ALTERING EXISTING COVER 



639 



It is one thing to lay the plans to create and iiii]nci\c f;i(ni-,c habitats and quite another 

 to put them into operation. The best set up plans, he lhc> ciini]»li(ated or simple, are of little 

 use unless practical methods of carrying them out arc available. This chapter, then, deals 

 primarily with the ways of improving and maintaining grouse cover. 



It is not possible to suggest improvement techniques that wiU fit every situation. Some 

 methods, such as those employed in planting open fields to conifers or to certain hardwoods, 

 have been well developed through years of use. Others, for example those designed to en- 

 courage clumps of food-producing shrubs along woods borders, are as yet scarcely out of 

 the experimental stage. The problem is further complicated in that such methods must often 

 be modified to meet individual situations. Here is a condition which places unusual empha- 

 sis on the training, experience and ingenuity of those who are to do the actual work of de- 

 veloping grouse coverts. 



In planning, one thinks largely of how to make existing conditions better. In carrying out 

 the plans, the practical question of maintenance also demands considerable attention. 

 One has to remember that most grouse cover is constantly changing. Thus nature estab- 

 lishes first one cover type after another, in orderly fashion, until no further change takes 

 place. Fortunately, as previously indicated, these types follow a definite successional pattern. 

 On grouse lands, open fields or grasslands gradually give way to overgrown fields or brush- 

 lands, which in turn grow up into second-growth woodlands and eventually become mature 

 forest. Thus is provided the background against which all grouse management practices must 

 be carried out. 



The covert management plans may require that existing cover types be maintained, or that 

 they be ahered in order to provide adequate food and shelter in the most productive arrange- 

 ment. To do this one must control succession. It may be set back by removing undesired 

 species or speeded up by means of artificial plantings. There is also the problem of maintain- 

 ing existing types in their present status by retarding or arresting succession. 



In doing this one is simply trying to bring food and shelter into a more productive balance 

 by changing the composition and arrangement of the cover. In general, the methods by which 

 these ends are accomplished fall into three groups: altering the existing cover, planting new 

 cover, and protection of the existing habitat from forces such as fire and grazing. 



ALTERING EXISTING COVER* 



In building up grouse areas, too little attention has usually been paid to the possibilities 

 of securing the desired result by changing the existing cover. The idea of planting the right 

 species in the right place so that Nature may lose no time iji producing the right habitat, some- 

 how has a much stronger appeal to most of us than does the less spectacular proposition of 

 encouraging changes in the existing vegetation. It is only through experience that one 

 learns of the substantial difficulties lying in the path of establishing good cover by planting. 

 Then the desirability of making the most of the existing cover is fully appreciated. Plant- 

 ing has its place, as we shall presently see, but where possible, working with the vegetation 

 already present is by far the surer and quicker way of producing a larger grouse crop. 



Methods Available 

 Every grouse hunter probably remembers parts of his favorite coverts that, in his mind, 



* By GardiDer Bump. 





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