FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 67 



most easily distributed by wind and other elements, are most likely to 

 take possession of the soil. Thus we see the poplar frequently coming 

 up remote from seed trees. The seed of the maple, elm, and basswood 

 may also be carried by the wind a considerable distance, as well as the 

 cones from the pine, hemlock and tamarack, 



I am in favor of saving as many seed trees as possible. They should 

 be left where least liable to destruction and properly marked. If the 

 government can mark a tree as a witness to a land corner and forbid its 

 being cut under severe penalties, I see no reason why the State, or other 

 authority, cannot mark seed trees and provide a special penalty for 

 destroying the same. 



This brings me to the third and last S — Supervision. It would be de- 

 sirable if supervision could be determined before the original forest is 

 cut, on account of the saving and marking of seed trees, and the sooner 

 the work of reforestation is commenced after the cutting of the timber, 

 the better. I am an advocate of the clean cutting of pine and hemlock 

 lands, 'and also of most of the hardwood lands. Attempts to save the 

 timber under six or eight inches in diameter have usually proved a fail- 

 ure in Michigan. Our original forest trees are too large, there being 

 very few small trees in the heavy forests. The most of these are broken 

 down in falling. and logging the heavy timber. What are left standing 

 are usually out of proportion in stems, with small tops and poor roots — 

 or as submerged timber they are scraggy and deformed. What small 

 timber escapes destruction in cutting is usually killed by fire, subse- 

 quently falls and furnishes material for a second burning. Nearly all 

 the cut lands in Michigan were lumbered leaving the small timber un- 

 touched, but it has utterly failed to produce a second forest. The second 

 point is that it should be burned over early in the following spring while 

 the soil is still damp. The change which takes place at the surface of 

 the ground upon the removal of the forest is a radical one. For many 

 years the dense forest has almost excluded the rays of the sun. The 

 zone of activity has been lifted from seventy-five to one hundred feet 

 above the surface and about the only connection with the soil beneath 

 has been long stems. When this forest is cleared away in a single 

 season, the sun is permitted to shine directly upon the surface. Now, 

 if the burning is done in the early spring, the rubbish and dry tops fur- 

 nish a sprinkling of ashes to further enrich the soil and the fires do not 

 burn deep and consume all the decomposed vegetable matter. This 

 leaves the chopping in prime condition for seeding and this is the nick 

 of time when the seed should be supplied, either by nature or by for- 

 esters. 



The worst desolation that we have in cut lands is where the large tim- 

 ber was cut and the small timber and rubbish left and neglected until 

 some time of drouth in July or August when the fires have taken place 

 by accident, resulting in the destruction of the remaining small timber, 

 and burning of well-nigh all the leaf -mold or humus out of the soil ; also 

 destroying the young seedlings that have sprung up since the chopplngs 

 were made, and the adjacent forests having been cut away by continued 

 lumbering to such a distance that it is almost impossible for nature to 

 reseed the ground. These old ehoppings, fire-swept, destitute of seed, 

 and sunburned for years, constitute a hard problem in reforestation. 



Clean cutting also disposes of the question of subsequent trespass and 

 the efforts of parties to secure p)Ossession of the lands for the purpose of 



