moisture from the soil is held in check until the 

 seedling has gained its foothold. This habit of 

 Pine seedlings also explains why the greatest per- 

 centage of pine seedlings die immediately after 

 the seed has germinated and that those seedlings 

 \tfiich-pull through this invalid stage and once 

 gain a foothold usually pull through the drought 

 period in fair shape in our experiments of plant- 

 ing pine seed by the seed spot method. Up to the 

 present time no trouble by the heaving of soil 

 like that in pumice soils has been observed in this 

 country. 

 7. Susceptibility to Injury. 



Windfalls are quite common in some lo- 

 calities- and usually occur in tli3 spring of the 

 year, immediately after the snow has melted and 

 when the ground lias thawed out. Lightning in- 

 jures quite a number of trees each year but the 

 greatest damage from this agent if3 caused lay fire 

 that in some (a ses results from, the lightning 

 stroke. Lightning is more dootxU'j-tive in certain 

 localities, especially on th-j Lcv.thwest slopes of 

 the high ridges. 



Porcupines do considerable damage to 

 Eastern Yellow Pine by girdling the bark near the 



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