A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 553 



understory of a good forest. Reproduction and accessible tender 

 shoots of hardwood trees and shrubs may be browsed by livestock, 

 but such use is discouraged or prevented where timber production 

 is the objective. Mast from oaks, hickories, walnuts, beech, chestnut, 

 and pines, where these species occur, is used widely by hogs. As the 

 forests are opened up by clearing or grazing, numerous grasses appear, 

 many of them naturalized introduced species. Studies by the Bureau 

 of Plant Industry show that many of these incoming grasses are very 

 worth while from a grazing standpoint. Where the soil is fertile, the 

 highly valuable Kentucky bluegrass and white clover furnish excel- 

 lent pasturage; and if the habitat is moist, bent and red top grasses 

 and frequently white clover supply good feed. After continued 

 heavy grazing, these better grasses give way to less valuable grasses 

 and weeds. 



The oak-hickory type which forms a wide belt through the middle 

 of the Central States and extends along the southern and eastern 

 portions of the Lake States forested area is extensively grazed. The 

 oak-chestnut-yellow poplar forest, furnishing some browse and mast, 

 occupies a broad belt along the length of the Appalachian Range. 

 The birch-beech-maple-hemlock type extends in a belt mainly through 

 the Lake States well into the northern Middle Atlantic and New 

 England States. On the richer soils of which it is characteristic, 

 naturalized grasses and white clover are locally present and supple- 

 ment the native herbage. 



The spruce-fir-hardwoods type, over most of its range, is usually 

 too dense for grazing except by game. In the Lake States, if the 

 forest is sufficiently open, a number of important grasses occur but 

 the type is now little used by livestock. 



The oak-pine type of southern Missouri and on many south-facing 

 hill slopes from southern Ohio to the Southern States supports native 

 grasses and sedges which together with shrubby growth and mast 

 furnish feed for livestock. 



FOREST GRAZING PROBLEMS 



In the New England, Middle Atlantic, and Lake States forest 

 grazing is almost entirely on farm woodlands. In the Central States 

 it is estimated that approximately 77 percent of forest area used by 

 livestock is farm woodland. In the Lake States, some attempts have 

 been made to graze the forage produced in the understory of the 

 forest, and the herbaceous cover on cut-over hardwoods, spruce-fir, 

 and the pine forests, but little success has been obtained. Forest 

 grazing problems at present, therefore, are confined almost exclusively 

 to farm woodlands. 



The need for coordination between grazing and timber production 

 on farm woodlands is becoming increasingly important on many 

 areas, especially in the Central States. Damage to timber repro- 

 duction is especially serious in the Corn Belt, in spite of the fact 

 that the real feed for the livestock grazing in woodlands is produced 

 on the farms from cultivated forage crop plants and on improved 

 pastures. Estimates by the Central States Forest Experiment Sta- 

 tion show that the woodland pastures of the Corn Belt are being used 

 by at least 5 times as many livestock as the grazing capacity of the 

 herbaceous and shrubby vegetation would support. The principal 



