A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 865 



cherry, and smaller weed species increasing at the expense of the more 

 valuable commercial species. 



^ Perhaps the most serious phase of forest deterioration in New 

 England has been the steady reduction of growing stock and a conse- 

 quent loss of many of the more important forest industries. In the 

 past history of the region, exploitation has proceeded in stages, each 

 stage utilizing trees and stands of smaller size then the preceding, 

 and each making a return of the former type of utilization more and 

 more difficult. The quality of the products has been steadily declin- 

 ing in this process. 



In the Middle Atlantic region, it is estimated that deterioration is 

 following cutting on 90 percent of the forest land currently cut over. 

 That is, the stands which follow cutting on some 330,000 acres will 

 mature a smaller volume of valuable material than that just cut, or 

 will take longer to mature it. On the other hand, some areas cut 

 clean for chemical wood or other products have restocked with an 

 excellent young stand in which desirable species such as cherry, ash, 

 and hard maple are well represented. Where deterioration is present, 

 it is due very largely to failure to make any provision for seedling 

 reproduction. The forest on private land is often cut before it has 

 reached an age to produce seed in appreciable quantities, and regen- 

 eration is overwhelmingly of sprout origin on hardwood lands. Rate 

 of growth is known to be less over a tree rotation for sprouts than for 

 trees of seedling origin, and some species (the oaks, for example) are 

 subject to serious heartwood decay entirely independent of fire injury. 

 The total effect of dependence on coppicing is in general a widely 

 spaced, slow-growing, defective stand, and this effect is increased by 

 repeated cuttings. 



In the South, 10,000 acres of second-growth river-bottom hard- 

 woods and cypress lands in south central Louisiana present an example 

 of " high-grading " a stand by removal of the best trees. An exami- 

 nation of these lands some time after the original stand was removed 

 showed the composition of the present stand to be as follows : 



Number of trees 

 per acre 



Potentially valuable trees 166. 58 



Trees ready to be cut 2. 91 



Cull trees __ 75.52 



Total 245. 01 



The "potentially valuable trees" are the trees which will be present 

 in the stand after 20 years, but in larger diameter classes. The " trees 

 ready to be cut" are the merchantable trees that will be removed 

 when economic conditions permit. The "cull trees" are trees which 

 because of poor form, decay, or quality are unmerchantable. Culls 

 make up 31 percent of the total residual stand. In other words, 

 through past cutting this stand now includes a volume of defective 

 material sufficient to displace more than one third of the production 

 which could be secured if the growing stock were all of vigorous and 

 well-formed trees. 



This 10,000-acre sample is reported to be more or less typical of 25 

 percent of the total area of cut-over river-bottom hardwood and 

 cypress lands, or some six million acres. 



