84 ANNUAL REPORT OF 



WORKING PLAN FOR BURNTSIDE FOREST. 



The forestry land 20,000 acres granted to the State 

 of Minnesota by the Act of Congress April 28, 1904, was 

 selected in two townships in the northern part of St. 

 Louis County, in the vicinityof Burntside Lake, and has 

 therefore been named Burntside Forest. Mr. T. L. 

 Duncan, of Northome, Itasca County, who had done sat- 

 isfactory work for the state on the Pillsbury reservation, 

 was employed to make a survey and forest working plan 

 for the tract and was so occupied, with three assistants, 

 during July, August and September of last year. Although 

 his report was published complete by the Forestry Board 

 as a separate bulletin, the following extract from it is 

 here quoted; 



FROM MR. T. L. DUNCAN'S REPORT ON THE BURNTSIDE FOREST. 



The surface is rough and rocky, broken by knobs, hills and 

 ridges of granitic rocks, and strewn with boulders. The situation 

 of the Forest on the north slope of the Giant's Range, places it in 

 a region characterized by bare rock and scanty soil, rocky and 

 in some respects mountainous explorer Nicollet described it as 

 the "region of rocks and lakes." 



The soil on the higher ground is thin as a rule, although beds 

 of sand were found on some slopes, and in a few places a gravelly 

 clay was noted. In some of the drier bottoms the surface is 

 strewn with large, bare boulders to an unknown depth, no soil 

 being apparent between the stones. In other bottoms these 

 boulders have been covered with a mat of mosses hiding the 

 empty air space below, into which fallen rain sinks away and 

 flowing streams disappear. In the swamps the usual swamp 

 muck of varying depth was found. Rocks laid bare by fires are 

 being covered rapidly with soil through the growth and decay of 

 lichens, mosses and other rock plants, and in this soil tree seed, 

 especially jack pine and aspen, readily germinates at an early 

 stage. The percentage of bare rock surface is small and will, if 

 fires are kept out, almost disappear in 10 or 12 years. 



