THE ART OF THE SECOND GROWTH 



Under tlie reversed conditions, the expense incurred for natural 

 regeneration often exceeds that required for artificial regeneration. 



In innumerable cases, natural and artificial regeneration are 

 locally and irregularly combined. 



It might be claimed that the forest has secured its own regen- 

 eration through many millenia, and that it will continue to do 

 so unaided by human activity. Why then, it might be asked, is it 

 necessary or advisable to now offer costly assistance in order to 

 secure a natural reseeding of and in a lumbered tract of woodland? 

 -« There cannot be any doubt that nature, barring bad conflagra- 

 tions or heavy pasturage, will start and develop after lumbering 

 some kind of a second growth of forest. As a matter of fact, it is 

 usually at hand, previous to lumbering, in an embryonic or incom- 

 plete state waiting for the chance to shoot ahead after the removal 

 of the older trees. This ready nucleus, however, consists as a rule 

 of inferior or worthless species; of specimens crippled by fire, by 

 the fall (accidental or otherwise) of nearby trees, by the logger's 

 axe or foot, by passing teams and loads, etc. In addition, many 

 members of that nucleus will die when suddenly bereaved of the 

 shelter (against drought, cold, hail, etc.), previously exercised by 

 the old trees now removed. 



It must be remembered that a crop of weeds usually follows 

 in the field after the harvest of valuable wheat; in the forest 

 after the harvest of valuable timber. 



Such "weeds" are unable to secure for the owner of the land 

 a sufficient rate of interest on the value of the soil and an adequate 

 reimbursement of the taxes due on the soil. 



Another point worthy of attention lies in the poor chances 

 which a grain of seed stands, in nature's economy, to develop into 

 a seedling, sapling, pole and tree. The probability is that but one 

 grain of seed — out of millions of grains — produced by an individual 

 tree during its lifetime succeeds in reaching tree size, replacing its 

 progenitor on the forest floor. The ecologic incidents bringing about 

 this result are far from being clearly understood. Still, it must be 

 the sylviculturist's aim to provide for these incidents, if he desires 

 to replace the old crop, removed at an unnatural rate of rapidity, 

 at an equally fast rate by an offspring resulting from self-sown 

 seed. 



If the forester were satisfied to merely remove nature's mori- 

 bimds, then he might get along with a purely natural regeneration, 

 entirely unaided by human skill. 



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