MAKING MONEY OUT OF FORESTRY 67 
trees and permitting the tree to lay on successive rings 
of clear lumber on top of the rather knotty core. Advo- 
cates of this plan claim that the lumber thus produced 
will bring a sufficiently large yield to pay the cost of 
this artificial pruning. On the other hand, men who 
have sawed second-growth white pine which was arti- 
ficially pruned, claim that the lumber contains loose 
knots caused by the too rapid drying of the branch 
stub. Ordinarily if pruning is necessary to improve 
the appearance of woodland near the home, it may be 
done, but it should be considered a piece of landscape 
improvement rather than a forestry measure, as it is 
not believed to be financially profitable. 
Artificial Forests —One may ask what ends are served 
by starting a forest artificially when the forests grown 
by Nature have produced such magnificent timber. 
Briefly stated, forests are planted for three reasons. 
First, it saves time in getting your forest successfully 
started. Nature is sure but slow, and may take forty 
years to get a forest started which contains the right 
trees. Planting, on the other hand, assures the right 
species at the correct distance for valuable growth. In 
some cases the wild seedlings sown by the wind are so 
far apart that bushy trees and knotty lumber are pro- 
duced. In other cases, for instance with lodgepole pine 
in the Rockies, the voung seedlings grow in such a dense 
thicket that proper development is impossible. 
In addition, forest planting may be actually cheaper 
than Nature’s method *when you come to figure the cost. 
If it is necessary during a lumbering operation to re- 
serve valuable timber trees for the purpose of seeding 
in the ground, from twenty-five to thirty dollars’ worth 
of timber per acre may be left in these trees. There is a 
chance of this lumber never being harvested, as insect or 
