THE RED SPRUCE. 47 



be raised to 11 inches and 6 inches, respectively, for stands averaging 

 from 65 to 85 feet tall and to 12 inches and 6 inches for all stands 

 over 85 feet tall. 



It is not feasible to remove the defective trees which will not yield 

 sufficient material to offset at least the cost of logging, except in 

 localities where there is a high fire hazard or as a precaution against 

 the spread of insects or fungous disease. In this case the logging 

 operation may well be taken advantage of to improve fire protection 

 or sanitary conditions by felling and swamping badly defective and 

 dead trees and snags. 



Care must be taken to provide suitable conditions for reproducing 

 the stand. Where there is balsam in mixture with spruce, the com- 

 petition of this species in the young growth should be reduced as far 

 as possible by cutting the balsam in the main stand to as low a 

 diameter limit as market conditions will warrant, thus reducing the 

 number of balsam left for seed dispersal. Where the species in mix- 

 ture are hardwoods, the same procedure will apply, although the 

 elimination of the hardwoods need not be carried out so severely, 

 for the reason that their effective range of seed dispersal is not so 

 great as that of balsam. A more severe cutting of the hardwoods 

 may be necessary, however, where there is much advanced young 

 growth of spruce which requires to be released from shade to encour- 

 age its more rapid development. 



Spruce should be favored in preference to balsam and most hard- 

 woods for the reason that it is much less aggressive than the others 

 and usually of the more value and desirability. Where conditions 

 are favorable to the development of white pine and ash and possibly 

 also basswood and red oak, they should be given the preference over 

 spruce, since they are more valuable and less able to maintain them- 

 selves in competition with spruce, being less tolerant of shade. 



It is impracticable to trust to the loggers to put the diameter limit 

 into effect, and it is here that many spruce operators fail to secure 

 the full benefit of the system's application. The trees to be cut should 

 be marked beforehand by a man competent to judge the needs and 

 requirements of the stand from the standpoint of both the forester 

 and the operator. The fact that some companies which have tried 

 marking claim that the results attained under the one method and 

 the other do not materially differ does not prove the impracticability 

 of the method, but reflects rather on the lack of trained judgment of 

 the men whom they have employed to do the marking. 



GROUPWISE CUTTINGS. 



For general use the selection system in one of its forms is undoubt- 

 edly best suited to the management of spruce, particularly in lumber 

 operations. Nevertheless it has its limitations. The degree of sever- 

 ity with which a stand must be cut to make the operation profitable 



