Yellow Birch and the Adirondack Forest 33 
trees one to ten feet high twelve years ago. The results are 
recorded in Tables VI, VII, and VIII. 
Attention is called to the important facts brought out. 
1. The numerical predominance of hardwood reproduc- 
tion. 
2. The importance of yellow birch in the young stand. 
3. The failure of hemlock reproduction. 
4, The prevalence of fire cherry and absence of the aspen. 
(This area had not been burned and fire cherry came 
on softwood knolls where humus is deep. ) 
The change of the mixture from sugar maple on the 
higher and drier land to birch on the lower zone in 
the type where seepage is a more important factor. 
Or 
6. The more rapid growth of hardwoods than spruce 
during the first eleven years, the former reaching a 
height from the seed in the least instance of 10.1 
feet as against 5.16 feet in the case of the spruce 
advanced growth. 
There is evidence, as shown in Curve 2, Figure 2, that the 
spruce has already been checked by the shade of the young 
hardwoods, and must pass through a period of suppression and 
await the removal of the. hardwood second growth crop. In 
eomparison with Curve 1 which represents the rate of growth 
of spruce under pole stand of yellow birch, Curve 2 shows a 
slow rate of height growth for four years after cutting, followed 
_by a sharp recovery exceeding that of Curve 1. 
. ' 
