The natural stocking of bare areas and the increased 

 density of stands resulting from adequate fire pro- 

 tection, aided by artificial reforestation measures 

 where necessary, can increase materially the num- 

 ber of trees upon which growth may occur. Ade- 

 quate fire protection and conservative turpentining 

 will do more than any other measures to increase 

 the rate of growth and to decrease the rate of 

 mortality in the forests. Results of the applica- 

 tion of essential measures of sound forest manage- 

 ment will become noticeable almost immediately. 

 In northeastern Florida, 77 percent of the total 

 commodity drain on saw-timber material is from 

 old-growth stands. As already shown (table 20) 

 the net increment in the old growth was negative 

 for pines and relatively small for hardwoods and 

 cypress. If the commodity drain on old-growth 

 pine continues for 12 years at the 1934 rate, the 

 volume of this timber will be reduced to a negli- 

 gible quantity. Although this is a serious situa- 

 tion, inasmuch as old growth cannot be replaced 

 in a short time, a large industry has already 

 developed to utilize the rapid-growing second- 

 growth pine, the increment of which exceeded 

 commodity drain against it by more than 120 

 million board feet in 1934. In the same year the 

 volume of increment of old-growth hardwoods was 

 sufficiently close to that of the cut to suggest the 

 possibility that, through regulation of the cut, the 

 industries dependent upon the hardwood old 

 growth might indefinitely prolong their life. 

 Repeated cutting, however, has greatly reduced 



the quantity of high-quality old-growth hard- 

 woods, and the increment is largely in material 

 of lower quality. Only a small utilization is made 

 of hardwood second-growth saw-timber material 

 at this time, principally because it is of lower 

 quality than the old growth. There is, however, 

 a surplus of increment over drain in second-growth 

 hardwoods which may be utilized to supplement and 

 maintain the old-growth stands. An analysis of the 

 cut of old-growth cypress in 1934 shows that it was 

 more than 14 times the increment. The growing 

 stock of low-quality slow-growing second-growth 

 cypress now amounts to less than 20 percent of the 

 volume of old growth which is being rapidly dimin- 

 ished by cutting. The cypress industry in this survey 

 unit, therefore, must be curtailed within the next two 

 decades if utilization continues at its present rate. 

 When the entire growing stock, including saw 

 timber and smaller material, is expressed in cubic 

 feet, a more favorable relation appears to exist 

 between increment and commodity drain. Pine 

 growing stock decreased only 0.9 percent, hard- 

 wood increased 0.9 percent, and cypress decreased 

 2.8 percent. This better showing is due to the 

 fact that logging outfits do not cut heavily into the 

 tremendous number of small trees under sawlog 

 size (fig. 4) that are growing up in the stands 

 despite adverse conditions. It is this growing stock 

 of young trees upon which the future of all forest 

 industry depends, and every effort should be made 

 to increase its quantity and quality and to reduce 

 the prevailing high mortality. 



38 



