394 Forestry Quarterly. 



which 56 per cent, is growth on merchantable trees and 44 per 

 cent trees maturing in the interval. 



As was well shown on the area marked, a stand of from 1,500 

 to 2,500 feet per acre will usually be about all the timber that 

 ought to be left, and in addition will furnish enough seed trees 

 to secure the new crop. These seed trees would in most instances 

 be the best trees to leave, even if no effort were made for the 

 third crop, and it is only an occasional large or defective tree 

 that could be cut instead of left if the third crop were ignored. 

 The provision for the third crop thus entails a very small addi- 

 tional sacrifice. 



Once the probable yields are agreed upon, it is not a difficult 

 matter to compute the expense and profit of leaving a second 

 cutting. The method applies only to regions where transporta- 

 tion and railway construction are reasonably cheap, but this is 

 fortunately the case over most of the longleaf pine areas. 



The leaving 1,500 to 2,500 feet per acre will not so reduce 

 the present cut as to make profitable logging impossible — in fact, 

 much of the young timber now cut is probably handled at a loss. 

 The growth upon a reserve larger than 2,500 feet would not be 

 as great in proportion to the capital invested as upon this small 

 stand. 



It is probable that an increase in twenty years from 1,700 to 

 3,400 feet per acre would not of itself be sufficient to pay 5 per 

 cent, interest compounded annually. But there is no reasonable 

 doubt that stumpage will double in value in that time. This 

 makes a fourfold increase in the value of the standing timber, 

 independent of the improvement in quality and grade with in- 

 creased age and size. 



This method of cutting can not be considered as an imprac- 

 tical scheme. It is absolutely sound in principle, which is to re- 

 duce waste and secure at once the largest rate of increase in 

 value on property which it is the intention of the owner to hold 

 for at least twenty years. The plan should appeal to owners 

 who expect to continue cutting for fifteen to twenty years and 

 can control the amount of their output. Instead of cutting clean 

 and destroying all future increase in value on the cutover areas 

 on the one hand, and allowing the virgin forest to lie in its pres- 

 ent state of stagnation on the other, such owners, while they can 



