46 FORESTRY BRANCH BULLETIN NO. 33 



duction would not be as great as in the case of a regular forest fire, because the cones 

 after logging will all be borne on the brush which is lying on the ground, and, when 

 the brush is consumed, the cones will be mostly burned so hard that the seed will be 

 killed. It is the moderate scorching of the cones which opens them and causes them 

 to fall to the ground ; that is the main factor in making such a large number of 

 seeds available for reproduction as is usually the case after an ordinary forest fire. 

 It may be found .advantageous to make use of fire, mainly for the purpose of preparing 

 the seed-bed, where the seed itself will be supplied from trees left uncut, as in the 

 strip system. Considerable difficulty in carrying out the operation of burning under 

 these conditions must be reckoned on. 



Some pine stands are uneven-aged, usually in consequence of the occurrence 

 in the past of light ground fires which have partially opened up the stand and 

 allowed the development of young trees under the old. In such cases, a selection 

 cutting may be made, removing the old trees which are often damaged, and leaving 

 the young. The latter will have thriftier crowns than the small trees of a more even- 

 aged stand, and so will make profitable growth after the removal of the larger trees. 



MIXED STANDS. 



Mixed stands, where pine predominates, may be cut according to systems similar 

 to those used in pure pine stands. In leaving uncut areas, those should be chosen 

 which contain most spruce, unless the spruce are of a very large size. This is because 

 spruce will show faster future growth and is not so liable to deterioration. Further, 

 since the seed-bed cannot often be radically altered from the natural condition, denser 

 reproduction will probably be obtained by having spruce seed-trees left. 



When the stand shows fifty per cent or more of spruce, the system of cutting 

 should approximate the selection system, although cutting small groups clear would 

 be permissible. Young thrifty spruce will be most profitable to leave, both on account 

 of their capacity for future growth and of the greater ability of their seeds com- 

 pared to pine to germinate on the seed-bed of the natural forest floor. Skidding should 

 expose enough mineral sqil to allow pine reproduction, especially where groups are 

 cut clear, and therefore it will be proper to leave pine with the spruce. The main 

 object will be to protect the trees left from wind-fall, by leaving them uniformly 

 distributed or next to openings in dense groups. The person doing the marking will 

 be required to study the detailed conditions of each tract of timber and vary his 

 methods a great deal according to his judgment of the demands made by those con- 

 ditions. 



Large mature spruce will be the trees most necessary to remove, since they have 

 a fairly slow rate of growth and are in great danger of wind-fall when the stand is 

 opened up. 



The attitude that should be held toward other species than spruce or pine which 

 may enter into the composition of the mixed stand has been pointed out in the dis- 

 cussion of the silvical characteristics of the individual species. They seldom form 

 a very large percentage of the total stand, and therefore their presence would not 

 greatly influence the general method of treatment determined upon after a consider- 

 ation of the relation of the two main species. 



MASKING RULES AND METHODS. 



Marking consists either in designating each individual tree for felling or for 

 reservation, or in designating areas for the same purposes when a system of clear- 

 cutting is being followed. In the latter case, all that is necessary is to blaze a line 

 of trees as a boundary with some distinctive blaze that will avoid confusion with 

 trails, &c. A notch above and below the blaze would fulfill this purpose. The trees 



