FOREST RESOURCES OF WISCONSIN. 527 



tober, but generally disappears ; but by the 1st of November it comes 

 to remain, and is not entirely gone before the last of May or first of 

 Juno. In winter this region is exposed to terrible storms, which sweep 

 without obstruction over the frozen lake, and the temperature falls to 

 — 40° and — 42°, in extreme cases, while —20° and — 25° are not un- 

 common. The range of temperature is quite remarkable, being some- 

 times 50° in 6 hours. 



The snows waste rapidly away in spring, without destructive floods, 

 and a short spring passes quickly into a cool summer. The point is 

 traversed by two ranges of mountains, and is dotted with small lakes, 

 some of them having no outlet. 



The point bears 75 species of trees and shrubs, of which 72 are native. 

 The principal trees in order of estimated abundance are the white pine, 

 sugar maple, white cedar [Thuja occidentalis), yellow birch, red maple, 

 hemlock, striped maple, aspen, canoe-birch, Norway pine, balsam fir, 

 black spruce, white spruce, tamarack, white and red oaks, poplar- 

 leaved birch, and black cherry. The shad-bush, mountain ash, iron- 

 wood, black maple, red cherry, scrub pine, black and blue ashes, white 

 elm, balsam poplar, and numerous other species are found. It is no- 

 ticed that the aspen very generally comes in where the forests have 

 been cut off. The chief agency of destruction is fire, which, once started 

 in the forest, will sometimes run over hundreds or thousands of acres.^ 

 (Dr. B. Rarvey Beed, Delaware Mine, Mich.) 



WISCONSIN. 



In 1852, Dr. P. E. Hoy published a short account of the trees indi- 

 genous to Wisconsin [Agricultural Beport 1852, pp. 420-434), with a few 

 remarks describing the size and form of trees, useful qualities, and 

 distribution, with directions for raising forest-trees from seed. 



In 1855 a communication was published by the State Agricultural 

 Society from the late I. A. Lapham, of Milwaukee, in which ^he urged 

 the great importance of taking measures for preserving the forests while 

 they still existed, and of planting before the need of timber should be 

 severely felt. His article of 56 pages was illustrated with outlines of the 

 leaf and fruit of 26 native species, and with short descriptions of nearly 

 or quite all that were known or supposed to grow within the State, with 

 mention of some others that miglit be cultivated to advantage. Mr. 

 Lapham had previously published a flora of Wisconsin in the Agricultural 

 Eeport for 1852. 



In 1860, J. W. Hoyt,^ as secretary of the State Agricultural Society, 



^ The facility with which a lii'c will spread through a forest in the Lake Superior re- 

 giou is described in the volume of Professor Agassiz's Exploration, as seen in 1848 : 



Some of the men, whi'e stopping on the shore (July 15), amused themselves with 

 lighting a fire, which unfortunately ran along the rid go of the beach, and, in spite of 

 their urmost exertions, marched with a broad front into the woods. "It was an ex- 

 citing spectacle, the eagerness of the flames to seize upon each fresh tree, "winding around 

 it like serpents, crackling and rushing furiously through its branches to the top, until 

 every fragment of dry bark, lichen, &c., was consumed. The fire seems too dainty to 

 take the more solid parts, and so, for iustance, the bunch of upright cones at the top 

 of the balsams remains distinguishable in the forest as a blackened tuft. One beau- 

 tiful bear-berry lawn looked now more like a peat-bog. When -we loft, the fire was in 

 full progress, and was probably stayed only by a swamp beyond. Nature, however, 

 generally provides that no land that can be of much value to man shall be subject to this 

 fate, for the heavily timbered (and thus fertile) land of these latitudes is mostly too wet 

 to burn, except the solitary birches, which, if you set a torch to them, gooff like a rocket, 

 but do not set fire to the other trees." {Lake Superior: its Physical Character, Vegetation, 

 and Animals, p. 74.) 



2 Present governor of Wyoming Territory. 



