Canadian Forestry Journal, April, 1919 



169 



EXPERIMENTS IN SCIENTIFIC CUTTING 



B^y Hon. W. R. Brown, The BroTvn Corporation, 

 Berlin, N.H., and La Tuque, Quebec. 



Impor 



tance of Clearing Out Hardwoods and 

 Balsam Fir Emphasized by Experience 



I will present briefly for your consid2ration 

 and discussion the general silvical systems which 

 the Brown Company has tried in Northern New 

 Hampshire and Maine, with the results obtained 

 from them twenty years after. 



Our first experimentation was started in the 

 early '90's under the direction of Professor 

 Austin Gary, one of the firs,t professional for- 

 esters practicing in the United States. Mr. Gary 

 had received a thorough training in his pro- 

 fession abroad, and came to us shortly after 

 completing an exhaustive study of the northern 

 spruce under the direction of Professor B. E. 

 Fernow, Ghief of the Department of Agriculture 

 at Washington. He was given the problem of 

 adapting foreign methods to American conditions 

 for the purpose of conserving a supply of pulp- 

 wood for our paper mills from our New England 

 lands, and incidently securing a closer utiliza- 

 tion of the crop. At the same time he showed 

 the immediate need of a better system of fire 

 prevention and made a careful study and report 

 on the insect and fungi enemies of the northern 

 woods. Under his direction various systems of 

 cutting were tried out, the principal being: 



First — Selective cutting to a diameter of 15, 

 14, 12 and 10 inches, under different conditions 

 and in different stands. 



Second — Glean cutting of soft woods in strips 

 and bunches in soft wood stands. 



Third — Glean cutting of soft woods in soft 

 wood stands. 



Fourth — Glean cutting of soft and hard 

 woods in mixed stands. 



I will give you the present day results obtained 

 by these four methods carried out from 25 years 

 ago up to the present time. 



The physical conditions surrounding opera- 

 tions in Maine and New Hampshire are quite 

 similar to those prevailing in Ganada. The 

 species cut in the order of their abundance are 

 spruce, fir and pine, with a little cedar, hemlock 

 and tamrack mixed in. The wood is cut solely 

 for business reasons, to produce lumber and 

 pulpwood, being taken in 38 foot logs for lum- 



A PROGRESSIVE MINISTER 



Hon. G. H. Ferguson. Minisi. i ..i l.;iiuis. 

 Forests and Mines. Province ol Ontario. 



ber, and 4, 8 and 12 foot lengths for pulp. The 

 spruce growth is comparatively larger than the 

 spruce growth of Quebec, and stands more 

 thickly per acre, being principally red spruce 

 mixed with a certain amount of the white and 

 black varieties. Fir balsam is present in quan- 

 tity of about one-third of the soft woods, and 

 hardwoods constitute about fifty per cent of the 

 whole stand on the lands. The country is more 

 mountainous and broken than in Ganada, with 

 a rough and rocky bottom, covered by a soil 

 that is thin, wet and unsuitod for agriculture, but 

 not as readily subject to fire as the sandy sub- 

 soil of much of Quebec. Hauls rarely exceed 

 five miles to drivable streams. Present stand is 

 equally divided between old growth and second 

 cuttings. Gut over soils suffer little erosion. 



