54 FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 



must believe that the country would return in time to its primeval 

 condition. The species would be the same, and their relations to 

 one another would be the same. 



After ordinary fires, the reforesting the ground is largely brought 

 about, not by seeding, but by sprout growth of one kind or anoth- 

 er. The stems only of the trees are killed. In some species the 

 roots persist and the portion of the stem below the ground so that 

 from these alter an ordinary light fire a circle of young suckers 

 comes up. Such growth has a great advantage over seedling 

 growth in the possession of a fully developed root system, and 

 species which rei)roduce in this way, therefore have an advantage, 

 other things being even, over others which grow only from seed. 

 But a fire which burns up the vegetable soil kills also the roois of 

 the tree and leaves no chance for such a process. Hi re seeding must 

 take place, and the question of the succession is largely a question 

 of available seed. Frequently the t«o methods of reforesting go 

 on together. Then seedlings and sprouts of the same species may 

 be seen in competition side by side. 



This was the case with the white birches on the burnt tract on the 

 East Machias river. However the country may have been re-covered 

 after the first fire, on some portions of it the growth withstood the 

 heat of the second. Frequently birches were seen standing in groups 

 indicating their sprout origin, while frequently in the centre were 

 the remains of the parent tree. Clumps of maples too. stood in the 

 same way, and their arrangement was to be attributed to the same 

 origin. Then among these grouped trees stood others single and 

 erect These were taken to be setdlings, and a proof of the cor- 

 rections of this determination was the difference in the number of 

 rings shown in the butt of the two trees. Sprouts spring up rapidly. 

 A fire of the middle of May, 1894, showed birch and maple sprouta 

 already two to four feet high. Seedlings in such instances would 

 be a year belated, while in developing their root system they would 

 be put at further disadvantage. The seedlings on this twenty-four 

 year old burn showed almost uniformly two less rings at the butt 

 than the sprouts. As to size-foiM' to five inches by thirty to thirty- 

 five feet was the maximum for the white birch sprouts. Gray birch 

 and seedlings were distinctly smaller. 



Traveling over a cons derable area of this tract, showed a marked 

 division of it as regards the most prominent species. Birch was 

 decidedly the dominant tree of the tract, being mixed in all parts 



