14 Forest Club Annual 



density vegetative relationships. Since field studies of this kind 

 are still in a formative state, a brief discussion of the way in 

 which chart, list and depopulated plots are applied and what re- 

 sults may be obtained may be of value to other workers. 



Chart Plots: When this plot is used, as it often is on areas 

 where herbaceous or arborescent reproduction is being studied, 

 either all vegetation within the sample is charted or account is 

 taken only of the species under specific study in the investiga- 

 tion at hand. The amount of work involved in charting all of 

 the vegetation within a given unit is generally, of course, many 

 times greater than when only one or more predominant or com- 

 mercially valuable species are recorded. Mapping of all the vege- 

 tation within the plot, therefore, is avoided where practicable. 

 When a single important species in an association is charted it 

 is possible to establish a comparatively large plot, as will be 

 shown in actual practice later, since the work involved in re- 

 cording is curtailed by avoiding the mapping of all species. By 

 the extension of the plot more data may be obtained relative to 

 the behavior of a few species than where more detailed and smaller 

 plots are established. 



In order to determine to what extent a species succeeds in 

 competing with its neighbors, the associated species are merely 

 listed and notes taken with great care to show the density of 

 stand and association with secondary vegetation in various parts 

 of the plot. Such records, among other things, usually throw 

 light on the success or failure of the seed reaching the mineral 

 soil and the role of plant competition in the establishment of re- 

 production. The majority of these sample plots, as previously 

 stated, generally take the shape of quadrangles rather than of 

 quadrats, though, indeed, the latter are sometimes used. 



List Plots: This form of plot is used by most investigators 

 merely to determine the composition and density of species within 

 a plant unit. A record of such general character, however, affords 

 little or no data of value upon which to base a rational and judi- 

 cious plan for forest or range management, and its use in succes- 

 sional and distributional studies is often overestimated. 



A method of mapping which affords the desired detail and 

 at the same time lessens the work necessarily involved in making 

 regular "location" chart plots is that of combining the chart and 

 list plot. In the establishment of such a combined sample plot the 

 exact number of individual specimens is obtained per hundredth 

 unit of the plot, the scale used in plotting practically all vegeta- 

 tive units, and the data are obtained precisely as described in the 



