_Forestry on Private Lands._--The practice of forestry among private
owners is of old date. One of the earliest instances was that of Jared
Eliot, who, in 1730, began the systematic cutting of timber land to
supply charcoal for an iron furnace at Old Salisbury, Connecticut. The
successful planting of waste lands with timber trees in Massachusetts
dates from about ten years later. But such examples were comparatively
rare until recent times. At present the intelligent harvesting of timber
with a view to successive crops, which is forestry, is much more common
than is usually supposed. Among farmers it is especially frequent. It
was begun among lumbermen by the late E.S. Coe, of Bangor, Maine, who
made a practice of restricting the cut of spruce from his forests to
trees 10, 12 or sometimes even 14 in. in diameter, with the result that
much of his land yielded, during his life, a second crop as plentiful as
the first. Many owners of spruce lands have followed his example, but
until very recently without improving upon it. Systematic forestry on a
large scale among lumbermen was begun in the Adirondacks during the
summer of 1898 on the lands of Dr W.S. Webb and Hon. W.C. Whitney, of a
combined area of over 100,000 acres, under the superintendence of the
then Division of Forestry. In these forests spruce, maple, beech and
birch predominate, but the spruce alone is at present of the first
commercial importance. The treatment is a form of the selection system.
Under it a second crop of equal yield would be ripe for the axe in
thirty-five years. Spruce and pine are the only trees cut. The work had
been executed, at least up to the year 1902, with great satisfaction to
the owners and the lumbering contractors, as well as to the decided
benefit of the forest. The lumbering is regulated by the following
rules, and competent inspectors are employed to see that they are
rightly carried out: (1) No trees shall be cut which are not marked. (2)
All trees marked shall be cut. (3) No trees shall be left lodged in the
woods, and none shall be overlooked by the skidders or haulers. (4) All
merchantable logs which are as large as 6 in. in diameter at the small
end must be utilized. (5) No stumps shall be cut more than 6 in. higher
than the stump is wide. (6) No spruce shall be used for bridges,
corduroy, skids, slides, or for any purpose except building camps, dams
or booms, unless it is absolutely necessary on account of lack of other
timber. (7) All merchantable spruce used for skidways must be cut into
logs and hauled out. (8) Contractors must not do any unnecessary damage
to young growth in lumbering; and if any is done, they must discharge
the men who did it.
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