tidious in its choice of conditions. Not
a frequent or prolific seed bearer, it still insists on a moist loose
seed-bed and prefers the natural forest floor to burned-over land. It
cannot stand drought when young and except on cool northern slopes
seedlings may be killed or stunted by exposure to full sunlight. On
the contrary it demands more and more light as it grows older and
will be suppressed or killed if unable to secure it. Under natural
conditions it perpetuates itself best by filling open places in
the forest.

For the above reasons, sugar pine is naturally a component of mixed
forests and it is doubtful whether it will be successfully grown as
a pure stand. Unfortunately, also, logging methods which are both
the simplest and most favorable to the reproduction of its associates
may be discouraging to sugar pine reproduction. Nevertheless, its
value warrants strong efforts to favor it and is an argument, where
considerable young sugar pine exists, against either clean cutting
or the use of fire.

The Forest Service, for which authority much of the above discussion
of this species was taken, offers the following general outline
for management in California:

"Since the forests in which sugar and yellow pine occur vary greatly
in composition, the method of treatment must also vary. For this
the forest types already distinguished may form a basis.

"On the lower portion of the sugar pine-yellow pine type, where
sugar pine forms but a small proportion of the stand, only the yellow
pine should be considered for the future forest. All merchantable
sugar pine may therefore be removed. It will be necessary to leave
only a few seed trees of yellow pine to restock the ground, although
usually it will be a wiser policy to leave a fair stand, since
this can be removed as a second cutting when reproduction is
established. This procedure would also hold for areas on which yellow
pine occurs in nearly pure stands. In these localities dense stands
of second-growth yellow pine occur. It will often be profitable,
where there is a market at hand, to thin these stands when they
are about 30 years old, removing the suppressed trees for mine
props. Trees 6, 8 and 10 inches and up are used for this purpose,
and sell for from 5 to 6 cents a running foot.

"On the upper portion of the sugar pine-yellow pine type, where
both species have about an equal representation in the stand, seed
trees of each should be left, wherever practi