FOREST PLANTATIONS AT BILTMORE, N. C. 



19 



planted, only 10 per cent were living in the Horse Stable plantation, 

 and two months after that they were nearly all gone. None were 

 found in 1922, 16 years after planting. 



In the Persimmon Heights plantation they held on a little longer. 

 Two years after planting 50 per cent were left, but at 9 years all but 

 5 per cent were gone. In 1921, 16 years after planting, none were 

 found. At 9 years the trees were only 3 or 4 feet high, whereas the 

 white pine planted with them were 12 to 15 feet high. 



HEMLOCK 



Eastern hemlock and Carolina hemlock persist chiefly as small trees 

 under white pine planted at the same time. In one of the Douglas 

 stands, 32 years after planting, they were only 15 feet high and 3 

 inches in diameter, as compared with the pine, which averaged 35 

 feet in height and 10 inches in diameter. 



SUGAR MAPLE 



In some plantations, for example the Swannanoa, sugar maple has 

 grown as tall as white and shortleaf pines of the same age. Oftener, 

 however, the maple is about 5 feet shorter than the pines, and some- 

 times the growth has been very much poorer. Even when of the 

 same height, the maple is characteristically more slender than the 

 pines, having a diameter an inch or two less at 25 or 30 years of age. 

 In the unthinned sample plot in the Apiary plantation the growth 

 of planted sugar maple has been like that shown in Table 6. A good 

 stand of pure sugar maple is shown in Plate 5, B. 



Table 6. — Growth in a near-by pure stand of sugar maple * in the Apiary plantation 





Age 



Height, domi- 

 nant trees 



Diameter 

 breast high (all 

 crown classes) 



Living trees 

 per acre 



Years: 



20 (1916) 





Feet 

 37 



Inches 



2.5 

 2.8 

 3.1 



Number 



2,070 



26 (1922) 







1,650 



32 (1928) 





54 



1, 320 











1 Plot 36, which contained a few white pines. 



A good many of the maples were planted with pines. In such 

 associations, the maples have generally been suppressed and have 

 reached a height only half that of the pines. The Browntown 

 plantation has given several first-class examples of this, with short- 

 leaf pine, and with shortleaf pine and white pine. In the Farmcote 

 plantation, also, even with two rows of sugar maple planted to one 

 row of pine, the shortleaf and white pines are far in the lead. Indeed, 

 at 18 years of age the maples averaged only one-fourth the height of 

 the pines, and none of them were dominant. Maple is very per- 

 sistent, however; the death rate is often low, even when the trees have 

 been suppressed for a long time, and maple will sprout repeatedly, 

 even after being damaged by rodents. 



In a few stands, maple is holding its own with white pine (pi. 11), 

 and once in a while has been able to outgrow white pine planted five 

 years or so afterwards. 



