642 IMPROVING AND MAINTAINING GROUSE COVERTS 



apples and blackberries, will often thrive where competing vegetation is removed by grazing. 

 Back pastures, where lightly grazed, have produced many a spot locally famous for the con- 

 centration of i)artridges found there in the early fall. Tangles of thick growing species or of 

 dense underbrush may be opened up by light grazing. Even in some woodlands, restricting 

 or stopping grazing, after allowing it to thin nut the understory, will often help establish new 

 growth beneficial to grouse. 



As with fire, the secret of successful use of this method lies in knowing when and how to 

 control it so as to bring about the desired result. Where conditions permit its use, moderate 

 grazing is one of the cheapest wavs of retarding succession and of reopening overgrown 

 fields where the vegetation threatens to become too dense to well serve grouse needs. 



Fire 



Expertly handled, fire, too, will thin out the vegetation and set back the succession. Other- 

 wise it is likely to cause altogether too much damage, both to soil and to the food and shelter 

 to warrant its use. Nevertheless, it should not be ruled out of consideration as a method of 

 altering existing cover. Where proper controls are possible, light burning represents a 

 reasonably inexpensive and effective way of temporarily eliminating a patch of undesirable 

 species in an overgrown field or of removing undesirable undergro^vth in a woodland. As a 

 method of maintaining small summer feeding units, its possibilities have long been overlooked, 

 principally because of the difficulties of keeping it under control and of the complex public 

 relations involved. Some pertinent effects are discussed shortly: others are noted in Chapter 

 IV. 



In setting back the succession of plants and trees to an earlier stage, the choice of method is, 

 of course, dependent upon the results desired and the indi\ idual situation to which it is to be 

 applied. Here, again, experience is the best teacher. 



Producing and Mmntalning Prodlctive Cover 



The ways of changing existing cover, to produce better conditions for grouse, remain the 

 same over the entire range of the bird. Their application is a problem to be skillfully worked 

 out, for it may differ even within a region. On the basis of experience in New York, a few 

 suggestions for developing and maintaining the types that fulfill one or another of tin- four 

 major grouse cover requirements may jirovc liclitful. 



Fall Feeding Grounds 



The cover types that serve primarilv as fall feeding grounds have their origin largely in 

 fields or pastures, once cleared but allowed to seed in with shrub and tree species. Slashings 

 or openings caused by windfalls also serve this purpose to a considerable extent, l^sually. 

 such areas contain a large proportion of wind-sown species such as aspen and birch, and of 

 those whose seeds have been carried into the fields bv birds or mammals. Included in this 

 latter group are cherries, thornapples. dogwoods and \il)urnums together with an occasional 

 sprinkling of apples if the land was once pastured. Pine or spruce, too, here find conditions 

 favorable for germinalioii and will often become establisliod if seed trees are located tn wind- 

 ward. 



The ideal arrangement of trees and shrubs in a fall feeding ground is a scattering or clumi)- 

 ing of such species interspersed with patches of low herb growth including clover and berries. 



* S«e page 232. 



