108 MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



up new steins. The same would be true if the maples were closely bitten 

 off bv cattle or sheep. Sugar maples under such circumstances, seldom 

 send up new sprouts. The few other large fruiting sugar maples in 

 other portions of the forest are generally making little headway in pro- 

 ducing maples, because the oaks furnish a shade too dense for seedlings. 

 Possibly in former years, the maples have promised as well as they do 

 now in one portion of the forest, but many crops of young seedlings one 

 after the other may have been destroyed by fire. No fire has passed 

 through the woods in thirty years past. 



In this piece of woods are numerous large-toothed aspens, nearly all 

 of which are dead or nearly so. The aspens will not long survive when 

 overtopped by other trees. They were most likely started from seeds 

 scattered among the remote white oaks and, later, after the fires had 

 ceased, were overtaken by black oaks and others and were smothered. 



About thirty-five years ago a quantity of young Norway spruces were 

 set across the road to the southwest of this forest and for some years 

 past we have been observing young spruces in the woods, though they are 

 in no place very abundant. Some of them have been transplanted_to 

 ornament neighboring homes. These young evergreens extend at least 

 twenty yards into the woods and one of them is 247 yards distant from 

 the nearest spruce which stands to the southwest. A few red cedars are 

 to be seen in the woods, although it is probably a quarter of a mile to 

 the nearest bearing tree. The wind transports the seeds of maples and 

 pines; the birds the red cedars. 



A couple of white birches (Betula alba) have been found in this forest, 

 though the nearest bearing trees were about 450 yards away. 



