Treesearch

Over the years there has been a small but impportant amount of research in forest genetics in the Lake States, and recently there has beeen a growing awareness of the importance of tree improvement in this region. For these reasons it appeared that a meeting of people active or interested in forest genetics might be worth while. So after consultation with a number of foresters and geneticists in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, we decided to sponser a Lake States Forest Genetics Conference at Eagle River, Wisconsin, on March 31 and April 1, 1953.

In the nineteen twenties the hardwood lumber industry of the Lake States faced a critical decision. There was an excess of mill capacity over stumpage available for long-continued operations. Some mills had a limited future; others had enough timber to last them a long time. But all such concerns began to consider what the future held.

Since the earliest colonial settlements along the northeastern seaboard, wood piling has been used for wharves and piers and other waterfront structures. As waterside industries and waterborne commerce grew, the demand for wood piling grew.

Aerial photographs are now commonly used in forest-inventory work. In the forest-survey work of the Northeastern Forest Experiment Station we are interested most in using them to estimate total volume of a forested area.

The nationwide forest survey now underway was undertaken to determine the status of the Nation?s forest resource. The purpose of the survey is, in brief, to find out how much timber there is, and where it is, the drain on this resource, and how much of the drain is being replaced by new growth.

Most published observations on the flowering and fruiting habits of forest trees have dealt with the periodicity of fruiting in entire species. This is natural since the main reason for making such observations has been the forecasting of seed crops.

Predicting future timber yields is an unavoidable task for the forest manager who is interested in growing timber as a long-term investment. He must predict yields as a basis for formulating management plans and policies. And he must predict yields from lands that differ greatly in productivity.

The tree-breeding work of the Northeastern Forest Experiment Station has its roots in a project started in 1924 by the Oxford Paper Company of Rumford, Maine, to develop fast-growing poplars that would be suitable for pulpwood. The initial tree-breeding work in this project was done by A. B. Stout and Ernst J. Schreiner, most of it at the New York Botanical Garden and in the city parks of Rochester, N. Y. The hybrids developed were placed in test plantations near Rumford, Maine.

Vegetative propagation of eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides) from dormant cuttings has generally been considered rather easy. Yet test plantings of unrooted cuttings of this species on the Hopkins Memorial Experimental Forest at Williamstown, Mass., showed considerable variation in rooting ability of the clones used.