﻿COTTONWOOD IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 31 



stump height. The trees should be cut during the winter or early 

 spring and the ground be completely cleared in order to allow the 

 coppice full sunlight. The only actual outlay necessary in securing 

 a stand by this method will be that in connection with cutting back 

 in July and August all but the most vigorous, well- formed sprouts 

 on each stump. A system of this kind carried on in certain South 

 American plantations of Carolina poplar (see p. 1), a male form 

 of the cottonwood, is said to result in actually shortening the rota- 

 tion from 10 to 7 years, or 30 per cent. 



Where timber production is the object of management, reseeding or 

 replanting the area will be the common method. 



SEED TREES. 



In a clear-cutting system abundant seed production and uniform 

 seed distribution are of first importance. The next essential is a 

 ground in condition suitable for germination of the seed and growth 

 of the seedlings. Cut-over areas may often be seeded by adjoining 

 timber. This is likely to be the case where the cutting areas are 

 comparatively small, and where there are enough cottonwoods to 

 restock the ground. Since pure stands of cottonwood are seldom 

 more than a few hundred acres in extent and are usually long and 

 narrow, paralleling the course of the river, reproduction from the 

 adjoining stands should be successful wherever there are plenty of 

 seed trees on the windward side of the tract to be seeded. 



For natural restocking the seed of cottonwood can not be depended 

 upon to scatter farther than 600 feet from the mother tree. Unless 

 the cut-over area is less than 600 feet in width seed trees should be 

 left on the area itself. 



Seed trees represent an investment equivalent to the extra cost of 

 logging them later after they have restocked the ground. If of poor 

 quality for lumber, however, and very expensive to handle in a 

 return cutting, they may be sacrificed, in which case the investment 

 is represented by the actual stumpage value of the timber they would 

 cut. 



Seed trees should be left uniformly scattered over the area. They 

 should be located with reference to the direction of the winds at the 

 time of seeding. To facilitate the subsequent removal of the seed 

 trees they may be located roughly in rows at right angles to the direc- 

 tion of the wind. This arrangement will permit the removal of the 

 timber with the minimum amount of damage to the young growth, 

 since all the logs from a given row may be hauled over the same 

 logging road. 



One mature seed-bearing tree reserved on each acre of cut-over 

 land should be ample to restock the ground, and would allow for 



