140 The Farm Woodlot 



its leaves to the soil, while the tobacco leaves are har- 

 vested. The agricultural crop utilizes the seed and 

 leaves, while the forest crop utilizes the wood made largely 

 of carbon from the air. It follows from this that crowding 

 or shading, which deprives the tree of its necessary amount 

 of sunlight and space in which to grow, reduces its leaf 

 surface and consequently interferes with and checks the 

 amount of wood produced. Thus thinnings tend to give 

 the good trees more light and more available soil and 

 moisture ; consequently there is an accelerated growth 

 and development of better and larger trees. 



As an example, take a woodlot containing about 1200 

 trees to the acre. This number of trees, if equally dis- 

 tributed, would be spaced about 6X6 feet. Each tree 

 then would have about 36 square feet in which to spread 

 its branches. In a few years, side branches from the 

 different trees will begin to interfere with and finally 

 crowd one another. As this interference and crowding 

 continue, the stronger trees outgrow and overtop the 

 weaker ones, producing a crop of trees, some of which 

 are poor and worthless, others fairly well developed. 



Trees differ in rate of growth even in the same species 

 and some are certain to outgrow others and overtop 

 them. When this condition begins to show its effect on 

 the trees, nature should be aided by removing the poor 

 trees to make more room for the good ones. This should 

 continue as long as the trees interfere with each other. 

 When finally the trees are fifty or sixty years old, instead of 

 1200 there probably would be only about 200 or 250 trees. 

 Nature, if not interfered with, would eventually produce 

 practically the same number of trees, many of poor quality 



