62 BULLETIN 212, TJ. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



and reduce the competition for light. Heavy openings without 

 adequate seed trees contain a rank undergrowth of saw grass, cat- 

 tails, iris, and various shrubs, but the same openings supplied with 

 an abundance of cypress seed will start a new timber crop. 



Groups or small stands of polewood cypress occurring in virgin 

 stands should be thinned in order to give the better individuals 

 increased space for crown development, as well as root space if subject 

 to acid water or periods of summer drought. 



CUT-OVER CYPRESS AREAS. 



It is doubtful if any operations toward the improvement of old 

 cut-over cypress tracts will pay for themselves. Reproduction follow- 

 ing the early cuttings has generally been good. On one logged tract 

 in Iberville Parish, La., an average of 340 cypress trees per acre 20 to 

 30 years old, were counted. 1 Plate V shows saplings filling in small 

 openings in the stand. Since the general introduction of overhead 

 cableway skidders and the resulting very clean logging of cypress, 

 the possibility of a future cypress stand has been practically eliminated 

 from several million acres. The complete removal of a mature virgin 

 cypress stand without making provision for the succeeding crops is 

 giving results similar to those from the clean cutting of virgin stands 

 of white and longleaf pines. The rank growth of shrubs and vines 

 and the sprout reproduction in mixed cypress and hardwood cuttings 

 makes it doubtful whether the expenditure of money for reforestation 

 would bring a profit, especially when the uncertainty about future 

 uses of the lands is considered. 



CARE OF YOUNG STANDS. 



Thinning is one of the few operations to be considered in dense 

 young second-growth stands. The characteristic cypress "ponds" 

 and shallow swamps over the coastal plain contain pure stands of cy- 

 press of comparatively small size, including a good deal of young 

 growth. Much of the suppression of young trees in groups can be 

 overcome by thinning and improvement cutting. In some cases this 

 will be profitable, although in others the materials removed will not 

 repay the expense of thinning. Only in the former case should the 

 operation be attempted. There are two methods of thinning: (1) 

 Removing the smaller trees which are crowded or overtopped by their 

 larger neighbors, and (2) taking out the larger dominant, and "wolf" 

 trees which suppress the growth in several adjacent trees of average 

 size. Because of the all-aged character of cypress stands, the first 

 method will generally give better results, varied occasionally by the 

 removal of one or more dominant trees from a group in order to benefit 

 adjacent trees by affording light and perhaps root space. After 

 thinning, the new growth will be distributed among fewer individual 



i By McLean, F. T. Manuscript report on cypress, Forest Service, 1908. 



