3l8 FORESTRY IN NEW ENGLAND 



4. Pure White Pine. — Several systems of reproduction can 

 be employed with this type, as white pine reproduces well after 

 nearly all styles of cutting. 



Regular even-aged stands are desired, hence some method of 

 clear cutting or the shelterwood system should be employed. 



The scattered seed tree method will give good results if the 

 proper type of seed trees are left. Three seed trees per acre are 

 usually sufficient to insure a full reproduction. These trees 

 can be taken out when the reproduction has started. Some 

 lumbermen laugh at the idea of leaving scattered white pine 

 seed trees, stating that from their experience the trees are sure to 

 blow down. On investigation the experience of such men with 

 seed trees usually proves to have been the leaving of tall, slender 

 unmerchantable trees with a sprig of foliage at the top. Natu- 

 rally such a tree has a feeble root system and a weak stem, and 

 is liable to be uprooted and blown down by the wind, and 

 moreover, is incapable of bearing fertile seed. It is in no sense 

 of the word a seed tree. 



Even when a sufficient number of first-class seed trees have 

 been left, satisfactory reproduction may not follow the cutting. 

 The principal cause of this failure is apt to be that the cutting 

 has been made in a year which was not a seed year, and that 

 before a seed year occurs the seed-bed conditions have become 

 unfavorable or other species have usurped the site. Periods of 

 three to seven years intervene between good seed years of white 

 pine. In New England the years 1897, 1904, 1907, 1908, 1910, 

 and 191 1 were good seed years for all or certain portions of the 

 region. If the cutting is made when the crop of seed has just 

 ripened much of the seed is worked into the ground and the fol- 

 lowing spring advantage is taken of favorable seed-bed condi- 

 tions, before grass, herbs, and other trees secure a start. 



It is often inconvenient to delay the cutting until a seed year 

 arrives, and this is one objection to the method, an objection 

 which holds also against another good method, clear cutting in 

 strips. In applying this system the strips cut over should not 

 exceed two hundred feet in width or about three times the height 



