360 The New York State College of Forestry 
the soil and forest floor conditions were favorable to good 
growth. The trees are all plotted to fourteen years of age, and 
diagrams of the same scale are presented for comparison. 
Height, diameter and form are shown on the diagram in straight 
lines drawn to points determined by mathematical averages. 
The two aspens represent the fastest growth of the temporary 
stand. The interesting point in comparison of these two is the 
faster early growth of big-toothed aspen, which later slowed 
down. At fourteen years the trembling aspen is still increasing 
its rate of growth. While the two maples and yellow birch 
have reached a fairly uniform development at fourteen years, 
the present speed of growth gives hard maple the advantage, 
and next to this the yellow birch. The development of black 
cherry 1s quite remarkable, and would exert an important influ- 
ence on the subsequent forest if present in sufticient numbers 
in the production, as in the case of yellow birch. The larger 
of th se black cherry trees will persist and appear in the mature 
stands as.dominants. The growth of beech was very slow in the — 
early ages of its life, and, since-the establishment of good forest 
floor conditions, it is now increasing its rate of growth in spite 
of it being ten feet less in height than the other competing hard- 
woods. Many of these beeches are started from root sprouts 
although they have all the appearance of trees of seed origin. 
The beech will persist to the final stand and occupy in it 
eventually a high percentage of crown space. It will, however, 
be overtopped by several other species of hardwoods. 
The fire cherry shows ability to occupy the driest sites in 
burned over land, and, because of its wide seed distribution and 
growth in the first few years, seizes land ahead of other species. 
It does not create a dense shade, but, in thickets, is capable of 
killing Scotch pine. This is probably due as much to its com- 
petition for water as for light. The trees may be ignored in 
consideration of the final stand, since it loses its dominance and 
dies quickly on being overtopped. | 
Pole Stands of Yellow Burch: 
In order to determine the growth rate of yellow birch in 
comparatively pure stand where it is not suppressed in compe- 
tition by other hardwoods, an attempt was made to find the 
