The Job of Planting Trees: A Survey 



209 



trees use the ground more fully during 

 the early years of the plantation, stop 

 erosion sooner, produce more wood on 

 an acre, allow higher mortality with- 

 out the need of replanting, shed their 

 lower branches sooner, and permit a 

 wider choice of trees in thinning. 

 Many costs of growing timber, such as 

 fire protection and taxes, are incurred 

 by the acre, but practically all profits 

 accrue by the tree. Therefore, within 

 limits, the more trees to the acre the 

 better. 



A spacing of 6 by 6 feet (1,210 trees 

 an acre) has always been popular. 

 Spacings of 5 by 6, 5 by 5 ( 1,742 trees 

 an acre), and 4 by 6 are increasing in 

 use, especially with larger markets for 

 small products and the development of 

 machine planting. At these spacings, 

 trees generally grow well until some 

 can be thinned out and sold for pulp- 

 wood, fence posts, or small poles, or 

 used for fuel. The rest are left to grow 

 until they again become crowded, 

 when more are sold. Except for special 

 purposes, however, spacings closer than 

 4 by 6 feet cannot be recommended. 

 Costs are too high, and growth may 

 fall off too soon. 



SOME OF THE EARLIER plantations 

 are now old enough to show that 

 planted forests are economically sound. 

 Earnings of $24.60 an acre are re- 

 ported from thinnings on a 30-year- 

 old red pine plantation established in 

 northern Wisconsin by the State in 

 1913. The sale of Christmas trees from 

 thinnings in 6- to 9-year-old red and 

 jack pine plantations in the Lower 

 Peninsula of Michigan brought an 

 average of $80 an acre and as high as 

 $122 an acre (200 trees an acre at 

 61 cents each) . 



A paper company in Wisconsin has 

 planted 18,000 acres, and each year 

 plants several thousand acres more. 

 Seven other forest industries in Wis- 

 consin had planted 18,700,000 trees on 

 18,600 acres, as of April 22, 1947, and 

 had dedicated 300,625 acres to perma- 

 nent forests. In the Pacific Northwest, 

 extensive planted areas are already un- 



802062 49 15 



der management in a tree-farm move- 

 ment, which is growing rapidly. 



About 75 million acres of forest land 

 in the United States were classified in 

 1946 as poorly stocked seedling or 

 sapling areas, or as deforested. Forest 

 restoration on such idle lands com- 

 monly requires planting, although 

 under fire protection a portion will 

 gradually restock naturally. Several 

 million acres more of partly stocked 

 land will give larger and quicker re- 

 turns if interplanted ; additional mil- 

 lions of acres of submarginal farm land 

 should be planted to trees. 



How much of this area Government 

 agencies, industry, and farm and other 

 private owners will manage to plant 

 is hard to predict. Certain it is that 

 the job needs to be tackled on a far 

 larger scale than in the past. 



One goal might be for small owners 

 to do their part of the job by planting 

 a billion trees a year, or 20 million 

 acres in 20 years ; planting on large pri- 

 vate holdings and on public lands 

 might add 10 million acres to this goal. 

 We believe, however, that the goal 

 might well be much higher 90 million 

 to 100 million. 



However we gage the job ahead, it 

 represents a tremendous undertaking, 

 neither technically simple nor cheap. 

 It is, however, a constructive effort, 

 one in which many individuals can 

 contribute to the lightening of the gen- 

 eral load at profit to themselves. 



PHILIP C. WAKELEY, a native of 

 New Jersey, has degrees in forestry 

 from Cornell University. He has been 

 employed by the Southern Forest Ex- 

 periment Station since 1924, and has 

 been in charge of seed, nursery, and 

 planting research. He has written sev- 

 eral technical publications on aspects 

 of forest regeneration. 



G. WILLARD JONES, a forester in the 

 Forest Service, is in charge of reforesta- 

 tion in the Lake States region. For the 

 past 32 years he has been engaged in 

 nursery production and field- planting 

 work in the Northern Rocky Mountain 

 and Lake States regions. 



