22 DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS. 



WOODLOTS. 



Working plans based on a thoro examination on the ground were 

 prepared for 100 woodlots, with a total area of 7,104 acres, located 

 in 16 States. The object of this work is to give free of cost to farmers 

 and other small owners advice and assistance in the use and improve- 

 ment of their woodlands. During the past year particular study 

 was given to woodlots in southern Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana, in 

 continuation of the work begun the previous year. The woodlots of 

 this region present very different problems from those of the Atlan- 

 tic States. The object was to collect information enough for a pub- 

 lication on the problems and methods of treatment for woodlots in 

 the Middle West. 



Inspection in New England was made to ascertain whether the 

 recommendations of previous working plans have been carried out. 

 It was found that they had been either in whole or in part, particu- 

 larly for recent plans and where trees were actually marked for 

 thinning. Woodlot working plans are no longer made without 

 marking trees for thinning on sample areas. 



WORKING PLANS FOR TIMBER TRACTS. 



In New York three working plans were prepared, two for small 

 tracts belonging to country estates, which yielded knowledge of the 

 rate of growth of second-growth hardwoods, and one for a tract 

 of 100,000 acres in the northern part of the State, which included a 

 scheme of fire protection and a plan to correct the previous wasteful 

 logging and lax supervision. In Michigan a working plan for a 

 tract of 8,000 acres, maintained in connection with a summer resort, 

 provided, by a system of selection cutting and of planting on un- 

 stocked sandy areas, for a fair profit from the sale of timber com- 

 bined with improved condition and appearajice of the forest. A plan 

 for a tract of virgin hardwoods on coal lands in the Southern Appa- 

 lachians, in Kentuclcy and Virginia, provided for maintaining a sup- 

 ply of mining timbers, for marketing for other uses the mature timber 

 of valuable kinds, and for reproduction of the best species after lum- 

 bering; also for planting open areas with trees which will produce 

 valuable lumber, such as black walnut and yellow poplar, and mine 

 props; and it indicated simple but effective methods of protection 

 against damage from grazing and fire. Lastly, on a tract of 27,000 

 acres made up of small holdings of mixt pine forest in South Caro- 

 lina, already heavily cut over, a study of the present and future values 

 showed that in most cases it would pay to hold the timber rather than 

 to cut it now. 



A combined fire-protection and Avorking plan was put into opera- 

 tion upon a large tract in California. It aimed to prevent fires from 

 starting by means of ]:)atrol along a carefully laid out route. Tele- 

 phone and tool stations were located to strengthen the patrol. To 

 check fires once started and furnish bases for back firing, broad fire 

 lines on which the slash was burned were run thru the cut-over lands. 

 The cost of all this was about 2 cents per acre per annum. 



Experiments were also made in slash burning. The character of 

 the logging made it possible to burn the slash without piling, at a 

 cost of only 1^ cents per thousand feet of timber logged. The plan 

 was so successful in operation that it has been extended to all the 



