410 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Y-V-, . 



".* . 





RESISTING INVASION. 



THIS MEADOW ALTHOUGH SURROUNDED BY TREES HAS SO FAR RESISTED INVASION AND IS STILL GREEN AND 



COOL AND DECKED WITH FLOWERS. 



their own by their increased evapora- 

 tion. Rarely indeed does one find a 

 meadow so invaded, able to drown out 

 its foes in succeeding wet seasons. 

 Once the process gets under way the 

 fate of the meadow is sealed. The 

 young pines grow and multiply with 

 amazing rapidity, and in the course ot 

 a decade or two the meadow is no 

 more. In its place there stands a 

 thicket of spindling lodge poles reach- 

 ing upward desperately in their fight 

 for light and air, shading out the grass 

 and flowers, robbing the soil of its 

 moisture and converting the open glade 

 into a jungle of slender saplings. 

 Comes a heavy storm of wind and 

 down go the weakly lodgepoles a tan- 

 gled mass of kindling for the first spark 

 to set ablaze. The peaty soil, dried out, 

 burns too and all that remains of the 

 once lovely meadow is a charred patch 

 of utter desolation that centuries may 

 hardly heal. If the thicket is not de- 

 stroyed by storm, but continues to 



grow, the resulting timber is of little 

 use, and standing crowded together is 

 ever menaced by fire, which in such a 

 growth w r ould burn with greatest fierce- 

 ness. For our meadow we have worse 

 than nothing in return, and the brooklet 

 which trickled from the meadow runs 

 less and less, and eventually stops 

 entirely. 



It may be stated positively that the 

 mountain meadows of the Sierras and 

 elsewhere are as valuable for regulating 

 streamflow as are the forests them- 

 selves. On the ridges and valley slopes 

 the trees shade the snow and allows the 

 spring melting to go on slowly. The 

 forest humus also holds back the rapid 

 runoff to the valley bottom. But if 

 that valley bottom is filled with lake- 

 bed meadows another check is placed 

 upon the freshets. The deep spongy 

 soil fills itself to overflowing- ; it forms a 

 reservoir underground with all the 

 physical advantages of a sponge, tena- 

 ciously retaining the water, preventing 



