MAKING MONEY OUT OF FORESTRY 67 



trees and permitting the tree to lay on successive rings 

 of clear lumber on top of the rather knotty core. Advo- 

 cates of this plan claim that the lumber thus produced 

 will bring a sufficiently large yield to pay the cost of 

 this artificial pruning. On the other hand, men who 

 have sawed second-growth white pine which was arti- 

 ficially pruned, claim that the lumber contains loose 

 knots caused by the too rapid drying of the branch 

 stub. Ordinarily if pruning is necessary to improve 

 the appearance of woodland near the home, it may be 

 done, but it should be considered a piece of landscape 

 improvement rather than a forestry measure, as it is 

 not believed to be financially profitable. 



Artificial Forests. One may ask what ends are served 

 by starting a forest artificially when the forests grown 

 by Nature have produced such magnificent timber. 

 Briefly stated, forests are planted for three reasons. 



First, it saves time in getting your forest successfully 

 started. Nature is sure but slow, and may take forty 

 years to get a forest started which contains the right 

 trees. Planting, on the other hand, assures the right 

 species at the correct distance for valuable growth. In 

 some cases the wild seedlings sown by the wind are so 

 far apart that bushy trees and knotty lumber are pro- 

 duced. In other cases, for instance with lodgepole pine 

 in the Rockies, the young seedlings grow in such a dense 

 thicket that proper development is impossible. 



In addition, forest planting may be actually cheaper 

 than Nature's method when you come to figure the cost. 

 If it is necessary during a lumbering operation to re- 

 serve valuable timber trees for the purpose of seeding 

 in the ground, from twenty-five to thirty dollars' worth 

 of timber per acre may be left in these trees. There is a 

 chance of this lumber never being harvested, as insect or 



