MARYLAND GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 327 



upper layers of the soil, and, in rocky places, the only soil. Besides 

 this damage, seedlings up to a few feet high are killed by surface 

 fires, and, as in many cases, these are the trees which should furnish 

 a new crop when the older ones are removed, the damage is a very 

 serious one. Often the litter of leaves, branches and fallen trees is so 

 great as to enable surface fires to injure the boles of the larger trees; 

 the bark is killed on one side, decay enters, and later the whole tree 

 becomes worthless from the spread of rot in the stem. Where sprout 

 lands are burned, the damage is often even greater than in the older 

 forest. Here the sprouts are killed, putting back the growth five or 

 ten years, and often the stumps and young seedlings among them 

 are destroyed, and the future stand, instead of being a dense one of 

 Chestnut and Oak, is an open one or a low thicket of Mountain Laurel 

 and Barren Oak. Eepeated fires, especially on rocky, shallow ridge 

 soils, destroy every vestige of tree growth, burn the humus from the 

 soil, and leave the land in such a condition that for years it refuses 

 to produce a forest cover. 



Fire Protection. 



To produce the best wood crops fire must be kept from forest lands. 

 This is best done in the case of woodlands of a few hundred acres by 

 surrounding the timbered area, if possible, with a belt of cleared 

 land to prevent fires from reaching it from adjoining woods. By 

 keeping the roads and trails through the woods free from brush and 

 weeds and by cutting and burning along them once a year it is pos- 

 sible to confine surface fires started within the forest to small tracts, 

 and to back-fire if necessary to check fires with much headway. After 

 these precautions are taken, watchfulness during the dry season when 

 fires are most prevalent will reduce the fire danger to a minimum. 

 With the danger from fire removed, the wood crop of Garrett county 

 is practically assured. 



Care of the Forest Crop. 



Besides fire protection, the amount of time and care spent by the 

 owner on a forest property must be determined by his object in grow- 



