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A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



being taken. More recently, in seasons of active movement of lumber, 

 trees 9 to 10 inches on the stump have been cut for lumber by large 

 mills, while portable mills have cut to even smaller diameters, in 

 spite of the fact that trees of such small diameters can rarely, if ever, 

 be handled except at a loss. 



Meanwhile, markets developed for species and products which had 

 no value in the early days of logging. The changes in market con- 

 ditions resulted in constantly heavier cuttings of the forest and less 

 timber left standing. Until comparatively recent years, however, 

 enough was left to justify the reworking of areas already cut over. 

 As a consequence, a large part of the timberlands has been cut over 

 again and again, sometimes six or eight times. It is estimated that 

 90 per cent of the mountain timberland in the Southern Appalachians 

 is more or less depleted of merchantable timber. The natural re- 

 placement with thrifty second growth is handicapped by defective 

 and unmerchantable trees left standing after logging. 



In studies made by the Applachian Forest Experiment Station to 

 determine the existing conditions of remaining trees and reproduction 

 on the usual type of repeatedly cut-over, but not clean cut, hardwood 

 lands that have escaped recent fires, it was found that good trees of 

 desirable species in five different forest types averaged as few as 14 

 percent and in no case more than 26 percent of the total number of 

 trees 3.1 to 9 inches diameter breast high on the average acre examined 

 and from 29 to 48 percent of trees over 9 inches diameter breast 

 high on the same acres. The remainder of the trees consisted of 

 poor specimens of desirable species and less desirable species, both 

 good and poor. 



The deficiency in stocking is emphasized further by the data in 

 table 5 from the same study. The indicated deficiency in wood 

 volume ranges from 41 to 58 percent. The wood volume alone, how- 

 ever, does not tell the whole story of the cut-over stand, for a part of 

 it is made up of defective trees and of trees of the less desirable 

 species. 



TABLE 5. Estimated deficiency in stocking in stands on uriburned cut-over lands 

 when compared with well-stocked second-growth of corresponding site quality and 

 similar average diameter breast high, by forest types 



The proportion of straight, sound trees of desirable species in the 

 cut-over stand is shown in table 6, and brings out well the evidence of 

 overcutting. In not one of the forest types represented are as many 



