1900. 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



2 33 



This, then, is the condition ; a forest of 

 old, decrepit hard-woods, deteriorating 

 from year to year, with a tainted progeny 

 struggling beneath, and a small, though 

 promising number of young Spruces im- 

 peded in their development by the former, 

 with occasional older trees that can be used 

 as seed trees. Can there be any question 

 as to the changes which it is desirable to 

 effect, if we apply the reasoning of rational 

 political and financial economy? Remove 

 the dead capital of old hard-wood timber 

 and replace it by a young, thrifty crop 

 growing into value, in which the more 

 desirable conifers preponderate ! 



The silviculturist will have to decide as 

 to how best to secure this young crop, 

 which may be done by favoring the volun- 

 teer crop of conifers, by giving a chance 

 for seeds from left-over seed trees to find a 

 seedbed and favorable light conditions for 

 development, or by planting or sowing 

 artificially. But before he can apply his 

 skill, the manager must have found a way 

 of disposing of the hard-wood crop. And 

 here is the pivotal point of the problem, as 

 with most of the forest problems that are 

 to be worked out on a financial basis in the 

 United States, namely the market question. 



If the silviculturist is to show his skill in 

 producing a new crop, the old ci'op must 

 be disposed of ; not only must a market 

 first be found for the sound, merchantable 

 sawlogs, but for the much more bulky and 

 less valuable portion of poor cordwood, 

 which, in the Adirondack timber, may 

 readily be set down as exceeding in quan- 

 tity the saw material six to seven times. 

 Where this cannot be done, the culled lands 

 may still eke out an income by further 

 culling the forest of Spruce and other pulp 

 material, etc., but it is evident that this can 

 only be at the expense and to the detriment 

 of the value of the property. In such 

 cases, there is nothing left to do but to 

 wait for economic conditions to change 

 until the old hard-wood crop is saleable 

 the time for the application of silviculture 

 tias not arrived. 



One of the absolutely unavoidable con- 

 ditions for marketing hard-wood material 

 is accessibility to railroad transportation 

 either for the raw material or the manu- 



facture. Therefore, before the State can 

 enter upon a policy which has in view the 

 rational use of its property from a forestry 

 point of view, it must change the provision 

 which prevents railroad building over State 

 lands. I do not advocate the indiscrim- 

 inate opening of the State lands to railroad 

 construction, but merely state that rail 

 transportation is a necessity for technical 

 management of these lands. 



The State College of Forestry has been 

 successful in securing a market for the 

 hard-wood material on its tract of thirty 

 thousand acres, by inducing manufacturers 

 of staves and of wood alcohol to combine 

 in establishing plants and in building the 

 necessary railroad tracks. By such com- 

 bination, the fullest and most economical 

 use of hard-wood materials at present known 

 is secured, since all sound material to a 

 diameter of eight inches and a length of 

 thirty-two inches can be used for stave- 

 wood, while the retort and fuel wood used 

 in the manufacture of alcohol takes the 

 material down to three inches, thus assur- 

 ing the fullest possible utilization of all the 

 material in the tree. Of course no restric- 

 tions as to largest or smallest diameter of 

 trees to be cut or to be left have been al- 

 lowed in the contract, silvicultural con- 

 siderations alone coming into the question 

 as to what is to be cut and what to be left. 

 The college is the sole arbiter. The 

 amount annually to be cut is necessarily 

 determined by the requirements of the 

 manufacturer. 



To the European forester, and to those 

 who attempt to propagate European sys- 

 tems of forest management, based on 

 doubtful calculations of capital stock and 

 yield, the absence of such calculations and 

 of an adherence to a so-called sustained 

 yield management will appear strange. 



In the first place, the data upon which 

 such calculations are based can hardly be 

 secured with any measurable degree of 

 accuracy from the virgin woods, nay, it is 

 well nigh impossible to ascertain the rate 

 of growth which will prevail after the sil- 

 viculturist has changed the light conditions 

 under which growth proceeds. In the 

 second place, the time for these finer- 

 methods has certainly not arrived in our 



