Home Forestry in 
a Woodlot 
BY J. J. L E V I S O N, M. F., 
Arboriculturist, Brooklyn Park Department 
Photographs by U. S. Forest Service and others 
D ID you ever realize 
how easily you can 
transform your woodlot 
from that neglected bit of 
wilderness to a thriving 
piece of natural forest that 
will add a charm to your 
country life and an in¬ 
creased value to your prop¬ 
erty? 
To get a true idea of the 
conditions on your wood- 
lot, it is quite essential that 
you look at it from the 
forester’s point of view and 
you will then find a crowd¬ 
ed mass of small, decrepit 
specimens unable to de¬ 
velop into beautiful stately trees for lack of light and space. A 
few trees might have grown to large size, but these are probably 
overtopping the rest, suppressing their growth and finally entirely 
destroying them. With a little more effort you will be sure 
to find some dead and dying trees, trees infested with injurious 
insects and fungi and any number of diseased stumps and 
branches. 
As time goes on, the woodlot deteriorates more and more. The 
dead trees become breeding places for insects and disease; the 
insects in the dying trees multiply and the disease spreads from 
tree to tree. The number of suppressed trees increases and the 
dominant or better trees, suffering for lack of growingspace, become 
more lanky and thin, so that they are unable to stand upright if 
deprived of the support of their immediate neighbors. 
You will now readily see that such woodlots require immediate 
attention. The remedies are simple and in general consist of two 
processes—intelligent cutting and proper planting. 
IMPROVEMENT BY CUTTING 
The cutting should include the removal of all the undesirable 
trees, leaving a clean stand of well selected specimens to thrive 
under the favorable influence of more light and growing space. 
Now this does not entail any of the expensive treatments often 
resorted to in the care of ornamental trees. This is merely a case 
of intelligent cutting. It might be advisable to have an expert 
mark the trees which are to be removed. But once the trees are 
marked, the rest is mechanical and success will then depend on 
the care with which the trees are removed, so as not to hurt 
the young trees that may be growing underneath the older ones. 
The marking can best be done in summer when the dead and live 
trees can be most easily distinguished from a distance and 
when the requisite growing space for each tree can be better 
judged from the density of the crowns. The cutting, however, 
can be done most advantageously in winter. 
Immediately after cutting, the diseased and infested wood 
should be destroyed. The sound wood may be utilized for various 
purposes. The bigger logs may be sold to the local lumber dealers 
and the smaller material may be used for firewood. The remaining 
brush should be withdrawn from the woodlot to prevent fire from 
setting in during the dry 
summer months. But at 
no time should the leaf-mold 
be removed from the 
ground. These leaves im¬ 
prove the physical condi¬ 
tion of the soil and after 
remaining on the ground for 
about five years, decompose 
and through the soil return 
to the trees some of the 
most important ingredients 
essential to forest vegeta¬ 
tion. 
In marking trees for re¬ 
moval, there are a number 
of considerations to bear in 
mind besides the elimina¬ 
tion of dead, diseased and suppressed trees. When the marker gets 
among the crowding trees of equal height, he must select 
those that are most likely to grow into fine specimen trees 
and cut out all those that interfere with them. The selec¬ 
tion must also favor trees which are best adapted to the 
local soil and climatic conditions and those which will add to 
the beauty of the place. In this respect the method of mark¬ 
ing will be different from that used in practical forestry 
where the aim is to net the greatest profit from the timber. In 
pure forestry practice, one sees no value in such species as dog¬ 
wood, ironwood, juneberry, sumac and sassafras, and will there¬ 
fore never allow these to grow up in abundance and crowd out 
other trees of a higher market value. But in private work of 
this sort, such species add wonderful color and attractiveness 
to the forest scene, especially along the roads and paths, and 
should be favored as much as the other hardier trees. One must 
not mark too severely in one spot in order not to cause the soil 
to dry out from exposure to sun and wind. When the gaps be¬ 
tween the trees are too large, the trees will grow slower and the 
trunks will become covered with numerous shoots or suckers 
which deprive the crowns of their necessary food and cause them 
to “die back.” Where the trees are tall and slim or on short and 
steep hillsides, it is also important to be conservative in the 
marking in order not to expose the stand to the dangers of wind¬ 
fall. No fast rule can be laid down as to what would constitute 
a conservative percentage of trees to cut down. This depends 
entirely on the local conditions and on the exposure of the wood- 
lot. But in general it is not well to remove more than twenty- 
per cent of the stand nor to repeat the cutting on the same spot 
oftener than once in five or six years. The first cutting will, of 
course, be the heaviest and all subsequent cuttings will become 
lighter and lighter until the woodlot is put in good growing 
condition. 
IMPROVEMENT BY PLANTING 
But even where the trees are in good growing condition they 
cannot last forever, and provision must be made to have others 
take their place when they are dead. The majority of our woodlots 
are not provided with a sufficient undergrowth of desirable trees 
{Continued on page xv) 
A typical American woodlot badly in 
need of attention. Some of the 
weaklings should be cut out 
A well kept forest of spruce in Austria- 
Hungary. Your woodlot may need 
planting as well as cutting 
