188 FIRST BOOK OF FORESTRY 



The trees may be mixed all through the piece, or else the 

 oaks, the ashes and elms, hickories and walnuts may be 

 raised in small clumps or groves of one half to two acres 

 in size, surrounded by the mixed woods. 



A general maxim in the choice of the trees to be 

 raised would be : " Raise only those kinds of trees which 

 thrive and grow well in our locality, and among these 

 select the kinds which furnish the most valuable material, 

 and especially those the wood of which is valuable at an 

 early age or in smaller sizes." Of course it is not neces- 

 sary and would not even be profitable to change the entire 

 thirty acres of woods in one year ; but it is well to make 

 up our minds as to what we should do with the woods, 

 and improve them from year to year, restocking the 

 ground with the kinds we want as we use up the old 

 and thin out the inferior trees. 



In most woods we would also find much dead material 

 still on the stump or on the ground, also thickets of 

 young stuff in which good and bad trees alike are trying 

 to hold the ground. These cases, as well as the main- 

 tenance of a close border and the restocking of all bare 

 places, should in all such woods receive prompt attention, 

 for dead material in a forest is always a source of mis- 

 chief. A lot of scrubby blue beech is apt to crowd out 

 the finest saplings of oak, and a bare place in the woods 

 is fallow land, bringing no rental, but serving as a 

 starting point of brambles and other forest weeds. 



