a fair representation of young growth from seed in much of the cutover and second-growth forest; and with protection from fire, the reservation of seed trees, and a reasonable amount of care in logging, an ample reproduction of white oak can be obtained. Sprout reproduction, which is readily secured from trees under 14 inches in diameter, is suitable only for obtaining small timber. The price of white oak stumpage is high. Low-grade stumpage, or cull and small trees less than 16 inches in diameter breasthigh, sells at from $1 to $2 a thousand feet at an average distance of 5 miles from shipping points; while better grades 20 inches or more in diameter breasthigh, yielding a large proportion of uppers, have, in like situations, a stumpage value of from $10 to $15 a thousand feet board measure. The growth of large white oak for lumber, however, is profitable only in the best situations, such as coves, lower slopes, and valley lands. On the upper slopes and in other situations unfavorable to the best development of white oak, sprout reproduction, supplemented by light seeding, will yield timber suitable for such products as ties and slack barrel stock. FIRE PROTECTION. The first and most essential step in management is protection from fire. This is especially true in the case of young timber and cut-over forests, where the danger from fire is very great. The following protective measures, if carried out, should greatly lessen the fire danger: 1. The construction, wherever possible, of a permanent system of roads. They not only facilitate logging, but also render all portions of a property accessible in case of fire. Roads also serve as initial points in back-firing and will often of themselves check a slowburning fire. 2. The prohibition or restriction of grazing and swine herding within the forest. In middle Tennessee, and elsewhere where stock has been kept out, there has been a decided decrease in the number of fires. 3. The posting of fire notices, containing the local fire law and offering rewards for evidence leading to the conviction of violators. 4. The cooperation of owners with tenants. Tenants should be made fire wardens, given a nominal and fixed pay with limited pasturage rights for preventing fires, their services being required without additional compensation for fighting fires whenever they occur. 5. The employment of a guard on large tracts, especially while logging is in progress, and for several years afterwards. One man should patrol 15,000 acres. 6. The requirement, when logging is done by contract, that the contractor burn slash when it would become dangerous, organize logging crews into a fire-fighting service which can be used whenever a fire occurs, and, when a railroad is used, maintain a burned strip on both sides of the track. UNLUMBERED AND LIGHTLY CULLED FOREST. It is not advisable to cut mature white oak until there is a profitable market for tops and cull trees. From much of the white oak cut for staves and frequently even from that cut for sawlogs, only the choicest lower cuts are taken and the less desirable upper cuts left in the woods. In many cases a profitable sale could have been made of the low-grade timber had the stumpage been held a few years longer. Holding stumpage until the timber can be used with little waste insures the owner a return from the low-grade trees and upper cuts, and at the same time a higher price for the best cuts. It likewise enables the buyer to reduce the cost of logging by the larger stumpage cut. Contracts for the sale of stumpage should require the utilization of all sound timber over 12 inches in diameter in felled trees. The recent rapid advances in the price of car stock, ties, and bridge timber should justify holding white oak stumpage until utilization of such timber is possible. Nor is it advisable to cut white oak when it forms only a small proportion of the mixture unless some of the species of less value with which it is associated-as beech, black oak, maple, and hemlock-can be simultaneously cut. Because of the relatively small amount of virgin white oak, the use of high-grade timber should be restricted. Frequently very little discretion is displayed in making selection for specific uses, and highgrade logs suitable for plain uppers or quartered stock are converted into bill stock, bridge boards, or even ties or car stock. There is a large amount of low-grade timber and second growth available for these uses, while the amount suitable for high-grade lumber is appreciably lessening each year. The stumpage value of large trees suitable for high-grade lumber is so much greater than that of small trees that in situations favorable for the best growth of white oak it would be profitable to cut to a high diameter limit-20 or 22 inches breasthigh-and leave the trees below that limit to grow. The rate of growth of the remaining trees should be good and well sustained; old timber should equal or exceed the rate indicated in Table 5, page 21, and second growth should equal or exceed that in Table 6. Under such cutting white oak should be sound and form reasonably long and clean stems. In situations where the large timber is defective and is adapted only to common uses, its stumpage does not acquire with increased size a sufficiently high value to justify the production of large diameters. The regions in which the production of large white oak would seem to be most profitable are the coves and valleys of the western slope of the Allegheny Mountains, and the section of Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia adjoining these mountains on the west; the Great Valley, and a small portion of the Piedmont region of northern Virginia. While the conditions are suitable for producing large white oak in many of the coves of the Allegheny ridges and in the Blue Ridge and Smoky mountains, it usually forms only a small proportion of the mixture, frequently as low as 2 or 3 per cent. In localities where the transportation facilities are poor, where the total stand is not heavy, and lumbering is expensive, the diameter limit might be lowered to 16 or 18 inches. When beech, sugar maple, red maple, buckeye, hemlock, black oak, hickory, and black gum occur with white oak on the best sites, they should be cut to the smallest possible diameter. Yellow poplar, basswood, ash, chestnut, and walnut, like white oak, should be cut to a high limit, and their young growth should be protected. The fact that white oak often grows naturally in large, pure groups, indicates that, in many situations, its proportion of the mixture could be largely increased. Because of its heavy seed it tends to reproduce in groups and clumps near the seed trees. Two trees to the acre above 14 inches in diameter should always be left for seed trees. Where there is a deficiency in the number of seed trees below the diameter cutting limit, trees should be left above that limit. The intervals between cuttings should not be less than fifteen years, and preferably should be longer. While cutting at regular intervals is advantageous in keeping the cover somewhat open and stimulating growth, cutting at too close intervals does not give clumps of seedlings sufficient time to become large enough to prevent their being badly broken down in logging. Such clumps should always be protected as far as possible in felling, swamping, and snaking, and neither thrifty young white oak nor young trees of the other desirable species should be used in any of the construction work required in logging when timber of less desirable species is available. SECOND-GROWTH WHITE OAK. Second-growth white oak is partly of seedling and partly of sprout origin, but less than 20 per cent of it is seedling growth. In favorable situations seedlings and many of the seedling sprouts are capable of producing large timber, but sprouts in general, especially those from large-sized stumps, will not grow to large sizes. Inferior sprouts can usually be told by their short stems and extreme taper, and a common characteristic is a swollen butt with a small exposed hollow. Since second-growth seedling trees are capable of producing largesized timber the minimum diameter limit for them should be not less than 16 inches breasthigh for the first cutting, and this should eventually be raised to the limit suggested for virgin growth. Sprout timber may be cut to a diameter of 14 inches breasthigh. After two or three cuttings, sprout growth will be largely eliminated from the forest, and the high diameter limit and heavier cover will eventually prevent much sprout reproduction on these sites. Otherwise, second-growth timber admits of the same management suggested for unlumbered forests. |