10 COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE OF WHITE MOUNTAIN FORESTS. 



with the resinous debris of spruce. Here again the character of the 

 forest is changed by the removal of the conifers; because if the 

 spruce seedtrees are removed and the hardwood seedtrees remain, 

 any openings are rapidly seeded up to the less valuable hardwoods. 

 In the White Mountain region hardwoods have not yet reached a 

 price at which they are extensively cut. Every year, however, 

 makes more serious inroads upon them. 



A paper and pulp plant is very expensive. It can not be easily 

 removed, and one of the first objects of a paper company is to secure 

 sufficient timber land to insure a perpetual supply. In advertising 

 sales of bonds, every pulp company that can do so announces that 

 it has ample timber lands to warrant repeated cuttings in years to 

 come, and that the method of cutting is such as to foster repeated 

 crops; or, in other words, that when the bonds mature the forest 

 will still be a valuable asset to offset them. With some companies 

 this is much more nearly true than with others, and a few of the large 

 companies make an effort in the direction of conservative lumbering 

 in order to help along a future crop. Several townships in the White 

 Mountain region have been cared for in this manner. Other com- 

 panies announce that they will "get through" in fifteen or twenty 

 years, and they cut clean without regard to the future. But on the 

 high slopes all of the companies practice clean cutting, for the reason 

 that spruce is shallow rooted, and at high elevations the soil is thin 

 and the winds severe, so that whatever is left is likely to be lost 

 through windthrow. It is often difficult and costly to lumber the 

 high slopes, and the profit must sometimes be small. Yet, since the 

 forest is here more valuable than elsewhere for protecting the soil 

 and preventing a rapid run-off of water, it should not be lumbered 

 except to have the mature trees taken out without greatly disturb- 

 ing the forest cover. No private corporation can afford to do this, 

 so the present waste must continue, with consequent soil destruction 

 and rapid run-off of water, unless some method of control is devised 

 by which the land may be held for its permanent production of 

 timber and for its best protection to the streams. The time element 

 is important in all forest growth, and on the high mountain slopes, 

 where the summers are short and cold, growth is especially slow. 

 At 3,000 feet elevation it takes spruce one hundred and twenty-five 

 years to attain a diameter of 6 inches. No private corporation, how- 

 ever well it cares for forests in the valleys, will plan for future returns 

 at this slow rate, or even where the rate may be accelerated by good 

 forest management. In the long run, even at the slow rate, it may 

 prove entirely profitable to hold and manage the forests, as shown 

 by the returns from the public forests abroad; but private corpora- 

 tions or individuals can scarcely make such long-time investments 

 and wait for the returns. 



[Cir. 168] 



