138 FORESTRY INVESTIGATIONS U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Lake Shawano, interrupt the loam land area. Classed from the farmer's standpoint, about 22 per 

 ceut of the laud must be called good farm land, about 40 per cent medium, while fully 37 per cent 

 should never be cleared of woods. The climate is cold, winters long, spring nearly wanting, 

 summer short but warm, and fall long and cool. As indication of the climate it may be said that 

 hickories practically do not occur; that white oaks are restricted to the southern and drier western 

 parts; ordinary corn does not usually ripen in the greater portion of the territory, and apple 

 trees have so far largely failed even in the more southern counties. 



OWNERSHIP. 



Of the 18,500,000 acres of territory under consideration less than 7 per cent is cultivated, 

 about 24 per cent held by actual settlers, little more than 1.5 per cent belongs to the State, nearly 

 5 per ceut to the United States (2 per cent to Indians), little over 5 per cent to railway companies, 

 and hardly 1 per cent is held by the counties, who arc all anxious to rid themselves even of this 

 small bit of communal property. Of the remaining G,'5 per cent lumbermen own about SO per cent, 

 i. e., 50 per cent of the entire area, or about 25 per cent of the area of the entire State belongs to 

 them. 



THE FOREST AS IT WAS. 



Formerly nearly all of the 27 counties were covered with one uninterrupted forest, and only 

 along the southern and southwestern limits did this forest give way to oak and jack pine openings 

 and brush prairies. On the gray loam lands was a mixed forest of hardwoods and white pine; on 

 all sandy lands and also on most of the red clays of Lake Superior it was pinery proper, i. e., a 

 forest of pines, principally white pine, some Norway, and small amount of jack pine, without 

 hardwoods of lumber size. In the eastern half, which is more humid, the hemlock grew among 

 the hardwoods on most of the gravelly elay and loam lands, but, like white pine under these same 

 conditions, it was found chiefly as mature timber, ofteu nothing but old large trees scattered among 

 the hardwoods, or here and there in compact bodies or groves, without any young growth to 

 indicate active reproduction. Evidently both were, here losers iu the general struggle for posses- 

 sion of the ground. Besides these three main conifers the balsam and spruce occurred thinly 

 scattered, the latter chiefly in swamps. Most swamps were then timbered, the cedar prevailing 

 in those of the Green Bay region; both cedar and tamarack together, one or the other alone, but 

 more commonly mixed, occupied the majority of swamps, while the tamarack, commonly as a pure 

 but small growth, occupied all those of the southern and southwestern part, and even stocked the 

 openings. 



The hardwood forest, heavier, denser, and composed of larger trees in the southern part, and 

 on better soils, while quite thin and scrubby northward and on the lighter gravel lands, was made 

 up of a small number of kinds. Its character varies on the two sides of nearly the same line 

 which limits the hemlock. On the south and west of this line it was an oak forest in which both 

 white and red oak were abundant, oak was predominant, and the birch scarce or wanting; on the 

 north and east of the line birch was the principal hardwood; the white oak was almost wanting, 

 the red oak scattering, and often for many miles the forest was without an oak of any kind or size. 

 Of the other hardwoods, basswood and maple were generally and rather evenly distributed; elm 

 in very variable proportions occurred in most hardwood forests, while ash, generally black ash, 

 was mostly confined to the low flats and swamps. 



TIIK FOREST AS IT IS. 



At present the pine is largely cut both from the mixed forests and in the pinery; entire uncut 

 or virgin townships scarcely exist, and in every county large and small "pine slashings" or 

 "stump prairies" are met. In the hardwoods, the oak and basswood, and to some extent the elm, 

 have been culled over large tracts, and entire counties, like Wood and Barron, have been logged 

 over (not logged clean). Besides this the hardwood and still more the hemlock, about most pine 

 slashings, but especially on all lighter soils where the pine predominated, have suffered from fire, 

 and over large areas they are entirely fire killed. Many if not most of the swamps have been 

 burned over, and present all stages from the dense green swamp forest to a bewildering tangle ot 

 charred masses of dead and down timber. It is estimated that about 8,500,000 acres, or 45 per 

 cent of the total area, is cut-over land, most of whicli is also burned over and largely waste. 



