10 WORKING PLAN FOR FOREST LANDS NEAR PINE BLUFF, ARK. 



back by fire and still be able to sprout, but it may be safely assumed 

 that it can do so after two or three such setbacks. Both Loblolly 

 and Shortleaf can produce these shoots up to the age of 15 or 20 

 years. 



These fires, occurring as they do every three or four years, have 

 had a disastrous effect on the character of the forest. The older trees, 

 both pine and hardwood, continue to live for a number of years at 

 least, but reproduction is checked. Not that no young growth what- 

 ever succeeds; almost any cut-over area which has been swept by 

 repeated fires proves the contrary. Man]- pine and hardwood seed- 

 lings will be found growing up in spite of the fires, favored by chance 

 or some local condition. But such young growth is meager and very 

 inferior to what would be obtained if fires were kept out. Areas cut 

 perhaps twenty years ago, and visited by frequent fires since, are gen- 

 erally covered with open groups of hardwood saplings, and in these 

 groups, as well as scattered about through the whole area, is a sprink- 

 ling of young pines, which at times form open and scraggy groups by 

 themselves. Such a sparse, open, and irregular growth is bound to be 

 of very little commercial value. The saplings will grow up into badly 

 formed trees with many low branches, and the timber produced will 

 be knotty and inferior. 



On the other hand, in localities which have been exempt from fire 

 large, dense groups of young pine and hardwood have sprung up. 

 Reproduction of this kind ma} 7 be seen on limited areas in several parts 

 of the tract. If fire were excluded, it is perfectly reasonable to 

 expect that this condition would obtain generally, and that such groups 

 would gradually spread until they had occupied most of the cut-over 

 area. This young growth would produce tall, straight trees, free from 

 branches, and containing the most valuable kind of timber. Even 

 with ample protection against fire, the whole cut-over area would of 

 course never grow up to a dense, even-aged growth of pine so long as 

 a large proportion of mature hardwood remained standing after the 

 lumbering; but the percentage of pine in the young growth would be 

 largely increased, and the commercial value of the future forest would 

 be much higher. 



Apart from the damage done by fire to the young growth, the forest 

 as a whole suffers very severely from the complete destruction of the 

 humus or leaf mold. It is a noticeable fact that the soil throughout the 

 tract is covered by so thin and scattered a layer of leaves and needles 

 as to be almost entirely bare. Fire consumes the leaf litter completely 

 every time it passes over the ground, and in so doing destroys the best 

 fertilizer and protector of the forest soil, leaving it exposed to the 

 deteriorating action of sun, wind, and rain. As a consequence, the 

 rate of tree growth suffers. 



By far the largest number of fires are started intentionally by 

 people owning farms or small bodies of timber surrounded by or bor- 



