EFFECT OF BURNING BRUSHLANDS 225 



Stand. Where, however, the timber growth is so luxuriant as 

 to supplant the grass cover, periodic burning appears to be 

 justified. 



Annual burning of grasslands has no place in judicious range 

 or pasture management.^ It usually requires many years for 

 closely burned and, more especially, for repeatedly burned grass- 

 lands to regain their original productiveness and yield their 

 normal type of vegetation. Immediately after a fire, erosion, 

 which follows the destruction of a large part of the soil-binding 

 roots, often causes serious soil depletion. As a consequence the 

 forage production may be materially reduced for an indefinite 

 period. 



Effect of Burning Brushlands. — The effect of burning typical 

 brush or chaparral lands has long been a much-mooted point. 

 Many are of the opinion that the firing of a brush field results in 

 materially increasing for years to come the stand of grasses and 

 other herbaceous forage plants. Unfortunately this is not the 

 case. 



Instead of killing off the brush on grazing lands, the ultimate 

 effect of fires is generally to increase it. Although the brush may 

 be burned down, chaparral vegetation usually puts forth an 

 increased number of shoots from the plant's crown, stumps, and 

 roots, and these often occupy more space than did the ones that 

 were killed. In some places ranges which formerly were prac- 

 tically free of brush have become, because of repeated fires, so 

 thick with unpalatable bush growth that from this cause alone 

 their value has greatly decreased. Soon after the firing of a 

 brush field there is usually an appreciable increase in the stand 

 of herbaceous plants, some of which are palatable to stock. 

 Heavily burned chaparral lands in California, for instance, some 

 of which have been fired by the United States Forest Service 

 under careful control, have been invaded by a great variety of 

 annual and perennial herbaceous plants during the first three 

 years or thereabouts following the fire. But these plants gradu- 

 ally die out, and, after about the fifth year, the area is occupied 



» Sampson, Arthur W., "Burning Hay Meadows and Pasture Lands." 

 Breeder's Gazette, p. 352, Aug. 31, 1910. 



