572 



or no seed are left to germinate except 

 in heavy crop years. 



One system of managing oak forests 

 for timber products is by growing the 

 trees in even-aged stands. When the 

 trees are mature and ready to cut, 

 there may be no small trees established, 

 in which case the area must be repro- 

 duced by sprouts or seed. 



If superior seedling reproduction is 

 wanted, two points must be kept in 

 mind. First, acorns, unlike pine seed, 

 are heavy and not dispersed far from 

 the parent tree. Thus, the number of 

 acorns to the acre is not significant 

 unless they are well distributed. Sec- 

 ond, excessive drying due to long 

 exposure to sun and wind kills acorns. 



In a good seed year, 8 to 10 trees an 

 acre, 17 inches in diameter at breast 

 height, would produce 1,500 to 2,000 

 sound acorns above those destroyed by 

 insects and animals. With 50 percent 

 germination, there would be 500 to 

 1,000 seedlings to the acre. But even 

 with the best spacing of those seed 

 trees, some of the seedlings would be 

 crowded under parent trees and die. 

 Better than that, leaving 20 trees to 

 the acre, 12 to 16 inches in diameter, 

 would provide the same number of 

 acorns but they would have wider dis- 

 tribution and more protection from 

 drying because of shade and the cover 

 provided by fallen leaves. This is only 

 one method of managing oak forests 

 and represents the minimum as far as 

 the seed requirements are concerned. 

 Other methods leave larger numbers of 

 trees to the acre for growth and seed 

 production, giving better distribution 

 of seed and more favorable moisture 

 conditions. 



Acorns are important in the feed of 

 deer, squirrels, and turkeys in autumn 

 and early winter. In deciding how 

 much game an area can support, game 

 managers need to know the amount of 

 food available annually. The part sup- 

 plied by acorns can be computed from 

 the table if the number of oaks to the 

 acre, by diameter classes, is known. In 

 the southern Appalachians, oak stands 

 that have been cut rather heavily in the 



Yearbook of Agriculture 1949 



POUNDS OF ACORNS PRODUCED IN AN 

 AVERAGE YEAR FOR TREES OF DIF- 

 FERENT SIZES AND SPECIES 



Diameter 

 of trunk Chest- 

 4^ feet nut 

 from ground oak 



White 

 oak 



North- 

 ern 

 red oak 



Black 

 oak 



Scarlet 

 oak 



Inches Pounds Pounds Pounds Pounds Pounds 



past annually produce from 100 to 150 

 pounds of acorns an acre. 



Experimental work has shown that 

 the nutritive value of acorns for fatten- 

 ing hogs is fairly high. If the acorn ra- 

 tion is held down to one-fourth of the 

 food eaten, acorns are in no way harm- 

 ful for fattening pigs. Excessive quan- 

 tities may cause constipation, soft pork, 

 or growth below normal. As a further 

 precaution, the protein content of the 

 meal mixture should be increased 

 somewhat while feeding acorn rations, 

 because they are high in carbohydrates 

 but low in proteins. During the finish- 

 ing-off period, acorns may be withheld, 

 in order to correct any tendency toward 

 soft pork. 



Any farmer knowing the sizes and 

 numbers of oaks in his wood lot can 

 determine from the table the amount 

 of acorns he can expect annually for 

 hog feed. If this kind of feed is worth a 

 cent a pound, the average oak wood lot 

 is worth $1.50 a year for each acre just 

 for the hog feed it produces. That is 

 about half as much as can be expected 

 from the wood lot in timber values. In 

 small wood lots, farmers can know 

 their trees as individuals and weed out 

 the poor producers when any cutting is 

 done. In that way the yield of acorns 

 per acre can be increased. Aside from 

 heredity, trees with well-developed, 

 healthy crowns are likely to produce 

 the most acorns. 



