1432 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



CUTTING 



Some form of selection cutting should be employed. This may be 

 either tree or group selection, or a combination of them, which will 

 remove the major part of the values from the stand, yet leave the 

 nucleus for a later cut, provide an abundant seed supply of desirable 

 species, and leave much of the area shaded with its virgin ground 

 cover so that fires will be controllable. 



Logging engineering invention has reached a point where some 

 such selection cutting in this type is physically feasible. It may be 

 done with crawling tractors, with some form of flexible, light, cold- 

 decking machine, possibly reading with large, high-speed skyline 

 machines, or with a combination of methods to fit the individual 

 case that will make economic selection as profitable or more profitable 

 than the present clear cutting. 



No trees of which a considerable part is unprofitable to use should 

 be cut. This leaves standing as full a cover as possible, and a mini- 

 mum amount of unutilized debris on the ground. 



A certain proportion of the tract may be clear cut, depending upon 

 the composition of the original stand, but openings should not be 

 larger than 40 acres, and not over half of the total area of the opera- 

 tion should be clear cut if this limitation on size of openings is to be 

 effective. 



SLASH DISPOSAL 



Burning in this type is of questionable benefit, even temporarily. 

 There should be no burning in areas where tree selection is practiced 

 and a canopy of trees is left. Whether or not the clean-cut spots are 

 burned will depend upon local hazard conditions and the oppor- 

 tunity to burn these spots safely. If their future hazard is high they 

 should be broadcast burned or spot burned under conditions and 

 with precautions that will prevent spread to the selectively cut areas. 

 All snags in the clean cut spots and the taller ones in the selectively 

 cut areas should be felled. 



SPECIAL FIRE PROTECTION 



The protection of logged land during and after logging must be 

 more intensive than is the usual practice, for a period of about 10 

 years. It will take the form chiefly of preventing man-caused fires, 

 but there must also be equipment and organization to suppress 

 fires in their incipiency, and to do the burning that needs to be done 

 intelligently and safely. 



COSTS 



The costs of the above measures will vary from tract to tract but 

 are estimated to be less now in this type than as itemized in 1927. 1 



Selection cutting is not recommended unless it will give a realiza- 

 tion per thousand board feet equal to that from clear cutting, or 

 provide a reserve stand of sufficient prospective value to compen- 

 sate for the difference. Therefore, assuming that an operator is 

 organized for selective cutting or that it will pay him to so equip 

 himself, there is no extra cost to such logging. The indications are 



1 Munger, Thornton T., Timber Growing and Logging Practice in the Douglas Fir Region, U.S. Dept. 

 Agr. Bui. 1493, 41 p., illus., 1927. 



