this land is excellent forest soil, capable of producing a splendid mixture of pine and hardwoods upon every acre. Of course the reason is fire. So long as the pine lands burn over frequently the hill hardwoods will continue to be idlers. They cannot develop into good sawlogs under bad fire conditions. Yet it is desirable from many angles that we continue to grow hardwoods in mixture with our pine. We find spots where soil or other conditions will not permit pine to thrive; and it is my belief that the ideal selection type forest of shortleaf pine (with trees of all ages growing together) can be obtained only when we encourage the growth of some upland hardwoods in mixture with our pine. No discussion of the problems of hardwood management would be complete without a word about taxes. Though an annual payment of a few cents per acre may seem little enough in comparison with the value of the land, the factor of compound interest changes this aspect when viewed over a period of years. Bad as this may be from the viewpoint of the lumberman who would like to carry a forest investment for a long term, the problem has another and worse angle. The man who pays twenty-five cents per acre taxes, today has no guaranty that the levy will not be thirty cents next year. In fact he has good reason to believe that taxes will increase as time goes on. They always have increased; perhaps not yearly, but often enough to disturb one's budgeting. So this question of taxes stands squarely in the path of long time investments in hardwood young growth. And it is a problem which the lumberman cannot solve for himself; he must have help from the people of his State. At the risk of being tiresome I am going to summarize the outstanding features of hardwood management, as they appear at this present moment and stage of hardwood lumbering. Selective cutting is the pre-eminent requirement, and its maximum development presents a real but solvable problem. One of the interesting side-lights of this proposition is the fact that most woods-bosses and contractors, if left alone would cut selectively themselves (at least in the matter of diameter limits): they despise small logs and hate to handle them. The utilization of land is principally a problem in finance but controlled necessarily by the fundamental law of land hunger and land supply. We are not yet faced by a land famine, while there is a prospect of timber shortage. And it is a fact that a growing forest of young hardwood cannot be replaced except by the passage of years, while land settlement projects can be instituted almost over night. Fire is the bug-bear of upland hardwoods. Arkansas and Louisiana would be richer by ten millions of dollars in hardwoods alone if no fires had run through our upland hardwoods during the past twenty years. Stop these fires and the innumerable small oaks, hickories and gums will amount to something. And once again we come to taxes, a matter concerning the whole population of a State a little more directly than these other problems, and therefore possibly more difficult to solve. Much has been done by certain States in the way of tentative remedial legislation. But we have not gone deeply enough into the matter yet. The taxing of our future forest crop must be lifted out of the hand-to-mouth, day by day class, and put upon a plane of long-term financing. HARDWOODS OF THE SOUTH By V. H. SONDEREGGER STATE FORESTER, LOUISIANA DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION A great deal has been said of reforestation in the South and the greater portion has related to pines. Very little, if any, consideration has been given to the hardwoods. In Louisiana, east Texas, southwest Arkansas, and west Mississippi will be found the largest reservoir of hardwoods in the United States. All available species of oaks, hickories, ashes, and gums are to be obtained. In my opinion the reason that the hardwoods have not been studied more has been ignorance of three agencies. Foresters have not spent any time at all in the hardwoods, hardwood manufacturers have not given the proper consideration, that is supervision and study to the hardwoods with reference to the products that they could manufacture through efficient and selective logging and the public has not been educated to the value of the by-products that can be obtained. All three agencies have wrong ideas as to the true character of the lands in which the hardwoods grow. Unfortunately, the locality of hardwood timber has been called swamps and the impression throughout the country has been that the hardwood bottoms are constantly full of water with plenty of alligators, snakes and malaria. This is not true, as the greater percentage of the hardwood bottoms are subject to overflow only during the winter months, or an average of not to exceed three months per year. Otherwise the bottoms are dry, with the exceptions of low, flat places called brakes, which contain overflow water which could not run off when the water receded. A small percentage of the hardwood lands will be converted to agriculture but the greater percentage of the hardwood lands of this section cannot and will not be reclaimed. This is especially true of the upland hardwood bottoms which average from one to five miles in width. To build levees to hold water within the channels of the creeks would incur an expense greater than the value of the lands reclaimed. Drainage taxes will not affect these lands much, as the hill stop abruptly at the hardwood bottoms edge. These lands will be used for two purposes only, namely, second growth timber lands and grazing propositions. For the past ten years I have not only been practicing selective logging, but have been advocating this logging for both pines and hardwoods as the only safe bet for reforestation without large expense. Selective logging is where all available timber which commands a fair and profitable price on the market is removed. Selective logging permits the leaving of low grade trees and the unwanted species until the market is in such condition that it will be profitable to log them. The keynote to selective logging is the leaving of the woods in the proper condition for the growing of a new crop of trees, and this must be done through the leaving of seed trees of the species that predominate on the area. The fire hazard must be met and contended with, but is of very little trouble in the hardwood bottoms compared to the piney woods areas. The average hazard in an ordinary year does not exceed 60 to 75 days, in the fall months. Through my experience in the South in the last 15 years, I have encountered two dry periods where this hazard was increased in the fall of 1917 and in the fall of 1924, and these droughts would necessitate a fire patrol of at least four months or even more, depending on the length of the droughts. With the leaving of seed trees reproduction in the hardwood bottoms is rapid and easier than in the piney woods. Hardwoods reproduce readily from the seed crop which is more constant and regular than the seed crop of the pines. The second method of reproduction is from so-called root runners or sprouts which are started from the roots and form valuable and large trees. Ash in the South seems to prefer this process of reproduction and red oaks follow close second with hickories and white oaks following in line. The third methods of reproduction is from stump sprouts, prevalent throughout the hardwood bottoms in the South, and although this does not make a high grade timber for saw mill purposes it is the means of producing pulpwood, creosoting material and other medium-sized second growth timber. In the alluvial bottoms cottonwood, willows and others reproduce rapidly from young twigs broken off from the limbs of the trees during the fall. Reproduction from these cuttings is noticeable up and down the Mississippi bottoms. All of the above reproduction is absolutely guaranteed if fires are prevented. My observation as a lumberman in the past has been that the young hardwood timber is growing very rapidly and in fact surpasses the pine. Sample estimates have been made and I have been able to check up the growth per acres per year to 700 board feet as an average. Instances have been found of secondgrowth oak, gum and hickory growing as high as 1,500 board feet per acre in selected plots, but considering the many open places and waterways the average would be less. Instances of remarkable growth have been called to my attention, especially one in a letter written to me by Mr. A. B. Learned of Natchez, Miss., who states that they have cut the fifth crop of logs in 100 years off their holdings in the cottonwood belt above Natchez. The Learned Lumber Company was incorporated in 1824 and has been running since and this statement will be of value to the industry. Since advertising the remarkable growth in Louisiana of both hardwood and pines, I have had lumbermen cut samples of their logs showing such growth of oak and other species as 30 years old 30 inches in diameter and one red oak from the hill section of Louisiana showing 30 inches in diameter and 43 years old. My original observations were obtained as a log scaler years ago in scaling hardwood logs and I was astonished to find wide annual rings on the end of the logs. Checking this up with our inspectors at the mill I found that at least 30 per cent of the hardwoods cut in the last ten years have been from trees 50 years and under in age. The greatest difficulty in hardwood management has been in securing proper logging methods. Carelessness has been shown by executive officers of lumber companies in proper supervision. Too much responsibility has been left to the woods foreman and not enough information has been given out as to proper log lengths and proper methods of cutting them. My own opinion is that the hardwood industry should improve the woods personnel because competition and quality in manufacture are the two paramount issues in the industry today. By training men properly and keeping them informed as to the requirements of lumber, employees can develop better material in the woods. It is self evident that wood takes first place in the number of uses to which it may be adapted. This fact in itself suggests the importance of knowing at the earliest possible stage of manufacture to what use the tree is to be put. The character of the raw material cut from the tree determines its use, therefore, care in cutting a log will serve to forestall the so-called waste in working up lumber. To do this properly the woods organization must be trained to the possibilities that may be derived from a tree before it is felled and cut into lumber lengths. Another important factor relating to the hardwoods is the problem of securing closer and better utilization of the log after it has arrived at the mill. A great many operators through economic necessity must send short lengths and slabs to the waste burner as there is no demand from the consumer for them. I consider it of great importance that the hardwood industry, instead of advertising to sell upper grades spend a little time in forming some medium of exchange for informing both buyer and seller as to what is on hand. Recently a manufacturer asked me if I could locate for him oak and gum in pieces 7 x 9 inches square and 7 x 12 to 36 inches long, these species to be used in the manufacture of 10,000 radios. Another manufacturer re |