MARYLAND GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 289 



vented five to six years of profitable growth. Suppression of this 

 kind is easily recognized and remedied by any intelligent farmer or 

 woodsman. 



In the majority of cases where timber is cut for sawlogs, ties and 

 props, from 10 to 30 per cent or more of the trees is left on the 

 ground as waste tops; and in the case of timber cut for tan-bark, the 

 entire trunks are commonly left unused. The danger of neglecting 

 unlopped, waste treetops, especially of hardwoods, is that the timber 

 is usually braced up from the ground where it seasons thoroughly and 

 rots very slowly, affording additional fuel for forest fires. The 

 burning of this material was observed to have done severe damage to 

 large trees standing near or in contact with it. 



Strict economy would not allow hardwood tops to be wasted when 

 they can be cut into fuel. But if circumstances are such as to make 

 this entirely impracticable or unprofitable, the refuse should be cut 

 and disposed on the ground so that it will decay as rapidly as possible. 

 The essential point is to bring it all in contact with the ground, where 

 it will decay. To accomplish this properly it will be necessary to 

 lop all large limbs which stand above ground. 



Precaution should be used in felling large timber so as not to drop 

 a big top, which must be left unused, near or in contact with large 

 standing trees. Such refuse tops should be placed, in felling, in 

 open places distant as far as possible from standing timber in order to 

 avoid burning the latter in case of fire. The labor of properly reduc- 

 ing waste hardwood tops will often be considerable, while the lopping 

 of the much smaller branches of unused conifer tops can be done 

 more quickly. 



Most farmers can easily carry out these precautions when doing 

 the cutting themselves or superintending it. It will be difficult, 

 however, to enforce this extra work in contract cutting, except under 

 the most rigid insistence. In the case of timber stolen, which not 

 infrequently occurs in the mountain forests, attention to waste tops 

 will of course be entirely neglected. 



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