TIMBER CUTTING IN MINNESOTA 



The Work of Logging the Pine Trees in 

 the Minnesota National Forest Reserve 



\Y7HEN completely established the 

 ** Minnesota National Forest Re- 

 serve will contain about 225,000 acres. 

 Of this area 105,000 acres have al- 

 ready been selected 'by the Govern- 

 ment. Under the terms of the Morris 

 law 95 per cent, of the pine timber 

 thereon must be cut. This pine has 

 been sold and the work of cutting was 

 actively prosecuted last year. Nine 

 logging camps were established, and 

 the cutting began early in" August. 

 Two camps, which worked under a 

 system of summer railroad logging, 

 shut down for the season in Novem- 

 ber. The other seven camps, in which 

 winter logging is being done, are still 

 running. 



The most interesting of the several 

 operations, from a forester's stand- 



point, was on sections 15, 16, 17, and 

 21 of township 145, R. 30. Section 

 1 6 was estimated to have the heaviest 

 stand of timber in the former Indian 

 Reservation. The very dense growth 

 made it especially difficult to carry 

 out with the best results the law re- 

 quiring 5 per cent, of the timber to 

 be left standing for reseeding or re- 

 foresting the land. When trees grow 

 so close together that, after felling, 

 the ground is almost completely hid- 

 den by their trunks, it is no easy mat- 

 ter to select single trees or small 

 groups of trees so situated that their 

 neighbors can be felled without injur- 

 ing them. This was, however, suc- 

 cessfully done. 



The first work undertaken in the 

 four sections mentioned, after locating 



Pure Stand of Sapling Norway Pine in the Minnesota National Forest Reserve. 



