-CUT CLEAN AND KEEP OUT FIRE'^ 



By R. 



T N a nutshell, this sums up the opinion of many forest- 

 ' ers in New York State as to the least expensive and 

 most practical means of securing continuous production 

 of a forest crop of value in the Adirondack region. 



This does not mean that leaving nature to take her 

 course after cutting will bring back a new stand of the 

 same kind of timber as the old one, nor that intensive 

 silviculture will not produce a more valuable crop than 



S. Kellogg 



of the methods used by nature in restoring and main- 

 taining a forest when unhampered by fire. 



On the site of the first photograph, for instance, the 

 timber was cut entirely clean 28 years ago for camp wood 

 over a considerable area. Today there is on this same 

 ground a beautiful young stand of yellow birch, maple 

 and other hardwood saplings, straight, tall and in good 

 density. In fact, measurements made in 1920 by Pro- 

 fessor Recknagel, of the Cornell Department of Forestry, 

 showed at that time a stand of 22i/2 cords per acre, a 

 growth of nearly nine-tenths cord per acre per year of 

 wood fibre, produced entirely through the unaided efforts 

 of nature to maintain the forest. 



The second photograph shows a cutting made two 

 years ago within a short distance of the first for the 

 purpose of hardwood lumber, there being left behind 

 trees too small or too defective to utilize profitably 

 There are now coming up on the ground a large number 

 of hardwood seedlings, which if fire does not get in, 

 will ultimately result in a forest of very uneven age 

 and one containing many older trees, which in addition 

 to being of little value themselves will have been a 



NATURAL GROWTH OF HARDWOOD SAPLINGS FOLLOWING 

 CLEAN CUTTING AND PROTECTION FROM FIRE 



no silviculture at all, but forestry must pay its way and 

 methods must be used whose cost will not be prohibitive 

 when carried over the period of timber growth. 



The clean cutting of spruce or of mixed spruce and 

 hardwood may be followed by a forest consisting entirely 

 of poplar, birch, maple and other hardwoods, but who 

 can say that such a forest fifty years hence may not be 

 as valuable as one of spruce? It does not require a 

 long memory to recall that forests in the Adirondacks 

 were originally cut over for pine, then for pulpwood, 

 next for hardwoods with oftentimes a large amount of 

 cordwood still left after the last cutting, and that in 

 each successive cutting the value per acre was greater 

 than in the preceding one despite the elimination of what 

 was previously considered the only valuable species. 



Considerations such as these were the subject of lively 

 discussion and interested observation at the recent meet- 

 ing of the New York Section of the Society of American 

 Foresters, near Tupper Lake, participated in by repre- 

 sentatives of the forest schools, foresters of the Conser- 

 vation Commission and foresters in a wide variety of 

 private undertakings. It was a meeting in the woods 

 and about the woods and a nearby lumber operation 

 which exhibited all the stages of cutting and growth 

 from pine to cordwood was a most instructive example 



CONDITION OF THE FOREST TWO YEARS AFTER THE USUAL 

 HARDWOOD CUTTING 



hindrance to the growth of the more even aged younger 

 stand. Obviously, had this stand been cut clean as in 

 the first photograph, the succeeding forest would have 

 been more valuable than the one that will now follow. 

 However, the cutting was determined by the rules of 

 practical utilization which forbid the taking out of any^ 

 tree that will not pay its way. Had there been a 

 market for the remaining firewood, a better forest 

 would have been secured than the one which will now 

 result. 



By the way of contrast with these examples of natural 

 reforestation, a snapshot is shown taken in the noted . 



