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Show r EXPERIMENTAL FORESTS Research Forestry Aids Nation's Woodland Owners Grow Trees To meet the increasing demand for timber. Uncle Sam's research foresters have come up with ways of producing stronger trees and making them grow faster. During 1950 the United States consumed approximately 39 billion board feet of lumber. This represents repre-sents more lumber than the nation used in any one year since 1942, when 60 per cent of the lumber produced pro-duced went into military channels. Lured by high prices and a continuing contin-uing heavy demand, too many woodland owners today are selling off timber faster than they are growing it. The small corps of research foresters working in the forest service of the U. S. department of agriculture have spent long years making studies of the growth, harvesting har-vesting and utilization of trees. Work has been slow because it takes from 20 to 80 years for a tree to mature. Now the foresters are coming com-ing up with some of the answers to the forest owners' problem of how to make money and at the same time guarantee a future supply. Caring for the forest involves taking out diseased, deformed and lowgrade trees. Research men have developed sprays which will kill insects and prevent the spread of infections. They have experi- In the above picture a forester studies the annual growth rings which show tree's rate of growth. Tree rings are measured before and after different forestry practices. prac-tices. mented with poisons as a means of killing low-grade species. They have produced hybrids that resist certain diseases and that will grow twice as fast as their parents. As another means of getting trees to grow faster, these foresters have tried thinning lightly or heavily at different intervals. |