Canadian Forestry Journal, August, ipi6 



689 



tion of cuttings or the preparation 

 of a working plan or even the per- 

 fecting of his plans for fire protec- 

 tion, but he can not afford to delay 

 the practice of some form of silvi- 

 culture when he begins cutting and 

 making some provision, as he must, 

 for the perpetuation of the forest. / 

 (jiven definite economic conditions, 

 the necessitv of providing for the 

 ])erpetuation of the forest, and ade- 

 quate basic knowledge of our 

 forests, some system of silviculture 

 is bound to be devised which will be 

 both efficient and practical. And 

 the more fundamental knowledge 

 there is regarding our forests, the 

 simpler and more practical will be 

 the silvicultural systems devised. 



Practice Silviculture Now. 



If we are to wait for the time 

 when the shelterwood compartment 

 method, or selection cuttings in 

 groups, or some other approved Ger- 

 man silvicultural system can be ap- 

 plied to our forests we may not have 

 any opportunity to practice silvicul- 

 ture at all, because, aside from eco- 

 nomic considerations, those systems 

 may not fit the biological require- 

 ments of our species, climate, or 

 logging methods. If we look, how- 

 ever, upon silviculture as logging 

 modified even to a slight extent by 

 the forester for the sake of keeping 

 the woods going forever, the oppor- 

 tunity for the practice of silviculture 

 is now at hand almost everywhere. 



The tie-cutter in Pennsylvania or 

 South Carolina, who has learned 

 from observing the growth of chest- 

 nut and loblolly pine that if he cuts 

 those trees only that make three ties 

 he can come to the same place every 

 five years and cut the same number 

 of ties, is practicing silviculture. 



When the pulp mill men cut only 

 the mature spruce and fir and leave 

 trees below a certain size in the 

 woods for future cutting and stock- 

 ing of the ground, they are practic- 

 ing silviculture. When the cutter 

 of firewood in New England has 

 learned that by cutting his woodlot 

 at the rate of one cord of wood a 

 year per acre he can continue to use 

 his woodlot forever without dimin- 

 ishing the supply, he is practicing 

 silviculture. When a forest owner 

 cuts clear his mature timber and 

 leaves the young growth and pro- 

 tects it from fire, he is practicing 

 silviculture. 



In the early cuttings on the Na- 

 tional Forests in western Idaho, in 

 the western white pine and larch 

 .stands, the tendency was to sell 

 both pine and larch, for fear that if 

 the larch were left uncut it would 

 seed the ground and thus eliminate 

 the more valuable white pine from 

 the future stand. The lumbermen, 

 however, strongly objected to tak- 

 ing larch, since it had no market and, 

 because of its weight, it was costly 

 to log. The result was that while, 

 nominally the government charged 

 the lumbermen for larch, its price 

 was actually deducted from the price 

 of the white pine. A study of the 

 natural development of the western 

 pine-larch forest revealed the fact 

 that after a burn or any other clear- 

 ing the larch is invariably the fore- 

 runner of the white pine; that it 

 acts as a nurse tree under whose 

 shade the white pine seedlings find 

 just the conditions which they need 

 for their growth ; that within fifty or 

 seventy-five years the western white 

 pine catches up with the larch and 

 eventually overtops and crowds it 

 out altogether. It was shown, 

 therefore, that there is no danger of 

 the larch monopolizing the entire 



