COTTONWOOD IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. alt 
stump height. The trees should be cut during the winter or early 
spring and the ground be completely cleared in order to allow the 
coppice full sunight. The only actual outlay necessary in securing 
a stand by this method will be that in connection with cutting back 
in July and August all but the most vigorous, well-formed sprouts 
on each stump. A system of this kind carried on in certain South 
American plantations of Carolina poplar (see p. 1), a male form 
of the cottonwood, is said to result in actually shortening the rota- 
tion from 10 to 7 years, or 30 per cent. 
Where timber production is the object of management, reseeding or 
replanting the area will be the common method. 
SEED TREES. 
In a clear-cutting system abundant seed production and uniform 
seed distribution are of first importance. The next essential is a 
ground ‘in condition suitable for germination of the seed and growth 
of the seedlings. Cut-over areas may often be seeded by adjoining 
timber. This is likely to be the case where the cutting areas are 
comparatively small, and where there are enough cottonwoods to 
restock the ground. Since pure stands of cottonwood are seldom 
more than a few hundred acres in extent and are usually long and 
narrow, paralleling the course of the river, reproduction from the 
adjoining stands should be successful wherever there are plenty of 
seed trees on the windward side of the tract to be seeded. 
For natural restocking the seed of cottonwood can not be depended 
upon to scatter farther than 600 feet from the mother tree. Unless 
the cut-over area is less than 600 feet in width seed trees should be 
left on the area itself. 
Seed trees represent an investment equivalent to the extra cost of 
logging them later after they have restocked the ground. If of poor 
quality for lumber, however, and very expensive to handle in a 
return cutting, they may be sacrificed, in which case the investment 
is represented by the actual stumpage vale of the timber they would 
cut. 
Seed trees should be left uniformly scattered over the area. They 
should be located with reference to the direction of the winds at the 
time of seeding. To facilitate the subsequent removal of the seed 
trees they may be located roughly in rows at right angles to the direc- 
tion of the wind. This arrangement will permit the removal of the 
timber with the minimum amount of damage to the young growth, 
since all the logs from a given row may be hauled over the same 
logging road. 
One mature seed-bearing tree reserved on each acre of cut-over 
land should be ample to restock the ground, and would allow for 
