Treesearch

When spruce-fir stands in the Northeast are cut, balsam fir seedlings often predominate in the regeneration that follows. Most landowners would prefer to have the spruce; but they do not get it, and they wonder why.

Under certain conditions that we do not yet fully understand, balsam fir has a tendency to form dense thickets that cause stagnation of growth. This condition is common throughout the spruce-fir region, and it presents the landowner with one of his most perplexing management problems. A typical thicket averaging 15 feet tall may contain 5,000 to 10,000 stems per acre (fig. 1). Small areas may have densities up to 30,000 stems per acre.

Twenty years ago the deliberate use of fire in forest management was frowned upon by many foresters. Many heated arguments developed over it, even though ecological studies had shown that fire favored the maintenance of several valuable forest types. Today attitudes have changed: most foresters accept fire as one of their management tools - though admittedly it is dangerous and is applicable only in certain areas.

Research foresters on the Fernow Experimental Forest were recently faced with the problem of conducting a logging job with "poor" skidroad standards on a 38-acre watershed above a municipal water-supply reservoir.

Foresters and landowners in the northern and eastern states are vitally concerned with the destructive browsing of forest regeneration by large numbers of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Attempts to prevent over-populations of deer have been made through legislative and administrative measures with varying success, but more direct methods of reducing or eliminating browsing damage are also being sought.

Pin oak (Quercus palustris Muench.) is an important tree species common on wet, heavy soils in the Central States region. Until recently, however, the silvics of this species has been neglected (Minckler, 1957). In an effort to provide some of the missing information, a study was begun several years ago to find our more about pin oak acorn production and regeneration. The work gained impetus because of the increasing practice of artificially flooding pin oak flats during the winter to create fall and winter wild duck habitat through the establishment of "green tree reservoirs." Resource...

Knowing the pattern of seedfall can be helpful when trying to regenerate yellow-poplar. This is especially true if the stand contains only scattered yellow-poplar seed trees. Information obtained from seed collections in Indiana shows that most of the seed falls north and northeast of seed trees.

The Lake States Forest Experiment Station is glad to facilitate the work of the Lake States Forest Tree Improvement Committee in encouraging and coordinating forest genetics activities in this region. We are happy, therefore, to publish this Proceedings of the Fourth Lake States Forest Tree Improvement Conference, as we did for the preceding three conferences in 1953, 1955, and 1957.

In the mountain hardwood country of the northern Appalachians, tree-length skidding with tractor and arch has proved to be economical logging. One essential part of this type of logging is that tree-length logs are winched to the skid roads: tractor and arch do not run around through the woods. Winching distance is commonly 200 to 300 feet; and occasionally an extra length of cable is added to permit skidding up to 400 or 500 feet.

The first job in compiling streamflow data from streamflow charts is to mark storm rises and storm peaks, make corrections as necessary for time and stage height, and account for irregularities on the chart. Errors in the time scale can result from faulty clock operation, irregularities in chart take-up by the drum, or expansion of the paper. This note suggests a device for making rapid and accurate time corrections.