fifth national conservation congress 81 



The Sugar Pine Type 



This is the characteristic type of central and northern California and extreme 

 southern Oregon on the Sierra Mountains, on the Coast Range, and on the cross 

 ranges, and comprises the important timber zone where the moisture and tem- 

 perature are favorable to a coniferous forest. Not excepting the redwood type it 

 is the timber type of California. Its distinctive component is sugar pine, which 

 occupies from 15% to 50% of the stand. With the sugar pine are found in an 

 exceedingly irregular mixture, western yellow pine, Jeffrey pine, incense cedar, 

 Douglas fir, white fir, and several other species. 



Its forests are usually uneven-aged, rather open, and rather brushy. Except 

 for a somewhat different exterior appearance due to the prevalence of sugar pine 

 and incense cedar, the forest resembles strongly the yellow pine type in its silvical 

 characteristics and requirements, and at its geographic limits and on all dry 

 situations within its range it grades into this type imperceptibly. 



A considerable proportion of this type, certainly a half of it, lies within the 

 National Forests. The remainder is under private control. 



The silvicultural management of the sugar pine type will be very similar to 

 that used for the yellow pine type, i. e., a selection method of cutting with natural 

 reproduction. Ordinarily artificial reforestation will not be necessary in the man- 

 agement of this type, even as an auxiliary to Nature, except on badly deforested 

 burns. 



The burns, which are the only field for artificial reforestation in this type, 

 present a difficult problem to the forester on account of the brush or "mock- 

 chaparral" with which they are covered. The brush fields, of which there are in 

 need of reclamation in northern California and southern Oregon, certainly 200,000 

 acres, are the result of repeated fires which have successively decreased the 

 chances of natural reproduction and increased the density of the brush. There 

 are so many difficulties in reforesting this type that the only method which prom- 

 ises real success is the planting of nursery-grown stock. 



This is rather a slow-growing type, probably not exceeding at best 250 board 

 feet per acre per year. Planting, therefore, for the purpose of growing timber, 

 would not be a profitable investment for private capital under present economic 

 conditions; artificial reforestation in this type will be practiced only by the gov- 

 ernment in order to restore waste areas to productivity. 



Western Yellow Pine Type 



This is one of the most widespread timber types in the country, and in addi- 

 tion to being found in the drier Pacific Coast forests it occurs throughout the 

 Rocky Mountain States. In the Pacific Coast region proper it occurs on the 

 east slopes of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon and Washington, on the interior 

 mountain ranges of these States, on the drier exposures within the white pine 

 region of northern Idaho, and on the California mountains on situations too hot 

 and dry for the sugar pine type. On the east slope of the Cascades it forms a 

 solid belt of timber with an altitudinal breadth of 1,500 feet or so, extending 



