THE USE OF THE FOEEST. 281 



amount of the average growth, he would he using the ''Selection 

 System." This system is the best way of keeping a forest dense and 

 of preserving one which is difficult to start afresh, as on a mountain 

 slope; it is practicable where the woods are small or under a high 

 state of care, as in Europe, where this system has been in use for 

 seven centuries. But the cost of road maintenance and of logging is 

 high and it is therefore impracticable in most lumber regions in the 

 United States, except for woods of especial value, like black walnut. 



Localized Selection. If instead of the whole forest being treated 

 in this way every year, it were divided up into perhaps twenty parts, 

 and from each part there were taken out each year as much lumber 

 as would equal the annual growth of the whole forest, such a system 

 would be called "Localized Selection." The cost of logging would be 

 greatly reduced and if care were taken to leave standing some seed 

 trees and to cut no trees below a determined size, as twelve inches, the 

 forest would maintain itself in good condition. This system has been 

 applied with great success in certain private forests in the Adiron- 

 dacks. 



Regular Seed Forest or High Forest. In the system already men- 

 tioned above of seeding from the side, the trees near the cut areas 

 are depended upon to seed these areas. Moreover, no especial pains 

 are taken to preserve the forest floor and the forest cover. But all 

 trees do not bear seeds annually, nor do their seedlings thrive under 

 such conditions. In other words, in some forests esj)ecial pains must 

 be taken to secure reproduction, and the forest conditions must be 

 maintained with special reference to the growing crop. For this pur- 

 pose, the cuttings take place thru a series of years, sometimes lasting 

 even twenty years. These reproduction cuttings have reference, now 

 to a stimulus to the seed trees, now to the preparation of the seed 

 bed, now to the encouragement of the seedlings. Then later, the old 

 crop is gradually cut away. Later still, in twenty or thirty years, the 

 new forest is thinned, and when it reaches maturity, perhaps in one 

 hundred or two hundred years, the process is repeated. This is 

 called the "Eegular Seed Forest." It produces very valuable timber, 

 and has been used for a long time in Switzerland, especially for beech 

 and balsam. 



The system is complicated and therefore unsafe in ignorant hands, 

 and the logging is expensive. 



