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Show (Use Judgment In Cutting Xmas Trees At this time of the year the annual question of whether cutting- Christmas trees is a waste or not becomes acute. According to District Forester R. H. Rutledge, the cutting may be either the best kind of forest conservation or the worst kind of waste, depending upon how it is done. In a fully stocked forest there are always many hundreds hund-reds of young trees per acre, only a few dozen of which have reached maturity. The rest drop out in the struggle for existence. Trees cut in such forests as these where the youngsters young-sters are standing too thick, helps the others to make better growth by giving giv-ing them more light and space, while it serves to put the smaller fellows to a good use. On the other hand, there are in the Intermountain Region, vast areas of brush land into which the timber trees are spreading slowly and with great difficulty. In such places are scattered trees of beautiful shape and of good Christmas tree size. To cut these is the worst kind of waste, for it is their mission to grow to maturity, and in turn scatter seed so that the worthless worth-less brush lands may be slowly transformed trans-formed into valuable forests. The choice of the trees that are takn, therefore, makes all the difference differ-ence in the world. From the point of view of the Christmas tree user, it is unfortunate that the trees which are taken from overly dense stands to improve im-prove the forest conditions are fre-quntly fre-quntly lopsided and not nearly as pretty as the symmetrical trees which grow in the open. "The Forest Service is asking nobody no-body to go without a Christmas tree, but if you want to place yourself on the side of conservation and not of waste, prove it by buying a lop-sided tree," says District Forester R. H. Ruthledge. The poor side can always be put in the corner.' |