The fight "between the /lore highly "rizeci trees and the poorer 

 s'oecies goes on in ••.ost all our woods, similar work foresters in the 



southern Appalachian forests have xovnd that they can also help the valu- 

 able yellow poplar by taking out the sumac and silverbell which compete 

 with it for a place in the sun. ^Tcither the silverbell nor the su:-.Tac 

 ring the co.sh register. 



Dat the men in the Forest Service have been doing more thar- 'protect- 

 ing our woods and t^\king sides in the fight between timber trees -and weed 

 trees, Tney have actually learned, in some cases, how we can control the 

 quality of the wood aftd grow it in the woods with an eye to what it will 

 00 used for when it is cut. 



Por instance, the Southern Forest Experiment Station specialists 

 have shown that for southern pine a, moist site, protection from fire, 

 and growing the trees close together in thick stands produces dense, 

 strong wood. On the other hand, to grow wood of moderate strength and 

 grow it fast, oicn spacing of the st-nd gives quicker results. 



But you l<mT7 there is considerable diff(?rcncc in the way pine-trees 

 grow -nd the way hardwoods grow. Tie hardwood trees, it has been lo-ond, 

 produce their strongest wood, when growing fast in open stands, or when 

 th" r"- -r^ has been thinned out. 



Xnov/ing that, we have the key to the wa^ to grow timber to f it _ 

 certain uses, and to mate the • oodland pay best. And we've learned that by 

 checkiiig up- on Nature's way of doing; by. testing the wood for the same kind 

 of trees growing under different conditions. 



nvcn the loen of the tree from the vertical position, has an impor- 

 tant effect on the lumber wc get. The more the tree leans the more of 

 what is lcno\m as "compression" wood is -produced. Compression wood is 

 recognized as a source of the abnormal lengthwise slirinking in softwood 

 lumber. 



5::ese are just a few of the flings fo^md out about the secrets of 

 the '-ild recently, which are proving useful in tajning tree growing to 

 our o'.-n uses. In California, a co .-.Torehensive logging and milling in- 

 vestigation was made in which a thousand trees cut into about five thou- 

 sand logs were followed from the woods through the mill to the finished 

 product. Tlie idea was to find how rauch lumber of the different grades 

 each tree yielded. 



It would seem that we night ext.-nd that old saying "as the twig is 

 bent." As the twig is bent, the tree is inclined, and the lumber is 

 warped. 



AinOlT/CnirZPT: Wc will h^ve another visit with Urclc Sam's ITaturalists 

 tv/o weeks from today. Tin is station presents this feature twice a month 

 in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture. 



