FORESTRY OX THE COUNTRY ESTATE 



L69 



Too MUCH OF A SEEDING CUT 



THIS SECT ON WILL HAVE TO BE PLANTED. THE SEED TREES WERE LEFT TOO UNPROTECTED AGAINST BEING WIND- 

 THROWN, TOO YOUNG AND TOO FAR APART. VOSGES, FRANCE. 



too thick. Again, certain sections will 

 have so many young maples in the 

 underbrush that you had best take off 

 the large mixed-species trees overhead, 

 thus acquiring a young section of maples 

 at nearly an age. 



Here, in this high flat table-land, the 

 white oaks have made a great showing. 

 Cruising through your forest there- 

 abouts you note that there appears to 

 be either a small one or some big sturdy 

 specimen about every few rods, in all 

 there are enough of them to warrant 

 making a section of white oak. First, 

 we will take out everything that is 

 palpably interfering with the growth of 

 the white oaks already in the stand, 

 after which we will look around to see 

 what chance there is for a seeding cut 

 in the neighborhood of the large seed- 

 bearing white oaks which are scattered 

 here and there in the section. Clearing 

 away the general underbrush is a first 

 step towards a good seeding cut, and 

 the next consists in taking out undesir- 

 ables that are at present keeping the 

 sunlight off the forest floor. This must 



be done judiciously, not too much or 

 you will have a husky epidemic of 

 weeds, but with enough out to give sun- 

 light from 10 a. m. to 4 p. m. you will 

 find a thick fur of young oaks on that 

 floor inside of two years. If this has 

 been done pretty evenly all over the 

 section you will wake up to the fact 

 some day that here is a forest of young 

 oaks, all of an age, growing up under 

 the larger trees, which young oaks will 

 demand more and more sunlight as 

 they grow older, requiring more and 

 more of the older trees to be taken out, 

 and before you know it that section will 

 be on the standard forest (futaie regu- 

 laire) system. 



A little further on we come to a big 

 ravine of rich soil that is doing well 

 in a natural forest of white pines, 

 started by a few that the lumberman 

 overlooked. For some reason of cross- 

 pollenization, isolated specimens of 

 white pine seldom set fertile seeds, and 

 grow old and die without any colony of 

 young ones coming up around them. 

 But a clump of even a few of them pro- 





