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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



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GETTING THE SEED 



The pine cones are dried in the manner shown in the photo- 

 graph in order to obtain the seed. The company now has 

 about 1300 pounds of seed on hand. 



hardly to be equalled in a city of a hundred thousand 

 people. It all represents faith in just one idea that sane 

 and practical reforestation can be made to pay dividends. 



The problem of growing timber is perhaps more simple 

 in the south than in certain other parts of the country. 

 Given a chance Nature seems to generously attend to the 

 re-seeding, and the loblolly, or old field pine, indigenous 

 to that section, is one of the most rapid growing of all 

 species. Although taking about five times as long to 

 reach maturity, the lorg leaf jiine, which for many year? 

 has been the standard wood for construction purposes 

 throughout most of the United States, also reproduces 

 freely. 



The chief obstacle has been fire. In this well-settled 

 community the careless match has been responsible for 

 the destruction of many millions of seedlings every year. 

 Even people who profess to understand the principles of 

 forestry have claimed that a burning over of the land im- 

 mediately after the timber is cut is one of the best means 

 of promoting reforestation. For the ])ine of the south this 

 is emphatically untrue, and although a few seedlings may 

 survive the first burning, the majority are destroyed. The 

 dangerous season in southern Louisiana is during the 

 winter months, for there is no snowfall, and as soon as 

 the first frost nips the long grass which every- 

 where covers the forest floor, it becomes a most inflam- 

 mable tinder ready to flare up at the slightest spark. 

 Plowed fire lanes dividing the tracts into the smallest 



one such group 

 carefully counted, 

 tree, and keeps a 



])ossible units within a reasonable limit of expense, have 

 been used with success, and this company is to supple- 

 ment this with watch-towers, where a man will be con- 

 tinually on duty. 



The present town site of Bogalusa, Louisiana, was en- 

 tirely cut over about 14 years ago. Where repeated grass 

 fires have burned through there is jjractically no repro- 

 duction.hut in many places naturally protected a splendid 

 second growth of loblolly may be observed. For 

 the Forestry Department nas 

 measured and numbered every 

 record of annual growth as i-. 

 check for its own estimates. Last year a few of these 

 trees were cut and manufactured into paper pulp as a 

 l)roof of the practicability of the reforestation idea. 

 Doubtless it would have paid better to have left these 

 trees four or five years longer, but in this case the com- 

 pany merely desired to illustrate its contention. 



Many natives of the long-leaf pine country claim triai 

 an area timbered \vi|th long-leaf will not come up a 

 second time to the same species,but only to the short-leaf 

 varieties. The Louisiana State Forestry Department 

 some time ago demonstrated the falsity of this theory 

 and explained the reason. Every settler in that country, 

 be he white or black, keeps a varying numlier of hogs. 

 The chances are he does not know himself how many, for 

 the State is without a stock law and stock of all kinds are 

 allowed to range about through the unfenced woods and 

 cut over lands. The long-leaf seedling devotes the first 

 year or so of its life chiefly to growing roots, and the long 

 tap-root with its heavy sugar content is a favorite tit-bit 

 for these range hogs. A few hungry hogs will pretty ef- 

 fcctuallv kill the one or two vear old long-leaf stand on a 



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CLOSE UTILIZATION 

 The up-to-date lumberman economizes by having his lumber 

 cut as close to the ground as possible. This is real forest con- 

 servation. 



