A FOREST WORKING PLAN. 449 



distance should be left to the judgment of the inspector. The necessary timber 

 for leveling up inequalities in logging roads, for stringers, and for covers for 

 side hill and corduroy roads, etc., can often be gathered from the dead and down 

 timber at the least expense, obviating the necessity of cutting young and valuable 

 growth which it is desired to preserve. 



When young spruce is used without the inspector's approval, it should be 

 scaled and charged to the purchaser of the stumpage or contractor at double 

 scale. For example, if a stick fourteen feet long and five inches in diameter at 

 the top end should be unnecessarily cut from a small spruce tree, and used for 

 building corduroys or bridges, such stick should be scaled and charged as an amount 

 equal to the scale of two such sticks. There should be a distinct understanding 

 with the contractor that no smaller diameter limit than five inches should be 

 figured, even on smaller sticks, if cut from small trees without the consent of the 

 inspector. This may appear at first glance to be a very hard and arbitrary rule 

 to impose upon the lumbermen, but a careful study of the conditions existing on 

 other lumbering operations in the Adirondacks where there is no such rule, and 

 a knowledge of the subject gained by experience convinced the author of the 

 necessity of having some such clearly understood penalty, in order to fully 

 protect the State from suffering from repeated small violations. These transgres- 

 sions are hardly of enough consequence, considered singly, to warrant an open 

 rupture or a rescinding of contract, but, if allowed to go unchecked, will materially 

 interfere with the proper lumbering of these townships. The application of this 

 penalty will preserve for the State in many localities much of the young and 

 valuable growth which would otherwise be unnecessarily destroyed. The incorpo- 

 ration of this rule in a contract would give the inspector in charge of the 

 lumbering the right to use his own judgment to decide whether or not it were 

 necessary to use the young growth. There are certain localities on these 

 townships where it might be advisable to use some small spruce, on account of 

 the benefit which the remaining trees would receive by being carefully thinned, 

 but the decision cannot be safely left to the discretion of the men removing the 

 timber. 



Lopping Tops. 



It is advised that the tops of all trees cut for logs or timber upon these 

 townships be thoroughly lopped, as there can be no question that the proper 

 lopping of tops is of the greatest importance in preventing serious damage to 

 the remaining species by fire. Strong objection is often made to lumbering a 

 forest on the ground that lumbering makes it more susceptible to the ravages 

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