36 PRELIMINARY STUDY OF 



The very limited area that can be used as wood lots should be 

 made to yield as many posts and other farm timbers as possible. 

 The principal problems connected with wood-lot management are 

 similar to those that have already been mentioned for the Valley 

 of East Tennessee and the Highland Rim. In many cases it may be 

 necessary to plant young trees in order to secure a full growing 

 stock. The natural locust groves may often be made more pro- 

 ductive by judicious thinning. These should be a good profit in 

 growing red cedar on stony hill sides that are not of much value for 

 other purposes, since fence posts can probably be grown in open 

 stands in twenty-five years. Information on methods of manage- 

 ment of red cedar for pencil wood may be obtained from Circular 

 102 of the United States Forest Service. 



WEST TENNESSEE PLATEAU AND BOTTOM LANDS. 



The management of farm wood lots is the chief problem of the 

 uplands here, as in the other agricultural districts. Also the prob- 

 lem of the best use of land presents itself in another form. In this 

 case woodland is being unwisely cleared by negro farmers in order 

 to secure fresh land for cotton. Since the soil is compact and there 

 is a strong tendency to form gullies even on moderate slopes, con- 

 siderable land which should be retained in forest is ruined in this 

 way. 



As the bottom lands are drained and protected, the forests there 

 will eventually be reduced to small farm wood lots in the lowest and 

 poorest situations. Since this drainage work goes on slowly, it will 

 be possible on many tracts to obtain one or several crops of timber 

 before it is completed, especially as most of the bottom-land trees 

 are very rapid growers. In order to obtain the greatest increment 

 in both volume and quality on such forest lands, it is necessary in 

 the original cutting to use a higher diameter limit than if no future 

 cutting were in view. Also it is often possible in- the case of dense 

 stands of moderate-sized trees to thin them out in the first cutting, 

 thereby stimulating greatly the growth of those that remain and 

 procuring large timber for the next cutting. Cottonwood is espe- 

 cially adapted to such treatment. It is also wise to remove old, 

 decadent trees that take up a great deal of room and hinder the 

 development of young poles and saplings, even if there is no profit 

 in handling them. One company has adopted this policy of con- 

 servative cutting, using a diameter limit of 24 inches on the stump 

 for gum, but such far-sighted methods are not general. Of course, 



