The C is pus Burn. 195 



bed in the valley by a third, and over the whole Low^er Slope by 

 a fourth merely by removing the debris. Most of the reproduc- 

 tion now on the ground would, to be sure, be destroyed, but the 

 opportunity for the ground to become restocked after this fire 

 would be greater than it has been in the past. The Douglas fir 

 seed trees which survived the previous fire are large ones with 

 very thick bark and most of them would live through another 

 fire. The damage inflicted upon them would serve as a stimulus 

 to the production of greater quantities of seed. 



While it is true that reproduction is generally denser in the 

 vicinity of seed trees yet the seeding of burns in the Lower Slope 

 types is not dependent entirely upon seed trees occurring in the 

 burn. This statement is sustained by observation on many old 

 burns in the surrounding country which have become densely re- 

 stocked by Douglas fir. An old burn on the mountain side north 

 of Randle on the Cowlitz river, a watershed adjoining the 

 Cispus, was frequently burned over by the early settlers as long 

 as there remained sufiicient inflammable material to spread the 

 fire. No veterans remain on the burn but it now supports a 

 dense stand of large Douglas fir poles. Eight miles above on 

 the Cowlitz river, near the Cora ferry, there is a large area of 

 land on the Davis mountain which is completely restocked by 

 Douglas fir saplings 12 years old, although there are no old seed 

 trees on the mountain side and it is a safe assumption that there 

 were few if any when the present stand began. There are no 

 small logs nor litter on the ground, showing that the land was 

 burned over several times. Again, on the Cispus watershed, 

 bordering the burn under discussion there is a tract of very dense 

 Douglas fir poles 20 years old and the old seed trees are not so 

 frequent as one in a forty. There too the forest floor is free 

 from the remains of the primeval forest excepting large tree 

 trunks. All the litter could not have decayed in 20 years. It 

 must have been burned by a series of fires following the one 

 which killed the original stand. Many other similar cases could 

 be cited. Indeed it is a rare occurrence to find a stand of young 

 growth which has reached pole size amid the debris of the for- 

 mer stand. 



It would seem then that the proper method to handle recent 

 burns may be in many cases to fire them again to clear away the 

 remaining litter and reduce the fire risk on the future young 



