CHAPTER IX. 



RATE OF INCREASE IN TIMBER. 



The Rate of Increase on Timber Trees varies accord- 

 ing to the kind and age of the trees and the conditions under 

 which they are growing. Most of the pine trees cut for log tim- 

 ber in this state have been upwards of 100 years old, and some of 

 the White and Norway Pine that has been cut was over 300 

 years old. Perhaps the largest White Pine ever cut in this state 

 was scaled by H. B. Ayres. The tree was 253 years old, meas- 

 ured forty-eight inches in diameter on the stump, and yielded 

 4,050 feet board measure of log timber. The most rapidly grown 

 trees recorded in this state were: Norway Pine 100 years old, 

 thirty inches on the stump, yielding 1,050 feet board measure; 

 White Pine, 106 years old, twenty-seven inches on the stump, 

 yielding 1,050 feet board measure, and White Pine 108 years old, 

 thirty-two inches on the stump, yielding 1,450 board measure. 

 The largest recorded acre yield of White Pine in Minnesota was 

 near Carlton. The full yield of this acre was 111,050 feet board 

 measure, and after deducting for rot and crooks 94,264 feet of 

 sound timber remained. The average yield of White Pine is 

 much below this, and large areas have been cut that did not yield 

 over 5,000 feet board measure per acre. 



Marketable White and Norway Pine may be grown in 

 about thirty years under the best conditions in this section, and 

 at this age will probably be about eight inches in diameter and 

 forty feet high. But such trees are then growing very fast, and 

 as the approximate increase in volume of the tree is as the square 

 of the proportionate increase in diameter and the waste in work- 

 ing greatly decreases with the size of the trees, the cutting of 

 them at such an early age would be at a loss of future profits. 

 Such trees have very little, if any, heart wood, and yet this kind 

 of timber is being grown and marketed in many of the Eastern 

 States. In fact, there is very little heart to any of the pine now 

 cut in the New England States, as it is practically all young 



