AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF NURSERYMEN. 301 



impoverished of the constituents required for the growth of that particular tree or 

 trees. This I believe to be one of the fallacies handed down from past ages, taken for 

 granted, and never questioned. Nowhere does the English oak grow better than where 

 it grew when William the Conqueror found it, at the time he invaded Britain. Where 

 do we find white pines growing better than in parts of New England, where this tree 

 has grown from time immemorial? Where can you find young redwoods growing more 

 thriftily than among their giant ancestors, nearly or quite as old as the Christian era? 



Then one may ask the question, why have any succession of forest growths? I 

 simply answer, because you can not make somethinng out of nothing. Wherever we 

 see a forest tree growing, there, bur common sense teaches us, a seed has been deposited 

 from which this tree has grown. When a pine forest is burned over, both trees and 

 seed have been destroyed, and as the burned trees can not sprovit from the stump, like 

 oaks and many other trees, the land is left in a condition well suited for the germination 

 of tree seeds, but there are no seeds to germinate. It is an open field for pioneers to 

 enter, and the seeds which arrive there first have the right of possession. 



The aspen poplar, populus tremidoids, has the advantage over all other trees. It is 

 a native of all our northern forests from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Even fires can not 

 eradicate it, as it grows in moist as well as dry places and sprouts from any part of the 

 root. It is a short-lived tree, consequently it seeds when quite young, seeds abundantly, 

 the seeds are light, almost infinitesimal, and are carried on wings of down. It ripens 

 its seeds in spring, they are carried to great distances, and at the very time when the 

 ground is in the best condition. 



The seeds of this tree would require the greatest skill of the nurseryman, and it is 

 doubtful if he would succeed at all. The burnt land is its paradise; wherever you see 

 this tree on high, dry land, you may rest assured that a fire has been there. On 

 land-slides you will not find its seeds germinating, although they have been deposited 

 there equally with the burned land. 



Next to the aspens and poplars, comes the canoe birch, and further north the yellow 

 birch, and such kinds as can have the seeds deposited. I have seen acorns and nuts 

 germinating in clusters on burned lands, in a few instances, having evidently been 

 buried there by animals and escaped the fires. I have seen the red cherry, Prunus 

 Pensylvanicitrn, coming up in great quantities, which might never have germinated, 

 had not the fire destroyed the debris which covered them too deeply. 



A careful examination around the margin of a burned forest, will show trees of the 

 surrounding kinds working in again. Thus, by the time the short-lived aspens (and 

 they are very short-lived on high land) have made a covering on the burnt land, the 

 surrounding kinds will be found re-established on the new forest — the seeds of the 

 conifers carried in by the winds, nuts and acorns by the squirrels, the berries by the 

 birds, the mixture varying more or less from the kinds which grew there before the 

 fire. 



It is an easy matter to learn the number of years since the fire by counting the 

 annual growths on the scarred trees around the margin of the burned district. A fire 

 of twenty years ago will show plainly on the pines and many other kinds. 



It is wonderful to notice how far seeds of berries are carried by the birds. The 

 wax- wings and cedar birds carry seeds of our Tartarian honeysuckles, purple barberries, 

 and many other kinds, for miles distant, where we see them springing up near the lake 

 shore, where these birds fly in fiocks to feed on the juniper berries. It seems to be the 

 same everywhere. I found European mountain ash trees last summer in a forest in 

 New Hampshire, the seeds of which must have been carried two miles as the crow flies. 



While this alternation is going on in the east, and may have been going on for 

 thousands of years, the Rocky mountain district is not so fortunate. When a forest is 

 burned down in that dry region, it is doubtful if coniferous trees will ever grow again, 

 except in some localities specially favored. I have seen localities where the short-lived 

 trees were dying out, and no others taking their places. Such spots will hereafter take 

 their places above the " timber line," which seems to me to be a line governed by 

 circumstances more than altitude or quality of soil. 



There are a few exceptions, where pines will succeed pines in a burned forest. Pinus 

 Murfyana grows up near the timber line in the Rocky mountains. This tree has 

 presistent cones, which adhere to the trees for many years. I have counted sixteen 

 year cones on one of these trees, and examined burned forests of this species. Many 

 of the cones had apparently been imbedded in the earth as the trees fell, the heat had 

 opened the cones, the seedlings were growing up in myriads, but not a conifer of any 

 - other kind could be seen as far as the fire had reached. 



In the Michigan peninsulas, northern Wisconsin, and Minnesota, Pinus Banksiana 

 a comparatively worthless tree, is replacing the valuable red pine, Pinus resinosa, and 



