1466 A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 



or specialty products, which bring the best prices. This is perhaps 

 equally true of hardwoods and softwoods, although second-growth 

 hardwoods, because of rapid growth, are often better suited than old 

 growth to certain uses requiring strength. 



Then there are a large number of special products the material for 

 which is not likely to be produced without planwise management. 

 Poles and piling require material of special dimensions and qualities 

 which are afforded by relatively few species. Clear hardwood finish 

 and flooring, veneers, and specialty products like insulator pins, shuttle 

 stock, handles, and shingles, all require material of certain qualities 

 or dimensions which in the future will have to be provided largely 

 by intensive forestry. 



The conditions likely to prevail if intensive forest management is 

 not adopted are illustrated by many forests in the regions where 

 uncontrolled cutting has been in progress for the longest period. 

 Many of the eastern forests have deteriorated in quality owing to 

 repeated culling of the better species. It is a great economic loss to 

 have inferior hardwoods, for example, growing where valuable hard- 

 woods or choice conifers might be growing. In the Lake States are 

 great areas now occupied by weed trees like aspen that should be 

 converted into productive forests of good species. In spruce-hard- 

 wood, spruce-hemlock, and spruce-fir mixtures it is usually good 

 business to augment the proportion of the much more valuable 

 spruce. Ordinarily, intensive forestry practice will be required to 

 improve the composition of mixed forests; in most cases it may be 

 expected to pay well in the long run. 



Intensive forestry practices are needed not only to produce timber 

 of desired species but also to produce trees of desired form and quality. 

 Straight, clear-boled trees free of injuries are much more valuable 

 than the average run of trees in unmanaged or poorly tended woods. 

 By proper spacing of trees through selection cutting and thinning it 

 is possible to grow wood of the density, or number of rings per inch, 

 most desirable for special uses. In certain regions the pruning of 

 trees to make clear logs, judicious thinning to favor the best-formed 

 trees, and to give ideal spacing, interplanting of gaps or underplanting 

 with desired species, and special measures to minimize deformities 

 caused by insects would all help to raise the quality of the product. 



Only by managing the forests on relatively long rotation as well as 

 by applying these cultural measures in young stands can timber of 

 high quality be produced. Selective cutting planned to carry a cer- 

 tain number of trees per acre to large size will perhaps facilitate the 

 production of high-quality material as much as any other measure. 

 In any event, not much high-quality material can be expected without 

 forest management going considerably beyond the practices which aim 

 only to insure maintaining production in sufficient quantity for com- 

 mercial utilization. 



As an accompaniment of intensive forestry to obtain growth in 

 sufficient quantity and of satisfactory quality for the Nation's needs, 

 it will be necessary to build up the growing stocks of forests in the 

 eastern regions to at least two and one half times their present 

 volume. The supply of virgin timber in the West will serve to bridge 

 the gap, at least in part, for the immediate future, but continued un- 

 controlled liquidation in the West may, within a few decades, endanger 

 the ultimate productive capacity there also. An adequate growing 



