rR0GRE8S OF FORESTRY IN WISCONSIN 597 



however, luaia road.s will make liorses more efficient and rangers will be 

 required to supply them. 



It is planned to build a road system in which the main roads will checker- 

 board the whole reserve area in such a way that they will be about three miles 

 apart or as nearly that as the many lakes and swamps and the abandoned 

 logging road grades will allow. From the main roads, fire-lines will be made 

 to cut the areas into plots of about fortv acres each. These plots will very 

 often be extremely irregular and in order to make strategic points accessible 

 trails will be brushed out. The main roads are for the most part built by 

 removing the tie.s from old abandoned logging railroad grades and leveling off 

 the surface with plows and drags. The result is an excellent wagon road 

 with grades rarely exceeding seven per cent, all for a cost of about |.50 per 

 mile \\herever possible, fire-lines are built bv simplv dragging old railroad 

 grades after the ties have been removed. Where roads will become main 

 thoroughfares, care is taken to build them well for permanent use, while 

 less expensive fire-lines and trails are made when protection is the only reason 

 tor their construction. Sometimes it is necessary to cut lines between natural 

 fire protections such as lakes, wet swamps, etc. Here, the lines are made 

 about thirty feet wide, tlie brush cut out and burned and the line plowed and 

 dragged. There are now about 100 miles of main road and about 50 miles 

 of fire-lines. The latter were built to protect plantations and what little 

 natural reproduction survived the big fires of the past three years 



The reforestation policy was vigorously pushed this veaiC A nurserv site 

 was chosen centrally located for field planting and well protected bv forest 

 on three sides. An area was cleared oflf for a nurserv with a capacitv of 

 about one million seedlings annually; a water svstem using the Perrv pneu- 

 matic pump was installed, and a main pipe and laterals laid so that a fifty- 

 toot hose would reach all the beds. The beds were laid out 4 x 12 feet with 

 l«-inch paths. Each bed was surrounded by a frame covered with poultry 

 wire and provided with two removable top screens, one of poultrv wire and 

 the other of lath. Over 200 beds were made, of which 84 were planted to 

 i u?'f \'' *" ''"''^^•' P'"^' -' '' ^^^^^^ ^^'^'- '^ t« western vellow pine 

 na,t ^-S H^'r.-H "'■''n-^ '?™f ■ ^^''■'^ ""^ *^^ "'^^•^ ^^*^ ^o^^'i broadcast, a small 

 pait in drills. Germination was rapid on account of the very warm sprin- 

 and eflects of damping off soon appeared. In calculating the amount of seed 

 th/filV''" ^"«^''^"f«,,^^''^« "'«de for loss due to various causes and as this is 

 the first nursery established in this region, a rather large factor of safety was 

 used. Damping off caused the greatest damage, but ''even tha? wa SiS: 

 The white pines suffered a loss of 10 per cent: Norway pine, the seed of which 

 was collected near the nursery site, did not show any effects of the dilease 

 while that collected in other localities suffered a loss of five per cent About 

 fifteen per cent of the Scotch pine and forty per cent of the Norway spruce 

 ^ere killed. The western yellow pine was not affected. The nuSIry was 

 almost entirely free from weeds during the whole growing season due per 

 haps to the fact that the ground was broken up for^he fir^t time ^nd we Js 



E; r/f" '''1 '""^'"'^ *!."'' '"^^ ''-''' '-^ •'''-'^"^^ ^« ''''^ "P the area. "udThSe 

 1^ !l If""^""!'^ ^'■'''''" ^h^""*^ ^""l*' "«t ^^^^^ the full light. The rodents 

 did not bother the first planting, but a few beds that were sown later S the 

 summer were entirely destroyed. The final counts show Zt a factor of 



e;n.7/?^'>!''/"' '"'■"!, ^''^'^ '*^^" '''"' '-^"^ ^here a million seed^iu '«;«?« 

 expected, about one and one-fourth million were produced. These wllT^ 

 transplanted when two years old. i"ehe win oe 



During the three or four years necessary for these seedlino-s to -row tn , 

 suitable size for field planting, plantation operations will be irL o" !ith 



