Forest Planting in National Forests. 129 



be necessary to make the remaining forest land more productive 

 by putting all of it to its best use. There is no better way to do 

 this than through forestation and by extending it rapidly, for tree 

 growth in this region is slow. We frequently hear the ex- 

 pression : "Thirty years to grow a tree and thirty minutes to cut 

 it down." That, however, does not apply to this region. From 

 numerous measurements made by the writer on the Wasatch 

 National Forest in 1905, and by others, it appears that "Three 

 hundred years to grow a mature tree and thirty minutes to cut it 

 down," would be more nearly correct. Hence, if the country at 

 large has "reached the point where the growth of our Forests is 

 about one-third of the annual cut, and we have in store timber 

 enough for only twenty years," there must be sufficient cause for 

 action from the standpoint of timber production alone, not con- 

 sidering the fact that most of the National Forests are valuable 

 watersheds in need of protection. 



It is therefore evident that for the present a very conservative 

 timber sale policy should be in vogue on the poorly timbered 

 Forests and that everything possible should be done toward pro- 

 tecting individual stands from destruction by fire. For the most 

 part, the existing stands of timber are uneven-aged and if prop- 

 erly handled can be culled indefinitely without becoming depleted 

 as successive generations of young trees are usually springing up 

 naturally to take the place of the larger and older trees removed. 

 In these protection forests clear cutting with replanting will never 

 become advisable. With the numerous burns which are scat- 

 tered throughout the forests, however, the case is different. The 

 fires which have caused them have fed on the refuse from lumber- 

 ing and have destroyed not only the advance growth but all possi- 

 bility of natural restocking excepting some instances in the case of 

 Lodgepole Pine stands. Hence a system of forestry which aims 

 at more than mere exploitation would naturally undertake first 

 reforestation of the burns and the afforestation of as much of the 

 other types of land as possible. 



With reference to reforesting burns, one naturally concludes as 

 follows : Where trees grew before and produced a stand of tim- 

 ber which was valuable enough to cut for lumber, they may be 

 made to grow again and to produce even more valuable material. 

 On the other hand, it may be well to note that where trees never 

 grew, forest planting is often most eagerly sought by the public, 



