PRODUCTIVITY OF RECENTLY CUT LANDS 



225 



agement was classified into three groups, 

 "Good to Excellent," "Fair," "Destructive 

 to Poor." Qualification for one of these 

 was based upon integration of nine rating 

 elements. These were planning, volume cut 

 control, silvicultural control, logging control, 

 fire control, insect and disease control, graz- 

 ing control, tree planting, and improvements. 

 Relation to size class and type of ownership 

 was based both on forest area and on number 

 of owners. Results appeared in 1954 in a 

 Tennessee Valley Authority publication Pri- 

 vate Forest Management in the Tennessee 

 Valley. 

 7. Also in 1953 the Southern Pulpwood Con- 

 servation Association began a sampling of 

 pulpwood cuttings. These were confined to 

 cutting by Association members on non- 

 company lands and classified the type of 

 cutting employed, i. e., clear-cut, land clear- 

 ing, seed tree, partial cut, thinning, or salvage 

 cutting. The volume of pulpwood removed 

 under each type of cutting was used as the 

 basis for weighting of summaries. This 

 study is conducted annually. 

 Thus since 1942 seven related surveys have been 

 conducted. The Federal Government, the States, 

 and the pulpwood industry have been responsible 

 for two each with another sponsored jointly by 

 Federal and State sources. The survey of recently 

 cut lands, conducted as part of the Timber Re- 

 source Review, is the eighth such effort in little 

 more than a decade, but only the second on a 

 national basis. 



The brief summary of past related work shows 

 wide variation in concepts. The basic elements 

 recognized have ranged from the two used in the 

 first such study by Louisiana State University to 

 the nine element rating system of the Tennessee 

 Valley Authority. Weighting of final results has 

 included area, number of owners, and volume con- 

 cepts. Standards for classifications have ranged 

 from descriptive definitions to specific numerical 

 measures or combinations of these two. Some 

 have placed major dependence on what people 

 were doing in their woodlands by classifying prac- 

 tices. Other standards were based primarily on 

 conditions actually observed in the field. Com- 

 binations of these two are common. Field work 

 has varied from quick classification of general 

 conditions as observed by trained workers to 

 specific counts or tallies on sample plots. Despite 

 these differences a feature common to all such 

 studies is concern as to the contribution that 

 cutover areas will make to future timber supplies. 



Obviously concepts and methods are far from 

 standardized and are going through developmental 

 stages. The subject covers a large number of 

 complex biological and other technical relations. 



Newness of these efforts and only partial develop- 

 ment of forest science in the United States is 

 responsible for variations in concepts and methods. 

 They are also responsible in part foi- the conten- 

 tion that frequently accompanies such efforts. 

 Standards have changed during the few years of 

 effort on such surveys and will continue to change 

 as new knowledge and new problems develop. 

 Comparisons between surveys conducted at inter- 

 vals to determine trends will not prove valid 

 duiing this rapid stage of development. Each 

 survey stands on its own merits as an expression 

 of the concepts under which it was conducted. 



Comparability of National Surveys 



With two national surveys completed, one in 

 1945 and the other in 1953-54, comparisons 

 between them to observe trends are probably 

 inevitable. However, some major concepts basic 

 to the two surveys differ so widely that compari- 

 sons between results are not valid and meaningful 

 estimates of trends cannot be made. 



Early during the period of review and formula- 

 tion of plans for this phase of the Timber Resource 

 Review, the new concepts developed raised sharply 

 the question of comparability with the forest 

 practice survey of the Reappraisal Report. At 

 this point the Forest Service had a choice of the 

 following alternatives: 



1. Adopt concepts substantially the same as 

 those of the Reappraisal and thus preserve 

 opportunity for comparisons. 



2. Sacrifice comparabihty for survey results 

 based upon new concepts and changes in 

 previous ones judged important because of 

 advances in technical knowledge and recent 

 experience. 



The decision was made to adopt the second of 

 these alternatives thus sacrificing comparability. 



Probably the least invalid of several possible 

 methods for determining trends is to compare the 

 proportion of recently cut lands in the upper 

 productivity class of the current survey with the 

 combined proportions of "high order," "good," 

 and perhaps half of the "fair" practice levels of 

 the Reappraisal. However, any statistics derived 

 by this method will provide very questionable 

 basis for comparisons of trends. 



Major reasons for lack of comparability are: 

 (a) differences in standards used to derive final 

 classification of the land unit examined, (b) differ- 

 ences in .concept of operating area which is used to 

 derive final summaries of results, and (c) differ- 

 ences in the number of classification levels used to 

 express results. There are additional minor dif- 

 ferences which in total add considerably to the 

 lack of comparability. In a following portion of 

 this report which presents the basic concepts, these 

 differences will be explained in more detail. 



