A BLIGHTED CHESTNUT OPERATION IN 

 NEW JERSEY^ 



By E. C. M. Richards 



The continued advance of the chestnut blight in the Eastern 

 States has led a large number of owners to log their chestnut 

 timber. Having had charge of several of these chestnut utiliza- 

 tion jobs, I ofifer this article as descriptive of the conditions 

 found, methods used, and results obtained, on one such operation. 



The tract was located near Bernardsville, New Jersey, on top 

 of a range of hills called Mine Mount. Bernardsville stands 

 about 300 feet above sea level, and the tract (distant about two 

 miles to the northwest) reaches 800 feet. The country is covered 

 with rolling hills with steep sides but no cliffs or out-crops of 

 rock. There are plenty of small rock fragments in the well 

 drained soil, but the "bottom" is hard and animal logging is 

 easy. 



On this operation, all the chestnut that could be sold was 

 cut, and with it an occasional tree of other species, which had 

 been injured by the felling of the former. The fact that the for- 

 est of the region was made up almost entirely of chestnut, made 

 the logging a clear cutting, with one or two small groups of 

 Rock oak on the hilltops as the only remnant of the former 

 woodland. Along two small brooks where the wet soil kept the 

 chestnut out and favored Yellow birch, tulip, etc., no cutting of 

 any kind was done. These areas, however, were so small that 

 they do not enter into the problem. 



The best stands of chestnut ran up to 15,000 feet B.M. per 

 acre, but since the timber was only 45 years old, the trees were 

 too small to make good poles. If the stands had been thinned, 

 better results might have been obtained, but, as it was, only a few 

 of the trees were of pole dimensions and the whole stand went 

 under the class of "pile timber." As chestnut piling is difficult 

 to dispose of, a sawmill was installed and the greater part of 

 the timber was cut into lumber and railroad ties. The average 

 stand per acre for the entire tract, based upon the actual cut 



'In F. Q., vol. XII, pp. 204-210, will be found an article entitled 

 "Reforesting Cut-over Chestnut Lands," which deals with the same 

 district as the present article. 



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