Jamestown to the Golden Gate they responded with the world moving cry, "We are coming, Father Woodrow, some twenty millions strong."

Men will continue to debate the causes of that war; they will appraise its participants, but history will write high at the top of the scroll of its men of fame the name of Woodrow Wilson of Virginia.

It is fortunate and fitting that the places sanctified by historic traditon should be found in various sections. Massaschuetts has her Bunker Hill; Pennsylvania he Independence Hall and her Valley Forge.

But to describe the places of historic interest in Virginia would be to ecite the litany of the nation. The feet of American pilgrims are co stantly turning toward Mount Vernon and Monticello. From Jamestown to Yorktown one runs the gamut of the making of America.

Other States have their sacred places, but only in Virginia, may it be said, almost without exaggeration, that every hill is a temple, and every valley a shrine.

THE REGENERATION OF APPALACHIAN HARDWOOD

E. H. FROTHINGHAM, Director

Appalachian Forest Experiment Station

Forest regeneration is the central fact in timber growing. It makes insistent demands upon fire protection, which is nine-tenths the protection of regeneration; upon the method of cutting, which is the preliminary to regeneration; and upon the early treatment of the young stand, which is the means of controlling the regeneration and starting it toward the goal of highest financial returns. As a field for scientific research, there is no subject in the domain of forestry which presents so many or so difficult problems for investigation. The course of forest management of any tract of timber is, in fact, punctuated and set off by the recurrence of the critical regenerative periods.

Regeneration may be said to begin with the production of the flowers and end with the germination of the seed; or to begin and end with the establishment of the thrifty sprout. The forester, however, must extend these limits. His purpose is not only to obtain but also to control regeneration, in both kind and amount. He must therefore anticipate seed and sprout production when he marks the timber for cutting, and he must follow the reproduction through the period of competition and until the

dominance of a selected stand is assured. How to get and protect an ample supply of the desired kinds of regeneration is the question which determines most of the important activities in timber raising.

One of the oustanding features of the Southern Appalachian hardwood forests is their ability to reproduce themselves under hard usage. They are hard to kill. If the quantity of regeneration were the only or the chief requirement for successful timber growing, the problem would be solved with very little effort. The woods may be recklessly cut; fire after fire may burn through them; and still there will be some kind of forest growth coming in-poorer and poorer in quality after each successive fire, but still usually ample to restock the area with some sort of tree growth. There are, of course, spots and patches which finally run down to a low, compact cover of laurel, rhododendron, or scrub oaks, and there are many thousands of acres where a luxuriant forestry canopy hides a worthless timber stand. What the hardwood forests are suffering from is not quantity but quality of regeneration. The agents chiefly responsible for this deterioation are fire and resultant decay.

In a sapling stand of hardwood reproduction observed in Carter County, Tennessee, samples cut showed that the little trees were already heavily infected with heart rot. Yet outwardly the stand was dense and thrifty. The stems of the saplings carried fire scars which had largely healed over, and it was undoubtedly through these that the decay entered. In fire swept, cut-over hardwood areas of the Southern Appalachians there must be many acres of similar hardwood regeneration, thrifty enough to the eye but containing an increasing volume of decay which is nullifying the producing value of the stand. Such stands are among the forester's hardest problems.

Fortunately, fires do not burn everywhere every year. The young stands which are wrecked from the start are perhaps exceptional. Another form of deterioration, however, is prevalent even in sound and thrifty regeneration. This consists in the disproportionate representation of species which do not now and probably never will have a high intrinsic value. Such conditions are likely to be found in stands which have been culled, from time to time, of their best species, thus reducing the seed supply of the desirable kinds. The gaps left by these cullings become more or less filled by the crowns of the other trees of the forest, thus shutting off light from the reproduction. It happens that some of the most desirable trees, such as yellow poplar, basswood, red oak, white pine, cherry and locust, need much light for good growth and a moderate supply for

pare existence. On the other hand, some of the least desirable, like beech, black gum, sourwood, rhododendron, and laurel, are able to thrive with considerably less light. The competition under a partial overhead shade is thus likely to result in the mastery of the better by the poorer species, so that when the reproduction is uncovered by the removal of the remaining timber stand it represents at best a mediocre and unpromising basis for a future yield. Even under this more modern railroad lumbering, which has taken a very much larger proportion of material than was possible in the earlier cuttings, there is often left enough of the crown cover, represented in very defective trees and particularly trees of poor species, to handicap seriously the establishment of desirable reproduction and thereby reduce the percentage of profit.

A third deteriorative influence upon reproduction is the prolific sprout producing capacity of most of the Southern Appalachian hardwoods. All the hardwood species will produce sprouts after cutting or fire, and two or three are noted for the quantities of suckers which come up from the

roots.

Under favorable conditions and for suitable species, sprout reproduction may be definitely sought as an object of silvicultural cuttings. Coppice forestry on short rotations is widely practiced in Europe, and in our country chestnut has responded splendidly to the rough approximation of such management that was practiced in southern New England. In the Southern Appalachians, sprout reproduction is certain to play an important part in forest management. But it must be recognized that seed reproduction is, after all, superior in the vigor and persistence of the trees it produces. There are only two species-chestnut and basswoodwhich produce sprouts that are comparable in quality with seed reproduction. Of these, the chestnut is doomed by the blight and its wide spreading, rapid growing, and persistent sprout clusters will be only a handicap to the regeneration of the forest wherever chestnut is cut. Basswood is too sparsely scattered to be of much importance.

In general, therefore, sprouts are to be considered a handicap to the best reproduction. Some of the least desirable species tend to monopiize freshly cut-over or burned-over areas with sprout growth. Among them are shrubs and shrub-like trees, as well as tree species of larger size. On account of its abundance and wide distribution chestnut seems destined to be one of the most troublesome, since several generations of sprout clumps may come up and be killed before the blight finally puts an end to its sprout producing capacity. Sourwood, an abundant and widely dis

tributed species within its geographical range, produces rapidly growing sprouts in large clumps. As a timber tree it has little promise of value because of its small size. Silverbell is another small and relatively inferior species which reproduces abundantly by means of sprouts. Laurel and rhododendron, which produce heavy clumps of sprouts when cut or burned back, are extremely aggressive competitors with tree reproduction. Dogwood, red maple, and black gum contribute their share to the sprout reproduction, and sassafras, through its root suckers.

The nature lover may have the consolation of knownig that, come what may to the forests of the Southern Appalachians, the species which contribute most to the brilliant beauty of these woods in spring-silverbell, dogwood, sourwood, rhododendron, and laurel-are among the best fitted to survive. To the forester, however, the aggressiveness of these species, their abundance, rapid early growth, heavy foliage, and the ability of several of them to grow under dense shade, are matters of serious concern. His efforts must be aimed to give every assistance to the reproduction of the better species, particularly that which originates from seed. This means warfare against what are, in effect, “weed species;" but it should be noted that the campaign lasts only until the preferred reproduction has reached a place in the sun. After that, the smaller and shade tolerant species may be left to grow, and some of them, such as dogwood, may be counted up for later yields of valuable wood products.

There is little doubt that the earlier successive cullings of the hardwood forest have robbed it of a part of its best seed supply. Black walnut and black cherry, and in many places yellow poplar and white pine, are much less abundant in the second growth than they doubtless would have been if these cullings had not picked out the seed bearing trees of these species, leaving a not very much opened up crown cover of the less desired kinds. The knowledge of this deterioative process which has taken place in the past should be an object lesson for future practice. From now on, wherever cuttings are made every effort ought to be taken to see that a seed supply of worthwhile timber trees-the best kinds available on the area is provided. If clear-cutting is practiced, enough seed bearing trees of these species to insure a well-distributed reproduction should be left. For light seeded species like yellow popular, one tree to every two or three acres will insure at least a light seeding of the area and afford a means of restoring poplar to it. For heavy seed trees like the oaks and hickories, more trees must be left, perhaps three or four to the acre, and they

should be distributed to take advantage of slopes down which the acorns or nuts will roll.

Under the crowns of most forests, especially those which have been previously opened up by culling, there is present an advance growth, in which the shade enduring species are likely to be more abundant than the light needing. This advance growth, together with the sprouts which will spring up from the stumps when the larger timber is felled, will prejudice the seed reproduction which starts later on as a result of leaving seed trees. When cutting is followed by fire the advance growth itself will sprout from the bases of burned stems. It is this monopolizing growth, previously described, from which the forester is called upon to rescue the seedling reproduction of the preferred species. The means of doing this are the so-called "release cuttings," which are bound to become one of the most important elements in Southern Appalachian forest practice.

The cost of release cuttings represents, in the Southern Appalachians, the cost of planting in regions less favorably situated for natural regeneration; but release cuttings can undoubtedly be conducted at less expense. Experiments begun three years ago by the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station are already showing satisfactory results in the salvage of a young reproduction of yellow poplar from death by shading. On the untreated sample plots which were left as a check, the poplar seedlings are rapidly being exterminated by a dense overhead shade of sumac, silverbell, and chestnut.

The provision of a seed supply of preferred species by means of seed trees will, it is believed, make planting or artificial sowing unnecessary in the hardwood forests. Particularly severe fires, burning in late spring or summer may, however, so thoroughly kill the stand that planting or sowing will be the only means of reforestation. Hardwood planting in the Southern Appalachians has been little tried, as yet, and with only a few species, notably yellow poplar and black locust. Some very good results have been obtained with these species, and further experiments to determine the conditions and the species for which planting is indicated will doubtless be called for as time goes on. Cooperative experiments made by the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station and the Champion Fibre Company, of Canton, N. C., have shown that with certain precautions the artificial sowing of yellow poplar seed in seed spots will be successful.

The destruction of desirable reproduction of such species as poplar as a result of cattle grazing has been noted from time to time in the mountains. A canvass which was recently made, however, indicates that