106 FORESTRY ALMANAC 



forest problem is indicated by the fact that the forests occupy 65 

 per cent, of the total land area ; and where, in spite of the fact that 

 forest practice is probably more advanced than in any other part of 

 the country, the annual cut in Maine is several times the annual 

 growth, nearly a third of New Hampshire is waste idle land, and 

 Massachusetts has to import four-fifths of its timber requirements, 

 while Connecticut is said to pay a freight bill to import its lumber 

 which is sufficient to replant each year the entire amount cut over. 

 Those facts indicate that New England, in spite of the progress it 

 has made, is still far from having solved the problem of forest 

 production on an adequate scale. 



A pulp and paper company owns 200,000 acres of land in north- 

 ern Maine, and a part of it has been burned so severely as to be 

 practically waste, part has been cut clean for pulp and part has been 

 lightly culled for lumber. Included in the latter are stands of pine, 

 spruce and balsam fir, stands of mixed spruce fir and hardwoods, 

 and stands of nearly pure hardwoods, mostly yellow birch, beech 

 and hard maple. How shall the company handle each of these 

 classes of land in order to secure a fully stocked new stand of 

 desirable species? If everything merchantable is cut from the pure 

 spruce and fir lands, will these species reproduce satisfactorily, or will 

 raspberry and blackberry bushes, moosewood, soft maple and other 

 undesirable species take possession of the area? 



To what extent will the tops and branches left after logging 

 interfere with reproduction and increase the danger from fire and 

 insects? Should they be piled in windrows, or small piles, or 

 lopped and scattered, or burned in whole or in part? When can 

 another cut be expected from the same area, and what will be the 

 yield at that time? What will be the answers to these same ques- 

 tions if the stand is cut to a given diameter limit instead of clean? 

 How can the stands of mixed softwoods and hardwoods be cut so 

 as to maintain or increase the present proportion of spruce and fir? 

 What will be the rate of growth after such cutting? Is it possible 

 to introduce any considerable amount of spruce into the pure hard- 

 wood stands by clean cutting and planting, or will the cost of keep- 

 ing back the hardwood sprouts be prohibitive? Will it pay to 

 reforest artificially the burned-over lands, and, if so, what kind and 

 age of planting material should be used? These are some of the 



