supervisor to continue on a small scale where nature 

 herself has begun the regeneration." 



The rotation is now usually 80 years. Formerly it ranged as 

 low as 60 years in an attempt to increase the income. By means 

 of very intensified thinnings it was hoped to raise trees of 4 1/3 

 to 5^ inches diameter in that time, to be sold at a big profit as 

 mine props. However, unforseen contingencies arose and nature 

 herself apparently rebelled at these financial fetters. 



The present eighty year rotation brings in an average annual 

 yield of 900 board feet per acre. 



The utilization is, of course, perfect. Saxony is a densely 

 populated kingdom, labor is cheap and wood is high. It is all 

 the more surprising, therefore, to find stumps higher than would 

 be accepted in timber sale contracts under the Forest Service of 

 the United States. To be sure these stumps are on steep hill sides. 



