6 College of Fores try 



LITTLE OR NO VALUABLE TREE GROWTH ON DENUDED LANDS. 



What is the condition of these denuded lands at the present time? 

 Over much of the area we will find a scattering growth of brush 

 and inferior tree species occupying the ground or we may find old, 

 abandoned pastures gradually giving up to the extension of the forests 

 about them. Usually they produced a valuable timber crop in the 

 past and are capable of such production again. If left to herself 

 Nature might succeed in time in re-establishing a good forest. How- 

 ever, the often repeated statement that if we will simply protect our 

 cutover lands, as they now exist, from fire, that they will soon come 

 up to valuable forests again, is seldom true. Where a reasonable 

 number of the right kind of mother trees have been left on the 

 ground, Nature may in time reforest the surface with a fair growth 

 of timber. There are very extensive areas in New York where all of 

 the valuable trees have been cut or destroyed by fire and it will take 

 many years indeed to bring back anything in the way of a satis- 

 factory forest. Over such areas it will be necessary to do a certain 

 amount of planting before the right kind of forest can be established. 

 As the forest lands of New York lie largely in the zone of the 

 maximum development of the conifers, which are usually evergreens, 

 the future forests of the State will without doubt be made up largely 

 of rapid growing conifers such as some of the pines and spruces. 



SECOND GROWTH HARDWOOD OFTEN WORTHLESS. 



Over lands which formerly produced a hardwood forest, Nature 

 often re-establishes a second forest in a comparatively short time. 

 These second growth hardwood or sprout forests are formed readily 

 from the stumps of trees and in a measure are independent of seed 

 trees for reproduction. It is very different with the conifers or ever- 

 greens which with one or two exceptions are incapable of reproducing 

 by means of sprouts. As certain of our conifers are the most rapid 

 growing trees which we can put onto the land and have a timber 

 that is very desirable for use in the industries, it is probable that 

 much of our future forests will be evergreen or coniferous. There is 

 too much land in the State to-day covered with poor, worthless, second 

 growth hardwoods. These should be removed entirely and replaced 

 by seedlings of the evergreens. Much quicker returns will be gotten 

 by this clear cutting and planting than can be expected from the present 

 growth on the ground, even though some attempt is made to im- 

 prove it. After the coniferous forest is once well established it may 



