A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 853 



take trees down to 2 to 3 inches in diameter, often stripping an area 

 clean. Fires in the heavy accumulations of slash which result from 

 such severe cutting have frequently destroyed the sprouting capacity of 

 stumps and resulted in devastation. Upwards of 50 thousand acres 

 of land in this condition are included in the areas purchased for inclu- 

 sion in the Allegheny National Forest in northwestern Pennsylvania. 

 In the same State, upwards of 2 million acres have been so wrecked 

 that they now support only a cover of bracken, huckleberries, and 

 weeds or scrub oak, fire cherry, and aspen. Similar areas are found 

 in neighboring States. The processes leading to devastation are still 

 going on in these States, but less rapidly. 



In the central region, fires in heavy slash following logging devastate 

 considerable areas in the manner just described. In areas of heavy 

 concentration of livestock, such as the Corn Belt, the custom of pastur- 

 ing the farm woods is the biggest obstacle to the natural regeneration 

 of timber. 



When the livestock are numerous and are concentrated in woods 

 of relatively small area, as in most of the farm woodlands, the result 

 is always the same. The young growth is eaten, broken, stripped of 

 bark, bent, or trampled out and new growth does not take its place. 

 Grasses work into the woods from the edges and in the small open- 

 ings. The older trees gradually die in the tops and are then usually 

 cut out by the owner. The result is a gradual transition from a 

 rather dense woods to a wooded pasture in which the trees continue 

 to die off and decrease in number from year to year. This means 

 the gradual elimination of the farm woods. 



Over 70 percent of all farm woods in the Corn Belt is used for 

 pasture. According to census reports from 1910 to 1930, the area of 

 farm woods in this section is decreasing about 2 percent annually. 



ON EASTERN SOFTWOOD AREAS 



Devastation in softwood forests is more widespread and serious 

 than in hardwoods, since softwoods are, in general, less able to resist 

 fire and destructive logging. 



In New England, devastated areas to the extent of nearly half a 

 million acres have accumulated during the past 30 years or more. 



In the spruce-northern hardwood region, existing devastated areas 

 are confined largely to steep and rocky slopes which have been 

 severely burned following logging. A severe fire in this region may 

 leave the rocky surface almost bare of soil. This exposure of rocky 

 slopes is accentuated by erosion following the fires. It is a matter 

 of written record that some of the mountain tops now entirely bare 

 rock were, within the memory of man, covered with dense growth of 

 spruce forests; destruction of the forest soil by fire has resulted in 

 making new growth impossible. However, with the passing of large- 

 scale logging operations and the inauguration of systematic fire pro- 

 tection, the area of such land now subject to devastation is much 

 reduced. 



In the pine region of New England, devastated areas include the 

 sandy plains which have been subjected to repeated fires following 

 removal of the original timber. These areas have been reduced to 

 worthless growth of scrub oak and pitch pine. The fire hazard on 

 these plains is extreme, and past efforts at reforestation, as well as 



