28 BULLETIN 234, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
high) will then be marked for cutting. No lagging trees will be marked for cut- 
ting, for such trees will not interfere with the growth of the larger trees especially 
selected for leaving. No dead trees will be cut unless they will produce at least 
one 8-inch-16-foot piece. On account of the difficulty of handling long poles in 
dense stands, the cutting of frequent skid roads is permissible. 
Under this system of cutting no attention need be paid to windfall, for a suffi- 
cient number of larger trees together with a large number below converter-pole 
size will be left to withstand the wind. 
(6) Lagging stands: 
The marker will mentally select for leaving the best individual trees — so far 
as possible straight, sound trees, with either some clear length or at least without 
large limbs developed at the base of the tree — and will aim to leave such trees 
as evenly disposed as possible over the area, and at the rate of 3 per square rod 
(480 per acre) as an ideal number. All other green trees which will make lagging 
(3 to 5 inches diameter breast high) will then be marked for cutting. No dead 
lagging will be cut. The cutting of frequent skid roads is permissible. No 
attention need be paid to windfall. 
The result of cutting under this selection system at French Gulch 
has been to leave a considerably larger number of trees on the ground 
than under the clear-cutting system, and so placed that the rate of 
growth of most of them will be increased. The proportion of cord- 
wood and small stulls taken by the operator has been reduced and 
the total number of large stulls increased as indicated by the fol- 
lowing figures: 
Per cent large (8 
inches and over). 
Per cent small 
(under 8 inches). 
Selection 
cutting. 
Clear 
cutting. 
Selection 
cutting. 
Clear 
cutting. 
Number of stulls cut 
57 
71 
76 
37 
51 
57 
43 63 
29 4Q 
Board foot volume of stulls cut 
24 
43 
By the present method of cutting, 2.67 cords, or their equivalent, 
are taken with each 100 large stulls; by the clear-cutting method, 
4.95 cords were taken. In the selection cuttings, too, the average 
size of the large stulls is greater than was the case in the clear cut- 
tings. The amount of material of various classes cut under the two 
systems is given in Table 13. The amount of material and the num- 
ber of trees of various sizes cut and left by the selection system are 
shown in Tables 14 and 15. 
