56 FIRST BOOK OF FORESTRY 



There are a good many small saplings of maple ; evi- 

 dently this opening up of the dense woods stimulated 

 reproduction ; the trees bore more seeds, and young trees 

 found light and air to live. Some of the young stuff he 

 has cut out and has left only the best. They will be 

 fine sugar trees when his son takes the farm. 



Here we come into a different stand. The trees are 

 mostly poles (less than twelve inches in diameter), and 

 must have started some thirty years ago. The large 

 stumps of the old mother trees are rotten and covered 

 with moss. Notice the many small stumps ; evidently 

 there has been some -thinning done. 



Here is a thicket of bushy young trees, three to ten 

 feet high and standing rather crowded. The old stumps, 

 just beginning to decay, seem about ten or twelve years 

 old, and a few old trees are still left here. They need 

 cutting out, for the young trees need the light. 



Here is a piece where the owner has cut timber during 

 the last few years. He seems to have picked out (selected) 

 the largest trees or those which stand too close to others 

 and thereby hinder them in their growth. He has not, 

 however, cleared out any large piece, but merely picked 

 out a tree here and there, and thus kept the forest intact 

 and the ground nearly all covered or shaded, so that grass 

 and weeds rarely get a chance to start. Going over the 

 entire sixty-acre piece, we find that the man has cleared 

 up and cut and thinned out everywhere- that he cut 



