88 



Canadian Forestry Journal, June 1913. 



had in the preceding twenty. Different 

 trees of the same species taken from the 

 same tract would show a totally different 

 variation. 



After discussing all the possibilities of 

 soil and elevation and climatic conditions, 

 Mr. Howe gave it as his opinion that these 

 could not explain variations so great and 

 so complex. There remained but one other 

 possible cause the variation of light area 

 for the crown of the tree. 



People interested in spruce reproduction 

 maintained that the natural spruce forest 

 could be cut over every ten or twenty 

 years, the large trees taken out and the 

 young ones allowed to grow, thus in the 

 end arriving at a perpetual yield. 



This system appeared very alluring at 

 first, but the original clear boled trees 

 rapidly disappeared with each cutting. The 

 only trees to take their place were those 

 which grew where clearances had been 

 made sufficient to let the sunlight reach 

 the ground and these trees were usually 

 branched to the ground, producing very 

 rough timber. 



Nature's Plan. 



Mr. Howe then described the natural 

 growth of a spruce forest after a fire 

 had cleared the ground. The trees came 

 up by millions, ten or twelve seedlings to 

 a square foot. The ground was completely 

 shaded and all other forms of plan life 

 killed. Then the survival-of-the-fittest 

 struggle coipmenced and; the weaker ones 

 died by tens of thousands each year. In 

 a period varying from thirty to sixty years 

 the survivors reached three or four inches 

 in diameter, and were then twelve to eigh- 

 teen inches apart. The others had died 

 and crumbled to dust. These saplings fifty 

 feet high with no side branches, straight 

 as rushes, with a small plume of foliage at 

 the top, might be called the foundation 

 of the tall timber forest. This was what 

 was known as 'thicket growth' through- 

 out the Maritime Provirices.; 



On examining this stand twenty-five or 

 thirty years later it would be found that 

 the trees now reduced in number to one 

 for each four square feet had increased 

 in size to five or six inches, or at an 

 average rate of one inch in ten or twelve 

 years. 



The experiences of a number of investi- 

 gators were here cited to show that often 

 at this stage, where the forest was very 

 even, -the light proved insufficient to sup- 

 port the trees and millions of them died 

 or they became so weakened that they 

 became a prey to insects, fungi or wind. 

 Up to two or three inches in diameter it 

 might be deemed best to leave this small 

 growth to natural thinning, but after 

 reaching this stage if uniformity of size 

 conditions existed suspended growth re- 



sulted. Mr. Howe then called attention to 

 some specimen sections of spruce. One 

 section showed that the tree took eighty 

 years to reach five inches, and then it sud- 

 denly put on heavy growth and in forty 

 years expanded to sixteen inches. This 

 was not an exceptional case, but such speci- 

 mens were to be had in large numbers from 

 cut over woods, showing that when the 

 tree received increased sunlight it rapidly 

 put on timber. 



Mr. Howe argued that the full growth 

 of foliage was reached at a very early 

 age, and it could be shown that as large 

 art amount of wood material was growing 

 on an acre at an early stage as when larger 

 sizes were reached. What then became of 

 all these years of growth between, say, the 

 three inch and twelve inch sizes? Mr. 

 Howe had prepared a table showing what 

 would occur if the growth was not too 

 even. This table indicated a twenty-five 

 per cent death rate of trees for every 

 inch increase in diameter. This he said 

 would give only sufficient increase to al- 

 low expansion and the number of dead 

 trees would show what went to waste 

 while the big trees were reaching ma- 

 turity. 



Was there not here an opportunity to 

 assist nature in hastening the growth of 

 the forest? It would be a most interest- 

 ing experiment to try the process of thin- 

 ning on some of these tracts of over three 

 quarters of a century of suspended growth, 

 working judiciously so as not to destroy 

 the forest fringe or, bulwark which pro- 

 tects the trees from being thrown over by 

 the wind. With younger trees larger gains 

 could be made and enormous waste pre- 

 vented. The present plan of cutting the 

 best trees would soon make large clear 

 timber a thiug of the past. It was not 

 the. 'survival of the fittest' but the sur- 

 vival of the unfit, the forest growing con- 

 stantly worse from the removal of the best 

 trees. He would be a bold projector to 

 change present methods, but unless this 

 were done from whence would good tim- 

 ber be obtained in a few years? 



AN ECONOMIC WASTE. 



A correspondent writing in the Hailey- 

 bury Haileyhurian claims that all along the 

 shore of Lake Timiskaming and tributary 

 streams, there are millions of dollars' worth 

 of fine logs rotting because under present 

 conditions and owing to their scattered char- 

 acter it will not pay to 'water' them, 

 that is, to drag them to the water. They 

 have escaped from drives and been left on 

 the shore by the receding spring freshets. 

 He claims that the Dominion Government 

 should enact legislation to compel the gath- 

 ering and the floating of these logs to the 

 mills as a matter of forest conservation. 



