46 PRACTICAL FORESTRY IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 
YIELD TABLES. 
The material given in the preceding tables was prepared for the 
purpose of predicting future crops of timber after cutting to a given 
limit on lands yielding a known amount of Spruce. It is of great 
importance to the landowner to know how soon he ean return to a 
certain tract of land after cutting and obtain the same yield as at first, 
and to what minimum diameter it will be most profitable in the long 
run to cut. There can be no doubt that the best immediate returns 
are obtained by cutting down to 5inches. Forest management is out 
of the question for the lumberman who wishes to make all the money 
possible out of his property at once and without regard to its value in 
the future, for it rests’on the premise that forest land is so much pro- 
ductive capital and that its productive capacity should not be impaired. 
It is easy to show that, if the Spruce is cut down to 5 inches, so long a 
time must elapse before there will be merchantable Spruce on the area 
again that it will not pay to hoid the land for the next crop. in such 
a case there would be no timber worth cutting even for pulp in less 
than 50 to 75 years. Interest charges, taxes, and the cost of produce- 
tion can not be met for the sake of so meager a crop as would result 
from the present system of cutting at the end of that period. 
Many lumbermen are now cutting, from lands lumbered 10, 15, or 20 
years ago, a yield as large as the first cut. As a rule they are cutting 
to a smaller diameter than at first, as, for example, in some cases where 
the first cut was to about 10 inches the second cut is removing every- 
thing down to 5inches. Even where the limit is said to have been the 
same at both cuts and the product the same, it must be remembered 
that, while no trees may have been taken under 10 inches at either cut, 
many trees over 10 inches, which would now be merchantable, at the 
time of the first cut were considered unfit for market. Nor is it prob- 
able that the cutting to the limit at first was as close as it would 
be now. , 
The yield tables have been made in order to give definite informa- 
tion as to the production of cut-over Spruce lands. They embody the 
results of measurements on 1,046 test acres, classified according as the 
yield was nearest 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 board feet, etc., per acre. 
In the tables, as given in “The Adirondack Spruce,” there were 
stated the number of acres in each class, the exact average yield of 
these acres, and the amount of timber which would be obtained in 10, 
20, and 30 years after cutting down to 10, 12, and 14 inches. The 
number of years which must elapse before the land will yield exactly 
the same amount as at the first cut was also shown. These tables are 
given in the Appendix. 
In working with the above-mentioned tables during the past year it 
was found that they could be used more conveniently if the predicted 
yield in 10, 20,and 30 years were expressed in percentage of the original 
