451 
In most instances the withdrawal of the tract from pasturage will be 
sufficient to permit an immediate springing up of sufficient seedlings to 
eare for the future of the tract. This withdrawal from pasturage should 
be absolute until such time as the young growth is beyond danger from 
browsing animals. After that time light zrazing may not be injurious, al- 
though if grazing is permitted at all, there is the constant temptation to 
overgraze. 
The effect of this overgrazing is very easily demonstrated by simply 
enclosing a tract which contains no seedlings, thus protecting it from cat- 
tle. Almost invariably a dense and abundant undergrowth representing 
many species of tree forms will spring up and in a few years will have 
provided a stand sufficiently dense to allow improvement cuttings and thin- 
nings, leading to the formation of a new forest. 
In the State Reserve a large acreage was burned over the year before 
the State took possession of the tract. At the present time, some eight 
years after the fire, the tract which was burned over is densely covered 
with a growth of vigorous and healthy young trees, with valuable species 
represented in such large numbers as to give certain promise of a fine even- 
aged stand after the cleaning and thinning cuttings have been made. The 
area was regenerated from adjoining seed trees. No treatment of any kind 
was given the tract; it was simply freed from pasturage. 
In the hill regions of the southern counties, and especially in local- 
ities where the hills faced the Ohio river, the forests were removed many 
years ago. For years such tracts were left unfenced and during those 
years the land wasted through erosion and no seedlings obtained a foot- 
hold. At a later period when laws forbidding stock running at large were 
passed and when wire fencing came into general use, these denuded hills 
were quickly covered with a dense growth of vigorous young trees. No 
planting had been done, the soil had received no treatment, but the tract 
as in the former case was freed from pasturage. Such instances could be 
multiplied almost indefinitely and from them can be drawn a conclusion of 
high economic value, namely, that very many of the denuded areas of the 
state could be afforested by the simple process of relieving them from the 
burden of pasturage. It is safe to say that 90% or more of the timber 
areas of the state are so heavily over-pastured as to preclude any possibil- 
ity of their future improvement or growth. Until the owners of these small 
forest tracts realize the utter destructiveness of over-pasturage but little 
