354 FORESTRY IN NEW ENGLAND 



varices in age chestnut, oak, hickory,^ and white ash reproduce 

 and develop beneath the hght shade of the gray birch and 

 cedar. These good hardwoods are more rapid growing than 

 the cedar and do not mature so early as the gray birch. Hence 

 they are able finally to crowd out the cedar and gray birch and 

 change the type to the mixed hardwoods type. This is a long 

 process, rarely as short as fifty years and sometimes requiring 

 one hundred and fifty years for its completion. 



Cedar furnishes an excellent grade of fence posts, but the 

 chief product of the type is a poor quality of cordwood. The 

 stands of pure gray birch are rapid growing for the first twenty 

 years, and soon after that time begin to deteriorate, while those 

 containing cedar are extremely slow in growth through life. 

 Measurements show that it takes about forty years to grow a 

 red cedar fence post eight feet long and four inches at the top. 



Methods of Handling the Forest. 



Intensive methods of management are possible throughout 

 the greater part of the sprout hardwoods region. It is only in 

 relatively few places, remote from the railroads, that intensive 

 methods cannot be used, and here only because the sale of 

 cordwood does not yield a profit. Within a distance of six miles 

 from a railroad a profit can usually be secured on cordwood. 

 Where the wood is cut and burned for charcoal a slight profit 

 may be made at greater distances. 



On account of the predominance of hardwoods in the forest 

 and because on many sites nothing but cordwood is produced, 

 a greater percentage of the forest products must be marketed as 

 cordwood than in any of the other New England forest regions. 

 There is a smaller per capita consumption of cordwood - than in 

 the northern hardwoods region, because in this section- the 

 cold season is shorter and coal is largely used, even in the 



1 Heavy seeded species such as chestnut, oak, and hickory, gain a start on old 

 fields, through the assistance of squirrels which scatter the seeds widely. 



2 Estimated to be twice as large in the northern hardwoods as in the sprout 

 hardwoods regions. 



