A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 1447 



But if such close utilization is not possible, and large tops are numer- 

 ous, they should be cleaned up on strips 25 to 100 feet wide along 

 roads, railroads, around logging camps, portable mill set-ups, and 

 similar special risks. Either piling and burning or progressive burn- 

 ing (currently, as the felled trees are limbed) are recommended. 

 Costs of these simple measures will be considered under "Hardwoods " 

 below. 



HARDWOODS 



When pure hardwood stands, or those containing more than half 

 hardwoods, are heavily cut, they owe their usual escape from devas- 

 tation chiefly to their ability to sprout. The virgin forests, the area 

 of which is now small, have the additional advantage of an abundant 

 advance growth typical of any all-aged forest. In spite of these 

 advantages most hardwood forests have suffered greatly from a 

 deterioration brought about by cutting which is very hard to dis- 

 tinguish from outright devastation. For examples of devastation 

 it is necessary to go to hardwood lands which have suffered from one 

 or more slash fires, such as birch-beech-maple-hemlock forests reduced 

 to unmerchantable aspen and bird cherry, or oak-chestnut-yellow 

 poplar reduced to scrub oak. 



The chief hardwood types of the East are composed of a great 

 variety of tree species, generally intermingled on the same area. 

 Some species are valuable, others nearly or quite worthless. The 

 valuable species vary from type to type, and no list can be attempted 

 here. The worthless are such because of small size and poor form, 

 even at maturity. Still other species are not of great value now, but 

 attain such size and form as to hold promise of value under future 

 conditions. Regardless of species, a rather high proportion of hard- 

 wood trees, even when young, are poorly formed; mature and over- 

 mature trees in many instances harbor serious decay. The volume 

 of merchantable wood to the average acre of hardwood forest is there- 

 fore lower than in softwood forest growing on the same soil and in the 

 same climate. 



The remaining virgin hardwood timber is practically confined to 

 portions of the river bottom hardwoods-cypress type; to the oak- 

 chestnut-yellow poplar type on the least accessible of the southern 

 Appalachian Mountains; and to limited areas of the birch-beech- 

 maple-hemlock type in the Lake States, New York, and New Eng- 

 land. Most of the second growth is as yet below full sawlog size. 



Cutting for saw timber is rarely clean in hardwood forests; the 

 section entitled "Current Forest Devastation and Deterioration" 

 has described how repeated culling, first of the best species and 

 individuals, later of the poorer, has been the rule. After each cutting 

 more and more of the ground is taken in firm possession by the less 

 valuable and dwarf species, which prevent the sprouts and seedlings 

 of good species from developing. The succeeding forest is inferior 

 even when the good species sprout vigorously, because in spite of 

 very rapid early growth, sprouts mature at smaller sizes than trees 

 from seed, and are subject to early rot. Thus on important areas 

 repeated commercial cuttings finally reduce the productive capacity 

 of the forest land not simply to zero, but to what might be called 

 considerably below zero. That is, if culled hardwood land were 

 planted with tree seedlings in order to produce a merchantable crop 



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