1448 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



within reasonable time, the seedlings would often struggle in vain 

 competition with worthless vegetation. Where this condition prevails 

 a state of deterioration exists that is worse than devastation. 



Such of the farm woodlands in the oak-hickory type of the Central 

 and Lake regions as are not certain to be cleared for cultivation in 

 any event, deteriorate seriously under excessive grazing. This deter- 

 ioration is very similar to that resulting from long-continued fires in 

 advance of cutting. Livestock, chiefly cattle, are allowed to pasture 

 6 out of 10 units of farm woodlands in the Central region and have 

 browsed to death so large a percentage of the advance growth normal 

 to the type that a heavy cutting of the older trees results in devasta- 

 tion. That is, if the woods have been pastured for many years even 

 the youngest of the trees have outgrown their ability to sprout 

 successfully from the stump. Exclusion of the stock for a few years 

 after the cutting is in many instances futile, because the sprouts are 

 too few to constitute the basis of a future merchantable stand; failure 

 to exclude it almost always spells the doom of the scanty sprouts. 

 Eventually, of course, heavy grazing by itself can devastate the oak- 

 hickory farm woodlands, but the process could not be considered com- 

 plete until so many of the mature trees had died from old age and other 

 causes that the stand was unmerchantable. This is the ultimate 

 prospect also faced by some of the oak-chestnut-yellow poplar forests 

 of central Pennsylvania, now absolutely stripped of all young growth 

 by deer. 



To put a stop to serious deterioration in the hardwood types, the 

 following modifications of cutting practice are necessary : 



CUTTING 



Postpone final cuttings in second-growth stands until there is a 

 sufficient stand of seedlings of valuable species already on the ground, 

 or enough seed-bearing trees of good species, to insure that the cutting 

 will not prevent the ensuing stand from having a substantial portion 

 certainly not less than a fifth of its volume in valuable trees of 

 seedling origin. By final cutting is meant one that removes the 

 main volume of the stand, as contained in the better trees. Thin- 

 ning, or any type of cutting that removes only a part of the stand to 

 improve the ultimate value of the remainder, or to encourage seed 

 production and seedling establishment, is not included. 



In the great majority of virgin stands there is abundant advance 

 growth of good species, which in the absence of fire survives logging 

 and, together with sprouts from the smaller stumps, forms an excellent 

 second growth. In such virgin stands, and second-growth stands 

 which are old enough to have an under-story of valuable advance 

 growth, cutting may be clean if fire protection is thoroughly efficient. 

 There are no better examples of satisfactory young growth than the 

 unburned stands of northern hardwoods which have followed abso- 

 lutely clean cutting for sawlogs and distillation of wood of virgin 

 forest in Pennsylvania and New York. 



It should be frankly recognized that second-growth hardwoods 

 which may sometimes be profitably cut for pulpwood, fuel-wood, 

 mine props, and other round products before reaching seed-bearing 

 size may, over considerable areas, have no advance growth of valuable 

 species. Such stands and their successors cannot be cut without 

 eventual devastation of the land. 



