directly to young timber by fire and the decay of larger trees as the result of fire scars, the profit in holding land for a timber crop is largely consumed. Continued fires will change an acre of good young growth into a liability, by encumbering it with crippled and inferior trees incapable of paying their own carrying charges or even of paying the cost of removal so a better crop can take their place.

Just as the lumber business has progressed through unknown business hazards and physical handicaps, so this task of timber production can be met by proper organization, foresight, and conservative investment. The progressive business man will realize that when the facts of forest value are common knowledge the opportunity for a profitable business venture has passed.

A period of years will be needed to acquire even a reasonably full knowledge of the laws of reproduction, growth, and yield for our very complex hardwood forest, and there will always be a chance for far-sighted men to forecast market conditions and work toward perfection of their forest property.

PROBLEMS IN THE MANAGEMENT OF ARKANSAS AND LOUISIANA HARDWOODS

By J. B. WOODS

LONG-BELL LUMBER CO.

Whenever the subject of hardwood management is raised for discussion a picture flashes before my mind's eye; a picture illustrating the extent to which scientific management of hardwoods can be carried. The scene is in that forest region of Bavaria called the Spessart, a rolling country of splendid oak. Not far from a certain roadside tavern a patch of very large and very old white-oaks stands like a run-down orchard, only one or two on an acre, their tops dying gradually from the inroads of decay.

One of these monarchs is down, pushed over after two hours of root-grubbing and hand-pumping by an hydraulic treefelling machine. The local forester is instructing his workmen in great detail just how to cut up every part of this tree. But also he is busy with tape and caliper, measuring bole and

branches and comparing these figures with a record he finds in a little hand-book, while a score of American forest students look no. This is logging in the famous Orchard Forest, where every tree is known by name and where the dimensions and even the infirmities of every tree are a matter of official record.

Someone asks the forester why this particular tree has been harvested instead of some other, and he explains the theory of management of the Orchard Forest. The contents of each tree are known, but of course the quantity is diminishing, for decay does not stand still. Similarly, the value of the wood in each tree is known, but that value is increasing, for market prices of stumpage are advancing. The forester watches his orchard closely, and when the loss of merchantable wood balances the stumpage appreciation, so that the total value of any individual tree ceases to increase, that tree is harvested.

It is a long jump from the Spessart to the river-bottoms of Arkansas and Louisiana; geographically and with respect to timber values. The Bavarian forester represents one extreme of the application of forest management. Possibly some Americans in the poorer stands of hardwood represent the other, the extremity of being unable to manufacture anything at a profit but obliged to operate nevertheless. Between these extremes is a wide variation of logging practice, but I believe that the majority of hardwood operators today find themselves in positions where some consideration of timber management is worth their while. And by timber management I mean the handling of forests over a period of years for the purpose of harvesting more than one crop of merchantable timber.

Never mind how indefinite this definition may appear regarding the length of the period and the number of crops. If we can dig out the fundamentals of hardwood management and apply them and accept such application as sound business the rotation period will take care of itself, and the crops will follow one another as often as is profitable. To cut over a hardwood tract and hold it unwillingly for ten years and then log over it again profitably may be purely an accident; but if the owner realizes finally that with the exercise of some little care the process can be repeated a second time, he has discovered one phase of forest management.

Such occurrences are not uncommon in these two states.

Ten years ago the standards of merchantability were more difficult than today. We left trees in the woods as too small which today are considered excellent; and we ignored species of hardwood which today are coming into their own. Thus two factors have been at work changing standards of utilization and growth. The factor of increased merchantability will continue to apply, extending to smaller sizes of logs and to such by-products as fuel and acid wood; and of course growth will go on so long as young trees are left upon the land.

Selective cutting offers the hardwood operator a chance which amounts almost to eating his cake and having it too. By selective cutting is meant of course cutting to certain standards of size and quality, with the dual purpose of producing profitable logs and leaving the woods in good condition for maximum growth. The close operator emphasises the yield per acre, thinking principally of distributing his fixed charges over larger quantities of logs and thereby reducing logging costs. His saving in costs may amount to something, but if he puts into his mill a considerable percentage of small and poor logs which will barely pay their way, he reduces the profit per thousand feet upon his annual cut, and often overbalances all of his operating savings. Further, when he finishes logging a tract there is so little thrifty stuff left upon it that the day when it can be relogged is pushed indefinitely into the future.

A white oak tree ten inches in diameter at the stump may not be sufficiently valuable to return a margin above the cost of converting it into lumber. If that be the case its stumpage value is little or nothing. Yet that little tree already has lived from sixty to eighty years or maybe more, and now has reached a point where ten or twenty years additional growth will add very greatly to its merchantability. Today it is worth nothing: in ten years it will have grown into a profitable log: thus all of the value increment comes in the last ten years of its life. Selective cutting spares such trees so that they may earn some money before they die. It can be shown that under normal conditions of land value and taxes, selective logging of a large hardwood tract over a period of twenty years is considerably more profitable than close logging.

But how is the lumberman to know where to draw the line between timber production and agriculture as the more profit

able use for his land. We know that much of the hardwood land of Arkansas and Louisiana is alluvial in character and very fertile. Such land when free from unseasonable inundations and therefore available for cropping may sell at from twenty to sixty dollars per acre even though covered with stumps and slash. But the taxes upon such land are burdensome: for that matter they are mighty burdensome upon all forest land. So, if land is to be held for logging it certainly should pay its way. We can examine the land to determine its character and we can determine the earning power of the young growth. Then, with our tax and other cost data we can estimate the value of such land as a forest investment over a period of years. If we find that such land can be sold for agricultural use at prices which are in excess of our valuation figures (making due allowance also for increasing stumpage values), we scarcely can be blamed for letting the land go and looking elsewhere for forest investments.

However, much alluvial land is not immediately available. for farming because of protracted and uncontrollable inundations. Drainage and levee enterprises are going forward constantly but they are frightfully expensive and not always successful. The value of overflow lands, regardless of fertility depend chiefly upon the flood factor, and range from one dollar to ten dollars per acre. Upon such lands hardwood timber, be it ever so slow of growth, offers a source of income attractive and reliable. In my opinion we can well afford to move slowly in the matter of forcing alluvial lands upon the market, when costly reclamation projects are involved. Rather should we attempt to keep these lands stocked with hardwoods of the more valuable kinds while agriculture settles upon the lands which are ready for it.

The rates of growth of the various hardwoods in general are uniformly slow. Such valuable species as forked-leaf and over cup white oak, ash, persimmon, hickory, sweet gum and cypress increase in size very slowly. Red oak, pin oak and cow oak are almost alone in their ability to grow rapidly. Such being true it is desirable to develop a forest which is at least partially stocked with the more rapidly growing species. This can be effected gradually by selective cutting and by introduction of seeds and transplants of the desired species. The results

may seem rather trifling in terms of income, but over a period of several years the forest that is leavened with a fairly large percentage of fast growing species will show a higher yield and more frequent cuttings than the collection of slow-growers.

As an illustration of the difference in earning power of different species, I have in mind a certain creek bottom not over forty miles from Little Rock, where two even aged pole patches stood side by side. They are practically pure stands; one of sweet gum, the other red oak; and both contain something like two hundred trees per acre ranging in size from four to ten inches at stump, which is excellent stocking. If growth continues during the next ten years as during the past decade, the sweet gum stand will increase by two thousand feet of merchantable timber or two hundred feet per acre per year. But the red oak will add more than five thousand feet per acre in ten years, in terms of merchantable timber, or two and onehalf times as much as the gum.

Much of the recent activity in applying forestry principles to the management of southern timberlands, has been among the people who manufacture pine. Pine grows more rapidly, is merchantable in smaller logs, and in other ways lends itself better to treatment as a crop. But many of the pine people own hardwoods either in creek bottoms or mixed with their pine. And some of them have seen their hardwoods grow in importance from an unmerchantable item to be left in the woods or used only for logroad ties into the major portion of their lumber output. So the pine men should be interested in certain phases of hardwood timber management.

In the upland portions of Arkansas and northern Louisiana hardwoods usually are found in mixed stands with pine. Such a typical mixture may contain both shortleaf and loblolly pine, white oak, post oak, red oak and hickory on the slope, and in the narrow branch bottoms, red oak, sweet gum, black gum and others. In volume the hardwood contents of such pine lands is surprising; averaging as high as two thousand feet log scale per acre upon thousands of acres. From the standpoint of marketability however, the hardwoods are relatively less important, because so many of the trees are defective. They are twisted and shot through with decay, while their branches spread over the tops of young pines and hold them back. Yet