324 FORESTRY IN NEW ENGLAND 



pine stand. (It will be remembered that the hardwoods in the 

 type are gray birch, soft maple, and poplar, and are of little 

 value except for cordwood.) The treatment to accomplish this 

 transformation consists mainly in cutting out all hardwoods 

 and leaving the pine. It can best be started as an improve- 

 ment cutting (strictly a cleaning) in young stands, freeing 

 the pine from crowding and overtopping hardwoods. In very 

 young stands, too small to furnish cordwood, the hardwoods 

 can be lopped back sufficiently so that their tops are lower 

 than those of the pine. This provides for the proper de- 

 velopment of the white pine in the stand, though it may not 

 result in any further seeding. Where areas of more than a 

 quarter of an acre are stocked with the hardwoods and there is 

 no pine in the mixture, it is necessary either to cut clear and 

 plant or else to secure pine reproduction naturally from adjacent 

 seed trees. Planting is the quickest and surest, but natural re- 

 production can be secured by cutting clear the hardwoods 

 when seed trees nearby have a full crop of seed. Whether arti- 

 ficial or natural reproduction is used it will be necessary to 

 protect the pine seedlings from the growth of hardwood sprouts, 

 which is almost certain to follow the cutting. This can be ac- 

 complished by means of cleanings. 



When the type changes into the pure white pine type its 

 treatment becomes the same as that described for the latter. 



6. Mixed Hardwoods. — This is another type best handled as 

 an even-aged forest, as that is its present form and the repro- 

 duction is quite largely by sprouts, making it desirable to 

 maintain a regular even-aged character. 



The shelterwood system or the modified form of this system, 

 known as the polewood coppice system is advised. As the 

 mixed hardwoods type of this region occurs in greater abun- 

 dance and is the chief commercial type in the adjacent forest 

 region to the south (sprout hardwoods region), a full discussion 

 of its treatment has been given under this latter region, to which 

 the reader is referred. The same general method of treatment 

 can be used in both regions. 



