Naval Stores: The Forests 



295 



from early thinning when the trees 

 are just an inch or two in diameter. If 

 the stand is thinned to 600 to 800 trees 

 an acre, the trees will reach cordwood 

 size more rapidly, and entrance into 

 the stand with trucks or pulpwood saws 

 for thinning will be greatly facilitated. 

 Thinning such stands mechanically 

 with a heavy brush-cutting roller has 

 been tried by the National Turpentine 

 & Pulpwood Corp., of Jacksonville, 

 Fla., but it is too early to assess the 

 results. 



Longleaf pine ordinarily seeds in less 

 densely than slash pine, and also shows 

 more graduation in size of tree, so that 

 early thinnings are usually unnecessary. 



When a good stand of turpentine 

 pines gets to pulpwood size, the struggle 

 for its diversion to one of many uses 

 begins. In former days, when the aver- 

 age stand was perhaps 20 turpentine 

 trees to the acre and there was no mar- 

 ket for thinnings, there was not much 

 point in turpentining only selected 

 trees. Hence the custom arose of tur- 

 pentining all the trees that were large 

 enough to provide a reasonable flow 

 of gum. The custom was also due to the 

 circumstance that most naval stores 

 producers then owned their own tur- 

 pentine stills, and were chiefly inter- 

 ested in producing enough gum to keep 

 these stills in operation. 



The whole pattern of forestry has 

 changed since the diameter-limit sys- 

 tem came to be the custom. We now 

 have many plantations and dense nat- 

 ural stands of slash pine. There will be 

 many more in the future. We now have 

 excellent markets for thinnings, so that 

 there is no need to cut all or nothing. 

 Furthermore, the recent conversion 

 from hundreds of small direct-fire stills 

 in the woods to a few dozen large 

 central processing plants has provided 

 a ready market for gum produced by 

 independent operators and gum farm- 

 ers. The latter usually own the land and 

 have no compulsion to exploit their 

 timber too heavily for naval stores. 



All of these changes have made the 

 time ripe for greater emphasis on good 

 timber-management practices in the 



naval stores region. The most essential 

 change is to get away from the custom 

 of turpentining every tree in the stand 

 as soon as it reaches 9 inches in diam- 

 eter. Any properly stocked naval stores 

 stand will need thinning or other sil- 

 vicultural treatment at various times 

 if it is not to be liquidated at an early 

 age. In any such treatment, the trees 

 to be cut are determined on the basis 

 of spacing, form, and size. Diameter- 

 limit cupping overlooks spacing and 

 form and selects on a basis of entirely 

 inadequate information the trees to be 

 cupped and cut. 



When a properly stocked naval 

 stores forest is ready for cupping, a 

 decision must be made on the type of 

 management that will best suit the 

 needs of the owner. The decision 

 arrived at will depend on the owner's 

 circumstances, but ordinarily he will 

 be interested in maximum sustained in- 

 come per acre from the integrated pro- 

 duction of wood and gum. 



An improvement cut is the first step. 

 If the trees to come out in the improve- 

 ment cut have already been turpen- 

 tined, the cut is made immediately, for 

 these "worked-out" trees do not pay 

 their way in timber growth and should 

 be removed. 



If the improvement cut is in untur- 

 pentined trees, and if there are enough 

 of them per acre, those large enough 

 should be turpentined before they are 

 removed. Crooked, forked, and excess 

 trees to be removed in a thinning will 

 yield just as much gum as the best 

 timber trees that will usually be re- 

 served for later turpentining. 



Where the stand is in good condition 

 the first cutting will be a thinning. 

 The poorest quality trees in all crown 

 classes are removed, plus the addi- 

 tional trees that should come out to 

 provide best spacing of the remaining 

 stand. 



Since the trees (at least the larger 

 ones) that are to come out in a thin- 

 ning are ordinarily to be turpentined 

 before removal, the selection of the 

 trees must be done anywhere from 2 to 

 10 years in advance of the cutting. The 



