306 Forestry Quarterly 



on the Middle Fork of Paintrock Creek, where, for a distance of 

 about one-half mile, the creek is fringed with a young stand of 

 Lodgepole pine. This stand has come in on, and apparently con- 

 fined itself to, a narrow strip of granite glacial drift covering the 

 limestone and extending for the above distance beyond the termi- 

 nal moraine. Although many of these trees have been produc- 

 ing seed for probably twenty years, reproduction is encroaching 

 on to the limestone soils very slowly indeed, which is probably 

 in a large part due to the fact that the prevailing winds, coming 

 up the canyon, scatter the seed up the creek rather than on to the 

 limestone soil to the south and southeast. However, observations 

 over the Forest lead me to believe that Lodgepole reproduces 

 much more readily on silicious than on limestone soils, which 

 may partially explain the lack of more seedlings on the latter 

 areas. Seventy acres of this barren strip between the Lodgepole 

 on the north and the steep slope on the south, where natural 

 restocking is coming in, were seeded to Douglas fir, by the "seed- 

 spot" method, in the spring of 1913. Although it is as yet too 

 early to determine whether or not this work is a complete success, 

 nevertheless, there is little doubt that at least a seed tree stand 

 will be obtained, so now the entire area on the south side of 

 "Middle Fork," from the edge of the creek to the top of the 

 slope, can be left for natural restocking. 



On the other hand, the moderate to gentle slopes on the north 

 side of "Middle Fork," portions of which are shown in the pic- 

 tures and an area of about 300 acres on the south side of Battle 

 Creek, contain no living trees of any species, so artificial refores- 

 tation will be required. It is possible that forests might ulti- 

 mately be restored to these areas by planting a few seedlings to 

 the acre, about 20 to 30, to serve as future seed trees to restock 

 the remaining portion. However, with the possible exception 

 of the more favorable parts of the Battle Creek area, I doubt 

 the success of such a plan. Experiments by various methods of 

 direct sowing of tree seed (all of which included some sort of 

 ground preparation, and which therefore would seem to be better 

 than Nature's way of scattering seed on unprepared ground) 

 made on sites more favorable than these, have invariably resulted 

 in failure, due to drought, and to the fact that a large proportion 

 of the seed was eaten by field mice, chipmunks and other rodents, 

 in spite of the fact that the areas were poisoned preliminary to 



