FORESTRY FOR SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND 



WOODLOTS. 



BY 



R. T. FISHER, 



BUREAU OF FORESTRY. 



THE sort of forestry which is ap- ily increasing without any compensating 

 plicable to southern New Eng- quickening of the reproduction. Thus, 

 land is governed, first of all, by the broadly speaking, these forests are in 

 character and condition of the forest, need either of improvement cuttings, 

 Taking the region as a whole, it is cov- which shall stimulate their growth and 

 ered with an immature growth of mixed encourage the more valuable trees, or of 

 hardwoods, in which, as in eastern and reproduction cuttings, which shall start 

 western Massachusetts, respectively, a much needed crop of seedlings, 

 there is some White Pine and Spruce. To meet these needs, and to enable 

 Few stands are more than 60 years old, forest-owners to meet them in some de- 

 and fully 75 per cent are of sprout gree unaided, has been the aim of recent 

 origin, having come up after the clear field-work on the part of the Bureau of 

 cuttings which have hitherto prevailed. Forestry. In response to applications 

 In these cuttings stumps were com- for assistance, some twenty-five tracts 

 monly left high and ragged, and fire in the region specified were visited and 

 frequently followed the choppers. The examined, and a scheme of treatment 

 succeeding growth, developing without was advised for each. This scheme or 

 care and often subject to further visita- working plan, simply stated, consisted 

 tions from fire, became much inferior in just as many of the needed silvicul- 

 to the previous generation. Compara- tural measures as were worth while to 

 tively worthless species, like Gray Birch, the owner; hence the degree of treat- 

 Poplar, and Pine Cherry, took posses- ment possible depended very largely on 

 sion of much ground before occupied the general purpose for which the forest 

 by more valuable trees. The growing was held and its situation with regard 

 sprouts were so thick that they forced to market, labor, and transportation, 

 each other to become crooked, and their An absentee owner, whose woodlot is 

 attachment to a high and decaying merely an uncertain asset, too remote 

 stump often infected them with a fun- to be looked after in person, could obvi- 

 gous disease. As they grew on, un- ously do little more than sell it on the 

 thinned, the dying and suppressed in- stump to a local buyer and allow it to be 

 dividuals choked the forest, so that not cut as the buyer wished. On the other 

 only the growth, but the reproduction, hand, a water company, whose forest 

 was retarded. land is chiefly useful to protect the 

 Similar evils are to be found in the slopes draining into its reservoirs, can- 

 few older stands from which scattering not afford to leave it neglected, and in 

 trees or patches of trees have from time such a case careful management, even 

 to time been cut out. More often than if it merely pays for itself, is a necessary 

 not it was the thriftiest trees and the undertaking. For farmers, and other 

 best species that were cut, when poorer owners who count upon using or selling 

 specimens would have served equally a certain amount of wood from their 

 well, and, as no pains were taken to woodland, forestry is equally important 

 spare seedling growth already on the and often more immediately profitable, 

 ground, the number of poor individuals The cost of proper harvesting for resi- 

 and less valuable species has been stead- dent owners is but little greater than 



