YIELD TO BE EXPECTED FROM NEW ENGLAND FORESTS 409 



lieved to be altogether too low for New England, since the forested 

 lands are better stocked, the soils are of a greater productive 

 power, and the forests contain large areas of second-growth 

 stands (ordinarily more productive in a given time than virgin 

 stands). It will be safer to place the annual growth per acre of 

 the forested area of New England at thirty cubic feet, and apply- 

 ing this figure to the area forested gives about 757,000,000 cubic 

 feet as the total annual growth. 



This growth, however, is more than offset by the annual cut 

 for lumber, pulpwood, ties, poles, cordwood, etc., which is esti- 

 mated to reach 850,000,000 cubic feet. There is not such a 

 large discrepancy between annual cut and annual growth as 

 exists in many other sections of the country; the growth in some 

 cases being far below the annual cut and in a few regions greater 

 than the cut. The ideal arrangement is to have the yearly 

 growth equal the amount cut, or slightly exceed the latter, 

 since then it is usually possible to continue the annual cut 

 indefinitely^ without fear of exhausting the supply. 



As the annual cut of the New England forests is only about 

 12 per cent greater than the growth there would appear to be 

 no immediate danger of the local wood supply being exhausted; 

 although the quality of the timber cut is deteriorating from year 

 to year, the bulk of the present cut coming from second-growth 

 stands or from lands already culled of the highest grade material. 



Moreover, while the annual growth is nearly as large as the 

 cut, yet in quality it is much poorer than the latter. The 

 abundance of inferior species and the partial stocking of many 

 areas (resulting in the production of knotty trees) are the prin- 

 cipal causes for the poor quality of the annual growth. Thus with 

 the decreasing quahty of the cut, and of the growth, the pro- 

 ductive power of the forest lands must fall off; if not in amount, 

 certainly in grade of product. This is unnecessary and should 

 not be allowed to continue as under scientific management of 



1 Even though the growth is equal to the amount cut the latter cannot be 

 indefinitely maintained unless the forests are fully stocked and unless stands of 

 young, middle-aged, and old timber are found occupying fairly equal areas. 



