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A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



IN CALIFORNIA AND SOUTHERN SOFTWOOD STANDS 



In the California pine region, logging methods destroy an unneces- 

 sary amount of advance reproduction and immature trees; failure in 

 many instances to leave sufficient seed trees, results in understocked 

 stands of young growth; and in other cases the removal of the pines 

 from mixed stands leaves a growing stock consisting chiefly of defective 

 and unmerchantable white fir and other low value species. The last 

 condition is brought out strikingly in table 8 compiled from an 

 inventory of an area tractor-logged in 1930, which shows how the 

 removal of the pines has converted a mixed stand into a stand in which 

 white fir, chiefly unmerchantable, predominates and in which the 

 quality growth capacity of the stand has been materially lowered. 



In the redwood region of California and in the Douglas fir region of 

 Oregon and Washington, the effects of fire and logging are so closely 

 associated that no attempt is made to separate them. Deterioration 

 in these stands has been discussed under Effects of Fire. 



TABLE 8. Comparison of original stand with residual stand on an area tractor- 

 logged in 1930 California pine region 



ORIGINAL STAND 



RESIDUAL MERCHANTABLE STAND 



RESIDUAL UNMERCHANTABLE STAND 



In the ponderosa pine forests east of the Cascades in Oregon and 

 Washington, logging methods on private lands have the same tendency 

 as in the California pine region to increase the representation of the 

 less desirable species (fir and larch in this instance) at the expense of 

 pine and to leave an insufficient residual stand to produce full crops. 

 ^ In Idaho and Montana, the present practice of removing all the 

 pine sawtimber and cedar poles from the old growth saw-log stands 

 in the western white pine type leaves a residual stand much depreci- 

 ated in quality, char-acier, and value. In many cases the land will 



