﻿WHITE iTNE UNDER POBEST MANAGEMENT. 41 



every 12 years. The strips should run as nearly as possible at light 

 angles to the prevailing winds. While, as with two cuttings, a width 

 for the strips of 100 to 150 feet is best, the width of the intervening 

 strips of standing timber must be sufficient to insure that the 3, 4, 

 or 5 cuts will entirely remove the stand. If, for example, the average 

 acre yield at 60 years of a 16-acre tract of pure white pine is 30,000 

 board feet, and the installation of a portable mill is warranted by a 

 cut of 100,000 board feet, or 3£ acres, 5 such cuttings at 12-year 

 intervals would be possible with a rotation of 60 years. The side of 

 the stand most nearly parallel to the prevailing wind should, be 

 divided into 5 parts, and each of these into approximately equal 

 subdivisions from 50 to 100 feet wide. Each of the cuttings will 

 then follow every fifth strip at right angles to the prevailing wind. 

 Very few stands, however, are uniform throughout, and the width of 

 the strips will have to depend somewhat upon local variation in the 

 yield. 



Any system of sustained yield through regular cuttings presup- 

 poses the existence of a reasonably steady market for the grades of 

 lumber supplied. White pine lumber of medium and low grades 

 promises to remain as steadily in demand as that of any other species 

 in the Northeast. Even white pine lumber, however, will fluctuate 

 in value, and the temptation will often be strong to overcut when 

 the market is high, and lightly or not at all when the demand is poor. 

 While modification in the original plan can be made only at a sacrifice 

 in regularity in ensuing yields, it can not always be avoided, and 

 constitutes a defect in the strip system. Absolute regularity, how- 

 ever, is often undesirable, even from a silvicultural standpoint, since 

 a year's delay or hastening of the cut to take advantage of a seed year 

 may greatly facilitate reproduction. 



One great advantage of the strip method over clear-cutting the 

 whole stand is the greater certainty of reproduction it offers. Should 

 the young reproduction be destroyed by fire, the standing timber to 

 windward can be depended upon to reseed the area. In fact, a light 

 fire just before a heavy fall of seed, provided it is not allowed to 

 spread into adjacent timber, may prove of great value by exposing 

 the mineral soil and killing existing vegetation. As when only two 

 cuttings are made, the last strips to windward may be reproduced by 

 leaving seed trees or by planting or sowing. Disengagement cuttings 

 will often be necessary to remove competition from fast-growing 

 hardwood sprouts and underbrush. 



Clear cutting with scattered seed trees. — In this method natural repro- 

 duction is secured by leaving three or four mature seed-bearing trees 

 to the acre (see PI. IV, fig. 2). These should be distributed as evenly 

 as possible, but located with reference to the prevailing winds in a 

 way to insure the most effective distribution of seed. Seed trees 



