SYLVICULTURE 



b. Improvea financial prospects of the remaining crop carried. 



about by: 



1. removal of trees and poles acting as suppressors; 



2. Removal of inferior trees and poles acting as competitors; 



3. Partial removal of a superstructure on a regeneration area; 



4. Removal of less desirable individuals acting as seed-trees. 



u. The effecrt of a preparatory cutting, a seed cutting or a final 

 cutting in thin, irregular woods, without removing well-grown 

 mother trees of desirable species. 



d. Reduced danger from fire, fungi and insects. 



II. Kinds of improvement cuttings are: 



a. Improvement cuttings in primeval woods. 



b. Improvement cuttings in culled woods. 



c. Improvement cuttings in woods maltreated by fire and pas- 

 turage. 



III. Marking: Trees and poles to be removed in an improve- 

 ment cutting must be individually marked by the sylviculturist. 



Generalizing rules for marking cannot be given; each tree or 

 pole must be dealt with according to its individual merits and 

 demerits; 



J. he markmg by the forester of improvement cuttings is, con- 

 sequently, a timetaldng affair. 



IV. Localities : Irregular, tiiin woods composed of a multitude of 

 species deserve improvement cuttings. 



The local market must allow of the — at least partial — utilization 

 of suppressing, competing, superstrueting and less desirable indi- 

 viduals. 



Paragraph LXII. Thinnings in high forest. 



Thinnings proper are practicable only in dense and fairly even- 

 aged groups or woods, always under the proviso that a permanent 

 road system and a nearby market allow of a remunerative outcome 

 of the act. In Pisgah Forest thinnings are out of the question as 

 the woods are thin enough. At Biltmore, thinnings are made where 

 polewoods of Yellow Pine occupy abandoned fields. Up north, 

 from the merely sylvicultural standpoint, thinnings .are possible in 

 the Jack Pine woods, in Balsam thickets, on Black Spruce slopes, 

 in Lodgepole Pine thickets, etc. 



For many a year to come the American foTester will have 

 little opportunity to make any thinnings. 



A. Purposes of thinnings: 



I. To develop the log diameter of large saplings and poles at 

 a time at which the log axis has been obtained. 



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