MASSACHUSETTS WOODLANDS. 15 



MISCELLANEOUS CUTTINGS. 



There are many kinds of cuttings which one can make to improve 

 woodland which cannot strictly be called thinnings because their 

 primary object is not to open up the crown cover in order to 

 stimulate the growth of the trees. It is not always possible to 

 draw a hard-and-fast line between such improvement cuttings and 

 thinnings because one may partake of the nature of the other, 

 and the two may be carried out at the same time. Such cuttings 

 can best be suggested by a few examples. 



We will suppose that an insect pest which attacks some particu- 

 lar species of tree for instance, maples is more or less preva- 

 lent in a region. As a matter of protection, the owner of mixed 

 woodland might go through it and take out all the maples so as not 

 to attract the insects to his land. The removal of hardwoods from 

 a pine stand as a precaution in fighting gypsy moths is another 

 protection cutting, which we have described elsewhere in this 

 bulletin. 



One often finds among the woods large, spreading old trees, more 

 or less decayed and of little value for timber. It is good forest 

 policy to cut such trees down, and to allow the large amount of 

 ground space which they occupy to come up to a new growth of 

 more value. 



In old, abandoned pastures we often see young pines coming up 

 underneath a stand of gray birches. While the pine seedlings are 

 very young, let us say not more than four or five years old, the 

 birches protect them from the hot sun and wind, and act in the 

 role of nurse trees. But as the pines increase in size they need 

 the sunlight; and, further, the branches of the birches, as they 

 sway in the wind, cut the tender leading shoot of the pine, killing 

 it and causing the tree to be stunted and crooked. In such cases 

 the birches should be removed; but if they are too small to make 

 cord wood, or if the young pines are scattered, it is only necessary 

 to remove the trees immediately surrounding the pines. If done 

 in this manner, one man can easily cover an acre or two a day. 



If diseased or decaying trees are removed from a stand with 

 no special reference to the principles of thinning, the operation is 

 an improvement cutting and not a thinning. 



