NATURAL REGENERATION OF DOUGLAS FIR. DS 
Distribution of seed by the wind is limited for effective restocking | 
to a distance of 5 chains from green timber, although occasionally 
seeds may be carried farther. The limited distance to which seed 
is distributed makes migration of the forest slow, usually only a 
few chains during each seeding generation. 
Clear cutting is the method now used in logging and it should 
continue to be used. All trees should be cut except those that are 
to be left as seed trees. If seed trees are depended upon for re- 
stocking, approximately two trees per acre should be left. 
Slash should be burned after logging in order to obtain the best 
conditions for natural restocking. Areas must not be reburned. 
Spring burning of slash leaves the area in the best condition for. 
natural restocking. This method can be practiced successfully if the 
slash fire is properly handled. After the slash has burned, all 
smoldering fires must be put out. 
Fire protection is essential to keep the land in continuous pro- 
duction, and its cost is the only one involved in the restocking of 
Douglas fir in addition to the cost of proper cutting jand slash 
disposal. 
Where stands of young growth are destroyed by fire before they 
have reached seeding age, restocking depends upon seed produced by 
trees of seeding age. If these trees are not available, such burns 
result in barren areas that are reclaimed by forest migration only 
after several successive generations of seed trees. 
Douglas fir usually does not successfully compete with its asso- 
ciates without the aid of its ally, fire. If fire is kept out of the 
Douglas fir forests for several generations, such associated species 
as western hemlock and western red cedar in some localities will 
form the understory and replace Douglas fir. Moreover, this 
change of type sometimes develops during the first generation; but 
ordinarily, following a single fire in a mature forest, or after a 
proper burning of slash, restocking to Douglas fir occurs imme- 
diately from seed that was stored in the duff before the fire. 
