62 PRACTICAL FORESTRY IN 



SUGAR PINE (P. Lambertiana) 



This extremely valuable pine, commercially limited to the 

 Oregon and California mountains, is fastidious in its choice 

 of conditions. Not a frequent or prolific seed hearer, it still 

 insists on a moist loose seed-bed and prefers the natural forest 

 floor to burned-over land. It cannot stand drought when 

 young and except on cool northern slopes seedlings may be 

 killed or stunted by exposure to full sunlight. On the con- 

 trary it demands more and more light as it grows older and 

 will be suppressed or killed if unable to secure it. Under 

 natural conditions it perpetuates itself best by filling open 

 places in the forest. 



For the above reasons, sugar pine is naturally a component 

 of mixed forests and it is doubtful whether it will be suc- 

 cessfully grown as a pure stand. Unfortunately, also, log- 

 ging methods which are both the simplest and most favorable 

 to the reproduction of its associates may be discouraging to 

 sugar pine reproduction. Nevertheless, its value warrants 

 strong efforts to favor it and is an argument, where consider- 

 able young sugar pine exists, against either clean cutting or 

 the use of fire. 



The Forest Service, for which authority much of the above 

 discussion of this species was taken, offers the following gen- 

 eral outline for management in California : 



"Since the forests in which sugar and yellow pine occur vary 

 greatly in composition, the method of treatment must also 

 vary. For this the forest types already distinguished may 

 form a basis. 



"On the lower portion of the sugar pine-yellow pine type, 

 where sugar pine forms but a small proportion of the stand, 

 only the yellow pine should be considered for the future 

 forest. All merchantable, sugar pine may therefore be re- 

 moved. It will be necessary to leave only a few seed trees of 

 yellow pine to restock the ground, although usually it will be 

 a wiser policy to leave a fair stand, since this can be removed 

 as a second cutting when reproduction is established. This 



