AMERICAN SYLVICULTURE 



buying and retaining primeval forests for their own benefit and 

 incidentally for the benefit of later generations of men. With every 

 parcel of primeval forest destroyed, the value of the balance left 

 increases in estimation and in actual usefulness. 



Sylviculturally, no forest requires a more minute and more 

 painstaking treatment than the primeval forest, when its conversion 

 into a cultured foiest is at stake. Still, the small price obtainable 

 for its products defies any attempt at a remunerative outcome 

 of heavj^ sylvicultural «utlays. What is the use of safeguarding 

 or producing a second growth, by sylvicultural acts, which is devoid 

 of any prospective value, or which is of a value inferior to the 

 expense required to safeguard it or to produce it ? 



Thus, sylviculturally as well as financially it seems very fre- 

 quently best to leave the primeval wood unattended, unregenerated, 

 unconverted, for the time being. 



When the average acre of primeval forest commands, in a given 

 locality, a price of $100 or more, its owner can begin to consider 

 the advisability of logging it with a view to relogging it. 



Where the vakie of the preceding growth is at its best, the art 

 of the second growth is at its best also. 



Where the cut of the mature stands yields hundreds of dollars 

 per acre, the owner is willmg to set aside from ten to twenty 

 dollars per acre, investing them in a second growth. 



Is it not insane to expect an owner to convert a first growth 

 worth but tAventy dollars per acre into a second growth at an 

 expense of twenty dollars per acre? 



The outsider urges the timberman to do what he Avould never do 

 himself: To exchange a steer for a calf. 



II. The culled forest usually exists in localities where timber 

 has a higher value than in tlie primeval backwoods. 



Indeed, where the culling of the forest has made great progress 

 in a state or in a county, there the culled forest is getting rapidly 

 ripe for sylvicultural treatment. 



Heavy culling merely proves a high range of stumpage prices, 

 fostered by a near-by market and by good means of transportation. 



Where the forest has been culled only of decidedly mature 

 trees, there the chances for good results are bright, financially as 

 well as sylviculturally. 



The attitude which the owner of culled forests adopts towards 

 sylvicultural investments, necessarily depends on a diagnosis of the 

 future of the lumber industry appealing to him. 



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