BEAL ON DAMAGE TO YOUNG TREES BY DEER AND ELK. 83 



on a iiioii<><:i-aiili at \\\v Michigan species, any coniribiuioii of specimens 

 v.ill be j^ladly received. I shall he j;lad to name specimens sent for 

 determination except Lccanhnnx, and shall be f^lad to get them. A 

 scale may be perfectly familiar to you and still be unrecorded from the 

 state. Its locality is very likely to be new. 



We have in ]\lichi«»an 44 s])ecies on record at the present time. Many 

 of these have been found (uily durin<; the last two or three years, after 

 a special search. 



THE DAMAGE DONE TO YOUXG TREES BY DEER AND ELK. 



W. .J. BEAL, PH. D., AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



In the years 1874-75 at the Agricultural College, a small plantation of 

 about one hundred fifty specimens of trees and shrubs was begun 

 covering nearly two acres. In autumn of 1898, 1 was urged by a 

 member of the faculty to permit him to enclose this arboretum with 

 an area of two acres adjoining, with the view to using it for a ''deer 

 park." Although I was certain that nearly all the smaller trees would 

 soon be destroyed if such a plan were adopted, a compromise was made 

 by which a small piece of the arboretum was included in the park. It 

 would be a capital experiment at any rate. 



A pair of young elk and a trio of deer were soon placed on the land 

 that had been surrounded by a high wire fence. The work of depreda- 

 tion began promptly and has continued almost daily ever since that 

 time. 



Twenty-five or more species of woody plants w'ere exposed to these 

 animals, and without a single exception, all were destroyed or on the 

 direct road to destruction, wherever the tops did not extend above 

 ten feet, and very nearly all were destroyed where the trunk was not- 

 over two inches in diameter. A short row of king nut or big shell-bark 

 hickory, Hicoria, came as near to exemption from danmge as any of the 

 number. The trunks of this species are so tough and the bark so hard 

 that little impression can be made by teeth or horns. Even all the 

 limbs of these hickories, that are within reach to the diameter of an 

 inch or more have been repeatedly twisted and bent by the horns of elk 

 and buck until all life long since disappeared. The leaves and small 

 twigs of the low growth were the first to be attacked. 



All vestige of life of such plants did not survive the second summer. 

 Here are the names of some of them: black-cap raspberry, Virginia 

 creeper, honey-suckle, grape vine, blue beech, common locust, black 

 cherry. Two low ayple trees with trunks eight inches in diameter were 

 killed the first summer, mncli of the bark disapjiearing from the main 

 trunks and nearly all of it from the branches as high as the animals 

 could reach. Swamp white oaks and honey locust with a diameter of 

 two and one-half to three inches were girdled, also chestnuts two and 

 one-half inches through, box elders three inches, white ashes three 

 inches, butternuts and Norway maples three and one-half inches, blue 



