48 CIRCULAR 7 91, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Christmas tree operations on better sites compete with pulpwood 

 production to some extent, but generally so few trees are aeeeptaDle for 

 Christmas trees that the future pulpwood supplies are not seriously 

 endangered. The total harm caused by cutting Christmas trees is 

 slight compared to the needless damage caused to small trees in pulp- 

 wood cutting operations. 



Decadent Swamp Stands 

 clear cutting 



Many old stands in swamps are so overmature and defective that 

 there is no choice in cutting other than clear cutting. Such stands 

 may be well stocked with advance reproduction or poorly stocked. 

 Almost never is reproduction totally absent (fig. 26). 



The proper action in such cases is to harvest all the overmature 

 timber, using care in logging to prevent needless damage to the ad- 

 vance reproduction. Some additional reproduction usually comes in 

 immediately after clear cutting on the skid roads and other places 

 where peat or rotten wood has been exposed. Probably chopping and 

 felling of the trees causes a temporary increase in the dispersal of seeds 

 from the cones. 



Both the survival of advance reproduction and the establishment of 

 neAv reproduction can be materially assisted by piling or piling and 

 burning the slash, since the accumulation of tops and limbs is much 

 heavier from clear cuts than from partial cuts. Seedlings seldom are 

 found under layers of slash in clear cuttings. Instead they usually are 

 seen in places exposed to full sunlight. Any method of slash disposal 

 that will increase the area of exposed soil surface will be helpful to 

 reproduction. The effect upon reproduction of lopping slash depends 

 upon the volume of the slash. Where the slash is so heavy that lopping 

 and scattering creates a continuous, dense layer of debris, the effect 

 is likely to be unfavorable. However, if lopping reduces the slash to 

 a light sprinkling of limbs through which much of the ground surface 

 is visible, it appears to be helpful. For example, in an experiment 

 near Big Falls, Minn., where three methods of slash disposal were 

 compared with no disposal in a clear cutting, stocking of black spruce 

 5 years after cutting was as follows : 



Seedlings 



per aere 1 



Slash disposal method: Number 



No disposal 730 



Pile 1, 435 



Pile and burn 1, 540 



Lop and scatter 1,960 



1 Measured and reported by Paul Zelmgraff, Lake States Forest Experiment 

 Station. 



Instances have been observed of rather carefully lopped and scat- 

 tered slash that created a layer that appeared to be about as unfavor- 

 able to seedling establishment as undisturbed slash. Lopping, of 

 course, is helpful for hastening the reduction of fire hazard because 

 it brings the slash closer to the moist peat where it is soon overgrown 

 by sphagnum moss. Lopping also hastens decay of the slash. 28 



29 D.tekf, Harvey E. the effect of slash disposal methods on reproduction 



AND FIRE HAZARD IN THE BLACK SPRUCE SWAMP TYPE OF NORTHERN MINNESOTA. 



1947. [Unpublished thesis, University of Minnesota.] 



