Five Seasons' Growth of Conifers

Abstract

From time immemorial man has been interested in the study of phenology. Early civilized man took heed of the responses of his cultivated plants to season and weather, for to him the lean years when fruit, grain, or forage failed, were troublous times. Early studies dealt with the flowering, fruiting, and ripening of agricultural crops, while the study of forest phenology began when timber became a crop to be grown rather than a resource to be mined. European foresters have amassed a great body of data concerning their own species and conditions. The situation in the northeastern United States is sufficiently different so that European data cannot be directly applied. Studies of the terminal growth of conifers by American workers have been sporadic and often incidental to other work. Lamb ('15) published a calendar showing the approximate dates of the onset and ending of tree growth. Moore ('17) reported on the growth of small softwoods in Maine, and Illick ('19) in Pennsylvania. Baldwin ('31) presented data on several northern conifers, taken in Maine, New Hampshire, and New York. My work has been conducted along lines essentially similar to Baldwin's, which was the stimulus for this present study. More recently, Kienholz ('34) studied leader growth of small softwoods in New Hampshire. No attempt has been made here to prepare a complete bibliography and only those papers bearing on softwood species in the Northeast have been included in the references. Thanks are due to Henry I. Baldwin of the Forestry and Recreation Department of New Hampshire and to Edward W. Littlefield of the New York State Conservation Department for helpful suggestions and for reading the manuscript. OBJECTIVES