(Roc% (mountain T27onberfanb 



hundred feet beyond the side line of the fire. 



In most cases the seedlings spring up on a 

 burned-over area the year following the fire. 

 Often they stand as thickly as grain in the 

 field. Under favorable conditions as many as 

 one hundred and fifty thousand will appear 

 upon an acre, and a stand of fifty thousand to 

 the acre is not uncommon. Starting in a close, 

 even growth, they usually suppress for years all 

 other species of trees and most other plants. 

 Their growth is mostly upward — about the 

 only direction possible for expansion — with 

 moderate rapidity. In a few years they are 

 tall but exceedingly slender, and they become 

 poles in from twenty-five to fifty years. The 

 trappers named this tree lodge-pole because of 

 its common use by the Indians for lodge, or 

 tepee, poles. 



In overcrowded stands, especially those in 

 which groups or individual trees have slight 

 advantages over their neighbors, a heavy per- 

 centage of the growth may die annually for the 

 want of nutrition. If equal opportunities pre- 

 vail in a crowded tract, all will grow slowly 



224 



