FIRE DANGER IN FEATHER GRASS 



BY ROBERT T. MORRIS 



FOR the purpose of beautifying some of the slopes 

 on my country place at Stamford, Connecticut, I en- 

 couraged the growth of feather grass {Andro- 

 pogan), cutting out underbrush and everything except- 

 ing trees which I wished to have grown upon these 

 slopes. Late in April of the present year when the 

 pines were just beginning to send out new herbaceous 

 growth a fire was started by some one and it swept 

 over more than one hundred acres of my property 

 before it could be brought to a halt although we had 

 Fire Engine Companies from Stamford, Mianus and 

 Greenwich, Forest Fire Wardens and their crews of 

 Stamford and Greenwich and a number of Boy Scouts. 



Feather grass makes a particularly inflammable cover 

 crop as the dried masses of leaves persist for years, 

 constituting a thick carpet of material which burns 

 almost like a prairie fire when it is very dry and with a 

 little breeze as we had on this occasion. 



The effects of the fire upon various trees may be 

 worthy of note. On one slope I planted red pines far 

 enough apart to give a park-like effect and these were 

 now approximately twenty-five feet in height magnifi- 

 cent specimens with lower branches sweeping close to 

 the ground. The fire burst through these trees with a 

 loud roar leaping high in the air above their tops and 

 practically all of them were destroyed although a few 

 are sending out herbaceous growth from the upper 

 branches. On two other slopes a couple of thousand 

 young red pines averaging less than ten feet in height 

 were completely destroyed. Mugho pines were wholly 

 burned up excepting a few which stood upon a gravelly 

 bank not covered with feathergrass. The feature of 

 note in connection with these Mugho pines which were 

 spared by the fire is the fact that their tops were 

 promptly invaded with the white pine weevil, although 

 I have kept the weevil pretty well in check upon my 

 property. 



White pines of twenty feet in height suffered less than 

 did the red pines although their lower branches were 

 destroyed and they are now ragged and unsightly. The 

 tops of the white pines which were spared are now being 

 attacked ferociously by an aphis of a species which I 

 have not determined, but which is very destructive some- 

 times to young white pines, unless they are thoroughly 

 sprayed. For some reason these aphids have made a 

 very vicious onslaught upon what remains of the fire 

 damaged white pines. 



Pitch pines burned nearly as fiercely as the red pines, 

 although they were set widely apart for park effect. 

 These pitch pines at the present date of writing, July 

 twenty-third, have now sent out very many new shoots 

 from adventitious buds. The pitch pine is the only one 

 among my conifers excepting Araucaria imbicata which 

 is able to start anew from adventitious buds in the trunk. 



I had one compact stand of white spruces averaging 

 rather less than twenty feet in height which had been 

 set out for the purpose of making winter cover for deer, 

 partridge and quail, also a smaller patch of Norway 

 spruces closely set for game cover. All of these spruces 

 went up with a roar, not only the foliage, but the limbs 

 being consumed. 



Austrian pines more than twenty-five feet in height 

 set apart separately for decorative purposes lost their 

 lower limbs, but the fire did not consume them clear to 

 the tops as in the case of the red pines. Several hun- 

 dred red junipers of various heights were entirely de- 

 stroyed but here and there one escaped with a few 

 ragged branches still living among the tops. 



The feathergrass fire was nearly as destructive to 

 deciduous trees as it was to the conifers. In this part 

 of my property there were a number of grafted hickory 

 trees most of them less than twenty feet in height, rang- 

 ing from that down to more recently grafted stock. All 

 of these were destroyed excepting one that happened 

 to have had the mulch about its base recently removed. 



A large number of young hybrid chestnut trees repre- 

 senting crosses I had made between various Asiatic and 

 American Castanaeae were destroyed, but they are now 

 sending out vigorous new shoots from the roots and will 

 not be lost. The same is true of a hillside of chinqua- 

 pins averaging perhaps twelve feet in height and which 

 had been bearing very heavily for many years. A field 

 filled with hybrids which I had made between various 

 European, Asiatic and American hazels showed no liv- 

 ing hazel until nearly a month after the fire when 

 vigorous new shoots from stolons promised to replace 

 those that were lost. 



Various clumps of grey birches had all of the beau- 

 tiful white bark blackened and burned beyond hope and 

 the lower branches killed, although the tops of practi- 

 cally all of the grey birches remained alive. The same is 

 practically true of the sweet birches although here and 

 there a large sweet birch more than thirty feet in height 

 was killed entirely. Alderleafed chestnuts with a trail- 

 ing habit and with thickly massed branches were killed 

 to the ground but they are now sending up vigorous 

 new shoots. 



I do not know of any cover crop which one might 

 employ for beautifying his grounds which would be more 

 destructive in case of fire than feathergrass. During 

 the fire it was impossible to make effective fire lanes 

 through the feathergrass because flying cinders started 

 advance blazes many yards ahead of the main confla- 

 gration. Fortunately the long hose of the Mianus Fire 

 Company with water pumped directly from the stream 

 on my property sufficed to check the feathergrass fire 

 and in the woods the forest fire fighters eventually made 

 fire lanes to check the blaze. 



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