THE BASIS FOR FOREST MANAGEMENT 35 
of young Spruce are very abundant. There are, it 
is shown later, on an average 75 Spruce trees per 
acre from 2 to 6 inches in diameter, and 143 trees 
under 2 inches which are large enough to be readily 
seen. Hitherto the young growth has been disregarded 
entirely or looked upon merely as a hindrance to lum- 
bering operations. These young trees, with such seed- 
lings as may spring up later, are the material which is 
to form the next generation of merchantable Spruce. 
Much of the young growth, especially among the 
single specimens, has come up in deep shade and has 
been so suppressed that the crowns spread out like 
mushrooms, the leading shoot growing very slowly. 
But such suppressed Spruce trees possess the ability to 
recover when the shade isremoved. If the plant is still 
small, the knots formed by the spreading branches will 
eventually be covered over, and timber of good quality 
will be produced. But if the tree has already reached 
some size, the branches may be so numerous and so 
well developed that it will never be of much value for 
lumber. The best advance growth is that which grows 
in groups, and the denser the group the more promis- 
ing are the young trees. 
There is enough small growth already in the forest 
to maintain the present proportion of Spruce, under 
right treatment, for at least one more generation, but 
the problem of increasing its proportion is a difficult 
one, especially where Spruce is the only species which 
can be marketed. In such a case the forester is ex- 
pected to perform a difficult feat, namely, to remove 
