FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 343 



Commission for the spruce stumpage on large tracts of land; but no contracts were 

 concluded, and no timber was ever sold or cut under this or any other arrangement. 

 The contracts, which were ready at one time for signing, contained stringent regulations 

 providing for the designating and marking of the trees to be cut, together with ample 

 provision in the way of plainly defined rules for the proper construction of roads and 

 the protection of the young growth. A part of the revenue was to have been 

 expended on forest improvement under the direction of skilled professional foresters. 

 Although this work was never inaugurated, the system thus contemplated would 

 probably form a good basis for the management of private forests. In fact, some 

 large tracts in the Adirondacks are now being administered under these same 

 conditions, and with the same limit of diameter. 



The ideal method, however, would be to cut only the matured trees, or such as 

 may have attained a diameter beyond which the future growth would not exceed the 

 interest on the present value. The cutting would not necessarily be limited to the 

 matured trees; neither would it always include them. In the course of his work, the 

 forester would often find it advisable to cut others for technical reasons, their removal 

 being necessary to the improvement of the forest and increase in future yield ; and, in 

 places, it might be found necessary to allow some large trees to remain for protective 

 purposes, or to facilitate the work of seeding and reproduction. 



In discussing this question of diameter, it is necessary to always bear in mind that 

 while the diameter increases in an arithmetical progression the contents of the tree 

 increase in a geometrical ratio. For instance, a sixteen-foot log, twelve inches 

 in diameter, contains 64 feet board measure ; but if it is sixteen inches in 

 diameter it contains 144 feet, or more than twice as much as the other. A twelve- 

 inch tree will yield nine-inch boards only; if we need wide boards or joists we must 

 have larger logs. On the other hand, twelve-inch spruces make good pulpwood ; 

 there will be more trees to the acre, and they can be cropped oftener. Small 

 diameters are not incompatible with systematic management. In our Catskill forests 

 there are tracts used for raising hoop poles. The trees are mere saplings ; but as the 

 land is cheap the business is profitable, and the croppings though small in bulk are 

 frequent. It is, simply, one form of the coppice system. If a forest is cropped on a 

 twelve-inch basis the owner will have, as a result, a fores., of twelve-inch trees; if on a 

 sixteen-inch basis, he will have one of sixteen-inch trees, and so on; the larger the 

 diameter, the larger and more valuable will be the product. 



Under our present market conditions, it is not certain that the high forest system 

 cf European management would yield a fair interest on the investment. The time 

 may come when such a system will pay in this country ; but the forest owners 

 in America will be apt to adjust their business to the present instead of the 



