132 JOURNAL 01- FORHSTRY 



days, thus causing a great deal of frost heaving on wet and heavy 

 soils. The soil shows all the usual variability of glacial drift, from 

 sand and gravel to the heaviest clay, with hardpans often occurring 

 within a foot or two of the surface. 



On all of the better soils, a very heavy, tough sod soon forms, serving 

 to increase costs and add to the difficulties of the trees in getting 

 established. 



The only enemies that have been at all serious are mice, rabbits and 

 a few insects. Mice have caused a varying amount of damage, con- 

 fined chiefly to red oak, sugar maple, chestnut, basswood, hickory, black 

 locust, yellow poplar, Scotch pine, Douglas fir, Norway spruce, and 

 western yellow pine. The only species that have been entirely free 

 from this sort of damage are white elm and white pine. By 1917, 

 mice had become such a pest that all areas of hardwoods and yellow 

 pines were poisoned. 



In the beginning, rabbits were a negligible quantity, but since the 

 prohibition of hunting a few years ago, have steadily become more 

 numerous, so that special measures of control are now necessary. 

 Snaring in the winter has proven very effective. 



Among the insects, the locust borer, the oyster shell scale on white 

 ash, the larvas of the June bug, and certain defoliators have caused 

 the most damage. 



During the first few years after planting, the borer threatened to 

 ruin the stands of black locust, but within the last five years, the appar- 

 ent damage from this source has decreased decidedly, and a good stand 

 still remains. 



Oyster shell scale became so bad on white ash as to force the clear 

 cutting of all stands as a precaution against its spread to others of its 

 numerous host species in adjoining stands. 



The June bug did little damage in early plantings that followed 

 closely upon the use of the land for agriculture. In recent plantings, 

 however, they have in several cases caused the death of as much as 

 three-fourths of the trees in the first summer. 



Box elder, basswood, and white elm have suffered from time to 

 time most severely from attacks of defoliators, though sugar maple, 

 white ash, black walnut, and chestnut have also been damaged enough 

 in this way to deserve mention. A few small spots of white pine have 

 been stripped of foliage on three occasions by the sawfly. Tamarack 

 has not been planted in stands, because of the prevalence of the sawfly. 



The white pine is now infested to quite an extent with Chermes, 



