FOREST PLANTATIONS AT BILTMORE, N. C. 27 



chiefly of such shade-loving species as spotted wintergreen and rattle- 

 snake plantain. 



On the Lone Chimney planting site there was a scattered stand of 

 Virginia pines about 5 feet tall, 150 to the acre. These trees have 

 kept well ahead of the planted white pines and are interfering with 

 their development. It would have been better for the planted trees 

 if these scrubby pines had been cut before the planting was done. 



THINNING OPERATIONS 8 



A great many of the Biltmore plantations are very much in need 

 of thinning. Systematic thinning should have followed the very 

 dense spacing that was used in much of Schenck's work; and this 

 indeed seems to have been his intention. But save for the small- 

 scale experimental thinnings by the Forest Service, nothing has been 

 done beyond the removal of occasional trees because of an insect 

 infestation, to improve the appearance of a roadside, or for planting 

 elsewhere. 



The thinning experiments now being conducted by the Forest 

 Service are in four sets of permanent sample plots, located in three of 

 the plantations. Two of these experiments are in pure white pine 

 stands in the Old Orchard and Apiary plantations, respectively, one 

 in a mixture of shortleaf and white pines in the Ferry Farm, and one 

 in mixed white pine and sugar maple in the Apiary. In all of these 

 the first thinning was made in October, 1916, and a second in January, 

 1923. All were remeasured in November, 1928, prior to a third thin- 

 ning. 



The principal purpose of the thinnings is to make the stands produce 

 just enough large trees to occupy the site fully and no others, this 

 condition being gradually brought about by successive thinnings. 

 A second object is to salvage a great many small trees which other- 

 wise, as a result of the competition, would die and rapidly decay. 

 The early thinnings in the mixed stands had additional objects which 

 will be mentioned in discussing the thinnings in those stands. 



At the time the experiments were started in the Old Orchard and 

 Apiary white pine, the stands were 18 and 20 years old, respectively. 

 The Old Orchard stand was then extremely dense ; if the sample plot 

 numbered la had not been thinned, its growth would undoubtedly 

 have fallen off, as did that in the un thinned control plots lb and 1c, 

 discussed earlier in this publication under the heading " White Pine." 

 The appearance of this plot before and after the first thinning and 

 after the second thinning is shown in Plate 9. The white pine in the 

 Apiary plantation was exceptionally thrifty, probably because every 

 other row of the planted pines had died, giving the trees of the surviv- 

 ing rows added space in which to develop. The thinned sample plot 

 in the Apiary white pine is numbered J+a; it is the companion of the 

 unthinned plot, 4b, discussed under "White Pine." The volume 

 and number of living trees, on an acre basis, for these plots before and 

 after the two thinnings and in the fall of 1928 are shown in Table 7. 



'This section is largely the contribution of E. H. Frothingham. 



