INTRODUCTION XXX111 



nature of the case, no manual can be blindly followed or can be 

 made to apply in all. parts of the country equally well. There 

 is no field of forestry in which common sense and attention to 

 detail are so essential to success. 



10. REFORESTATION BY PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS 

 AND CORPORATIONS 



Although methods of natural regeneration must be depended 

 upon in a large measure in future forest practice in this country, 

 there are large areas, formerly in timber, which have been so 

 badly burned both before and after lumbering that natural re- 

 production is no longer possible. As these lands are, for the most 

 part, non-agricultural, they should be brought again under forest 

 growth. We should not expect, however, that this will be brought 

 about by private individuals. The returns from present invest- 

 ments are too far in the future, man is too selfish, and the span 

 of life is too short. The reforestation of these lands can be ac- 

 complished in a satisfactory manner only through public owner- 

 ship. 



Private forestry has a more distinctive and encouraging field 

 in the agricultural regions, where, in the aggregate, there is a vast 

 area of idle land attached to the farms. Much of this can be 

 made productive by the introduction of forest growth through 

 seeding or planting. 



When fields through successive cropping or grazing have be- 

 come exhausted or unprofitable for agriculture, the custom in this 

 country has been to leave them to grow up to a more or less 

 scattered growth of timber through natural seeding. The char- 

 acter of the stand is determined almost entirely by the compo- 

 sition of the adjacent woodlots. In a few instances, as in the 

 white pine region of New England and the loblolly pine region of 

 the South, excellent stands of timber result from this practice. 

 In the main, however, such stands are of little value. When 

 fields under cultivation are once abandoned for the purpose of 

 agriculture and when there is no assurance of a desirable stand of 

 timber through natural seeding, it is, in general, sound economy 

 to seed or plant them with forest trees. 



The farmers' woodlots produce more than half of the total 

 hardwood consumption of the country. Although, in the main, 

 they have been recklessly managed and culled of the better 



