TWo Bife on t$t (Focfoes 



trunk or the limbs of the trees. As the cones 

 hug closely the trunk or the limbs, it is not un- 

 common for the saw, when laying open a log at 

 the mill, to reveal a number of cones embedded 

 there. I have in my cabin a sixteen-foot plank 

 that is two inches in diameter and six inches wide, 

 which came out of a lodge-pole tree. Embedded 

 in this are more than a score of cones. Probably 

 most of these cones were of the first crop which 

 the tree produced, for they clung along the trunk 

 of the tree and grew there when it was about 

 an inch and a quarter in diameter. The section 

 upon which these cones grew was between fifteen 

 and twenty-five feet from the ground. 



The seeds of most conifers need vegetable 

 mould, litter, or vegetation cover of some kind in 

 which to germinate, and then shade for a time 

 in which to grow. These requirements so needed 

 by other conifer seeds and seedlings are detri- 

 mental to the lodge-pole. If its seeds fall on areas 

 lightly covered with low huckleberry vines, but 

 few of them will germinate. A lodge-pole seed 

 that germinates in the shade is doomed. It must 

 have sunlight or die. In the ashes of a forest fire, 



190 



