304 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



July 



these pine stands are cut off when they 

 are far from mature. On white pine 

 between thirty and forty years old 

 lumbermen frequently make over 30 

 per cent, on the money invested with- 

 in a year or so after purchase. While 

 this young pine may be growing at a 

 most excellent rate, possibly as high 

 as 8 per cent., there is little induce- 

 ment for holding if these much higher 

 immediate returns can be realized and 

 'the operation repeated indefinitely. 



A few figures illustrating the char- 

 acter of these forests may be of in- 

 terest. One lot of four and one-half 

 seres gave a yield of nearly 100,000 

 feet B. M.. Boxboards are now worth 

 about $12 a thousand delivered at the 

 railroad, while some of the square 

 edge pine runs as high as $16. From 

 25 to 50 per cent, of the cut is usually 

 of the latter character. In Union, the 

 principal pine town of the state, an 

 80 acre lot sold this winter at $100 an 

 acre. The general character of the 

 pine stand in this region is illustrated 

 by a lot of fifteen and one-half acres 

 which produced 459,000 feet B. M., or 

 an average of nearly 30,000 feet. The 

 net profit on this lot to the lumberman 

 amounted to $2,000. Some of the 

 original virgin pine timber, the last of 

 which was cut about fifteen years ago, 

 is reported to have run 100,000 feet 

 to the acre. 



If this state of things could last in- 

 definitely there could be no particular 

 objection to the present methods, but 

 since the supply of pine is rapidly ap- 

 proaching exhaustion the cutting of 

 this immature, rapid growing pine is 

 naturally a source of regret. The 

 only remedy seems to be the education 

 of the land owners to an appreciation 

 of the real value of their timber and 

 the rate of interest at which it is grow- 

 ing. If they understood that their 

 timber is growing at a rapid rate of 

 interest and that prices are also in- 

 creasing they would hold this timber 

 and could be induced to practice for- 

 estry. The lumbermen would also 

 benefit in the end for the stability of 

 their business would be maintained. 



If these forests were kept to an age 

 of sixty to seventy-five years instead 

 of being cut at about forty there would 

 be opportunity for good forestry work. 

 There is little doubt that careful thin- 

 ning would result in very much better 

 lumber and greater yields. Thinnings 

 are in most cases perfectly feasible. 

 I have the opinion of a lumberman for 

 authority that when lumbering is go- 

 ing on in a region neighboring stands 

 could be thinned out without financial 

 loss. Where the trees to be removed 

 are six inches in diameter or over they 

 can be sawed into boxboards, and in 

 some sections there is a market for 

 pine fuel. 



The question of production is, per- 

 haps, the most important. White pine 

 is naturally such a fine reproducer that 

 it seems there should be no difficulty 

 in securing a new stand. Methods of 

 lumbering in common use remove 

 everything on the land so that not only 

 no seed trees are left, but patches of 

 reproduction which are often very 

 thick and sometimes ten feet high are 

 totally destroyed. Where lumbermen 

 have purchased the land as well as 

 the timber they should be far-sighted 

 enough to leave seed trees, and there 

 are always plenty of worthless trees 

 on a lot which could serve for such 

 purposes. Strange to say there seems 

 to be more interest among lumbermen 

 in planting this land after lumbering 

 than in making any attempt at natural 

 reproduction. Owners who sell to 

 lumbermen simply the timber, retain- 

 ing the land, could easily make some 

 contract whereby seed trees would be 

 left. 



Undoubtedly the clear cutting meth- 

 od yields the highest present financial 

 results, but these forests are admira- 

 bly suited to either the strip or group 

 system of regeneration and one of 

 these would probably prove most re- 

 munerative in the long run. 



One of the chief objections to hold- 

 ing pine until maturity is, of course, 

 the danger from fire. This, as every- 

 where, is the chief impediment to for- 



