FORESTRY. 



EDITED BY DR B. E. FERNOW, 



Forestry, Cornell University, assisted 

 institution. 



It takes 30 years to grow a tree and 30 minutes to cut it down and destroy it. 



Director of the New York School of Forestry, Cornell University, assisted by Dr. John C. Gifford of the same 



institution. 



In a well established growth of white 

 pine, the seedlings, some 50,000 to 100,000 

 on an acre, with their symmetrical crowns, 

 sooner or later form a dense canopy, ex- 

 cluding all light from the soil. After a 

 few years the leaves of the lower branches, 

 no longer able to function under the shade 

 of the superior part of the crown and of 

 their neighbors, fail to develop and the 

 branchlets die and break off. This natural 

 cleaning, which secures the desirable clear 

 boles, takes place during the period of rapid 

 height growth, which occurs from the 10th 

 to the 30th year. At the age of 30 years the 

 trees are slender poles, having a diameter 

 of 3 to 5 inches, and a height of 20 to 25 

 feet, with a few taller ones, the boles bear- 

 ing a dense conical crown and beset for the 

 greater part of their length with small 

 limbs, the lower ones dead or dying. Not a 

 few trees are seen to fall short of reaching 

 the general upper crown level. The crowns 

 of these laggards are shorter, more open, 

 with fewer leaves on each twig. Others 

 again will be found dead or scarcely vege- 

 tating, with crowns poorly developed. In 

 other words, we can recognize different 

 vigor in development according to constitu- 

 tion and accidental opportunity, and can 

 make a differentiation into development 

 classes : the predominant, with their crowns 

 5 to 10 feet above the general level, which 

 must finally make up the mature stand; 

 the sub-dominant, still alive and, should ac- 

 cident remove some of the superior class, 

 ready to occupy their air space ; and the 

 dominated or inferior ones, hopelessly out 

 of the race. 



Of the tens of thousands which started 

 only 2,000 or 3,000 are surviving, and as 

 each tree tries to expand its crown, and se- 

 cure for itself as much air space and space 

 as it can, the result is a continued diminu- 

 tion of the number of trees occupying the 

 acre. 



This decimation is in exact mathematical 

 relation, except for accidents, with the de- 

 velopment of the dominant, especially in 

 height growth. At the age of 80, of the 

 several thousand trees which started in the 

 race, not more than 400 to 500 are left. 

 Then the diminution proceeds at a slower 

 rate, until finally only 200 to 300 occupy 

 the ground, or as many as can conveniently 

 fill the air space in the upper story, the 

 number varying according to soil and cli- 

 matic conditions and species. 



The time has arrived when the height 

 growth is practically finished. The branches 

 can not lengthen any more to occupy the air 

 space. After this a numerical change can 

 take place only as a result of casualties, 

 caused by fungi, insects, fires, or wind- 

 storms. These, of course, may, from the 

 start, interfere with the regular progress 

 of adjustment which takes place under the 

 effect of physiological laws. 



In reality the conditions of soil, climate, 

 and species in combination are so various 

 that this process of evolution does not ap- 

 pear so simple ; but the seemingly lawless, 

 yet actually law directed, appearance of a 

 forest growth explains itself by these few- 

 observations of the results of action and 

 reaction of its surroundings and of the sin- 

 gle components. 



The factor of light is not only the most 

 important one in bringing about the evolu- 

 tion of the natural forest, but practically 

 almost the only one under control of man 

 With the knowledge of the light require- 

 ments and with the judicious use of the 

 axe, the forester is enabled to stimulate or 

 suppress one species or another, to direct 

 in quantitative and qualitative development 

 the progress of his crop, and finally to se- 

 cure the regeneration of the entire forest 

 growths with species that to him are most 

 useful. — Economies of Forestry. 



OPPOSED TO FOREST RESERVES. 



The supervisors of Trinity county, Col., 

 have appointed an agent to go to Washing- 

 ton and work to procure the vacation of the 

 forest reserve made in that county, on the 

 ground that it is inimical to the interests of 

 the people, and have appropriated a large 

 sum of money to cover the cost of his mis- 

 sion. The Shasta reservation is also meet- 

 ing with the most bitter opposition. Judge 

 Spencer has written a long and lively in- 

 dictment of the Shasta reserve, which evi- 

 dently is supported by the mountain people, 

 and utters their irreconcilable opposition 

 to the policy which it attacks. 



Spencer attributes the disastrous floods 

 which sweep down the Sacramento river 

 and other streams in the Sacramento val- 

 ley to this same forest reserve ; and the 

 people, he says, especially the mountain res- 

 idents, desire to clear out the forests. He 

 goes into a great and lengthy argument to 

 prove that the forests cause the floods. 



Taking Judge Spencer's argument as a 



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