Management of tlie Ruffed Grouse 347 



types. On the basis of an average daily requirement of four hundred 

 buds over a fourth-month intensive budding season, a stand of a 

 grouse per four acres would consume twelve thousand buds per 

 acre per season. If we assume a fifty per cent safe removal of buds 

 from the trees, and add another twenty-five per cent safety factor 

 to cover the additional birds that survive for only a part of the win- 

 ter, an annual requirement of thirty thousand buds per acre results. 

 Tliis need can be met with a minimum of three trees per acre of 

 average submature size. They should be of tlie better buds species, 

 particularly the following: apple, birches (except gray), cherries, 

 hophornbeam, and popples. 



So far we have developed the silvicultural practices for game 

 management on the basis of furnishing shelter and food. While these 

 are the primary facilities of the environment, and provide a handy 

 objective for the discussion of management measures, they are by 

 no means the birds' entire needs. In discussing silvicultural prac- 

 tices it has been rather essential to consider the details of cover. 

 It is also necessary to fit these practices into the creation of suitable 

 range in a broader sense. The characteristics of the land cover must 

 exist in a well-interspersed arrangement of all the major cover 

 types: hardwoods, conifers, brushland, and open edges. We must 

 not lose sight of the cover type pattern while dealing with indi- 

 vidual trees. 



PROVISION OF DRUMMING AND DUSTING PLACES 



Among the needs of grouse are suitable drumming and dusting 

 places. In most good grouse range these needs are well met with- 

 out particular attention by man. But many woodland areas definitely 

 lack one or the other, and here it is well to give attention to these 

 requirements. If the woodland floor does not have a scattering of 

 old, large-diameter logs lying around, or moss-covered boulders, it 

 is advisable to leave lying a few butt logs from "wolf" trees, logs 

 tliat are of little or no value as a wood product. 



Dusting spots are furnished either by exposed dry mineral soil 

 or by dry rotted wood at old logs or stumps. If these are lacking, the 

 turning up of mineral soil eveiy few hundred feet along the woods 

 roads or burning brush piles will aid in providing dust bathing 

 facilities. 



