68 MISC. PUBLICATION 9 0, U. S. DEPT. OP AGRICULTURE 



In Utah it has usually been found advisable to pile and burn the 

 brush in Douglas fir, spruce, lodgepole pine, and fir types of forest 

 in regions of high fire hazard. Such forests, if logged by the selec- 

 tion system, are apt to be left with a tangle of limbs and tops among 

 the smaller trees. These limbs and tops may be left propped up and 

 piled together, and may be so crowded around the remaining trees 

 that any fire running through is sure to crown (get into the tops of 

 trees) and destroy the majority of them. It is almost impossible to 

 control a forest fire running through dry slashings. On Forest 

 Service sales, if the fire hazard is high, all tops must be lopped 

 (limbs cut from main top) and all brush or limbs 4 inches or less in 

 diameter must be piled and burned. These piles are made about 4 

 feet across and 4 to 6 feet high and should be compact with enough 

 needles in the bottom to insure easy lighting. The brush is piled 

 while green, as logging progresses, and burned in the fall when 

 there has been sufficient rain or light snow to make burning safe. 



Brush should not be piled and burned in the aspen and pinon- 

 juniper stands. Aspen should be cut clean. It has relatively light 

 brush, which decays rapidly and does not create a bad fire hazard. 

 Pinon and juniper grow in such open stands and in such dry locations 

 that reproduction is assisted by additional shade. Slash i'rom these 

 cuttings is not heavy enough to cause a fire hazard. It is best to 

 leave the tops to provide shade for the reproduction as it starts. 

 Tops will gradually rot and enrich the soil. 



In regions where brush piling and burning are not essential for 

 fire protection, it is often a good practice to lop and scatter the brush 

 for protection of soil against erosion and drying out. 



WHAT A MANAGEMENT PLAN IS 



With the growing of timber as with any other crop, it is highly 

 desirable that a uniform yearly income be maintained. Then, too, 

 meeting future demands for timber is of equal importance with meet- 

 ing to-day's demand. This is especially true with Federal or State 

 timber. In Utah the bulk of the timbered area is in the form of 

 overmature virgin stands on which the loss through decay approxi- 

 mately equals the annual growth. Obviously, the sensible thing 

 to do is to cut only the trees in need of cutting and leave those 

 which will add wood rapidly. Here then, are three good reasons for 

 practicing what foresters call sustained yield and for using the selec- 

 tion system of cutting. The selection system has already been 

 described. Sustained yield means simply restriction of the volume 

 of timber cut from a given unit each year to the amount of additional 

 timber added through growth in the same time. 



Sustained yield, however, does not mean hoarding mature and 

 overmature timber. That is unbusinesslike and unwise because on 

 such areas as heretofore described, decay and stagnation are likely 

 to maintain a balance between growth and loss. The wise thing to 

 do is to cut out and utilize the mature, overmature, and defective 

 trees so as to increase the rate of growth of those left and also open 

 up the stand enough to get a new crop started below. 



With a slow-growing crop like timber, with the changing of men 

 in charge of timber units, and with the large areas and diverse con- 



