A() PRACTICAL FORESTRY IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 
ages. The cutting there has been governed by the distribution of 
merchantable timber, and such considerations as have just been 
described have been left entirely out of account. In this way it 
happens that a considerable amount of old Spruce may be removed 
with very little benefit to the young trees of that species. Old Birch 
aud Maple and other hardwoods may remain, and the effect of the 
cutting may not be to free any considerable number of young Spruce 
trees from the heavy cover overhead. In other cases the merchantable 
Spruce may stand in groups of old trees without young growth, so that 
their removal will have little or no effect on the young trees which 
remain. The best results are attained only when the timber removed 
was well distributed above the young trees. Where but a single mer- 
chantable species is cut from the mixed forest this can not often be the 
case. Just what the effect of the cutting will be on the remaining 
trees depends then on the character of all the species in mixture as 
well as on the number and distribution of the old trees which were 
removed. It is therefore difficult to reach figures more than approxi- 
mately exact. : 
The following method of study was employed as a means of attacking 
this question: On areas of definite size, usually of 1 acre each, on cut- 
over land, all trees which would make pulp wood were cut and analyzed 
so that their exact contents were known. The stumps and tops of trees 
taken at the first cut, and the distance between them, were then meas- 
ured, and the number of logs and the amount of timber removed at 
that time were thus closely ascertained. All trees left by the second cut 
were then carefully measured with callipers. The date of the first cut 
was known, and it served, together with the measurements and count- 
ing of rings carried out in the second cut, to reestablish the history of 
the stand for about 30 years back. Fourteen such small plots were 
-laid off, and over 2,000 trees were carefully analyzed. The valuation 
surveys which were carried out upon them are found in detail in the 
appendix of “The Adirondack Spruce.” 
The object in taking these stem-analyses was to determine the present 
rate of growth in diameter of trees of all sizes and to obtain measure- 
ments of enough trees to make volume tables (or tables of solid con- 
tents). The stem-analyses were, therefore, not as complete as would 
have been the case had the intention been to make tables of growth 
according to the German methods. 
The following measurements were taken of each tree: 
Diameter at 4.5 feet from the ground. 
Diameter on the stump inside and outside the bark. 
Diameter at the top of each log inside and outside the bark. 
Height of stuinp. 
Length of each log and of the top. 
The rings were counted on the stump and at the upper end of each 
log for 30 years in from the bark, and the distance to each 10-year point 
