THE SPRUCE REGION 23 1 



Such a fire will necessarily be hotter than a spring or fall fire and 

 do more damage to the stumps. 



The rotation for the birch and poplar type should lie between 

 forty and seventy-five years. If left longer than eighty years, 

 stands containing much poplar will rapidly decrease in mer- 

 chantable content, because poplar matures usually before that 

 time. Paper birch also is a short-hved tree, though a little 

 longer lived than poplar, and like poplar deteriorates rapidly 

 after maturity. If the stands are composed of sprouts and root 

 suckers the age of maturity comes a few years earlier and rota- 

 tions of sixty years or under are advisable. 



Planting. — Planting as yet is not an important branch of 

 management in the spruce region of New England, nor will it 

 ever take the position which it holds in some other forest regions. 

 The reason for this is that natural reproduction of the valuable 

 species is so abundant that the necessity for artificial restocking 

 of cut-over lands does not ordinarily arise. Lands once cleared 

 for agriculture and then later left idle and requiring planting to 

 become productive are insignificant in area. 



Occasionally very heavily cut lands and burns which have 

 failed to reproduce or have become stocked with worthless species 

 oft'er opportunities for planting.^ Very little planting of such 

 lands has been done up to the present time. When the advis- 

 ability of making all lands productive and replacing poor with 

 valuable species is better realized planting will be adopted. As 

 yet the sentiment in favor of planting, except on old fields in the 

 Vermont section, is little developed. 



The best species to plant for general purposes is the Norway 

 spruce, on account of its rapid growth (more rapid than red 

 spruce) and ease with which it is raised in a nursery. Its wood 

 is also valuable for pulp or timber. White spruce should also 

 be used and white pine and Norway pine in the lower elevations 

 of the type. The latter is nearly as rapid in growth as white 

 pine, will endure poorer soils, and is a tree immune from danger- 



1 Earlier in the chapter planting has been recommended for use in reproducing 

 stands of the old field s[)ruce tjpe. 



