532 FOREST RESOURCES OF MINNESOTA. 



as a forest country , these lines, in general, being the southern and western limits of the 

 pine and other coniferie in Minnesota, and including an area of 2l,0U0 square miles. 

 Pine is the prevailing wood of this district, but intermingled with a considerable propor- 

 tion of birch, maple, aspen, ash, and elm. The alluvial bottoms of the extreme northera 

 branches of the Mississippi support a heavy growth of basswood, elm, aspen, butternut, 

 ash, birch, hard and soft maples, liuden, balsam-firs, aud some oaks. It is observed that 

 whenever the cone-bearing woods are burned off in this district, the hard woods take 

 their place. The sugar-majjle, which, according to Blodgttt, markes the range of Indian 

 corn, extends northward nearly to Kainy Lake, where it yields abundance of sugar to 

 the Indians. In the Red River Valley, the sugar-maple is found all along its trough, 

 and finds its northern limit beyond the 49th parallel, on the elevated southern water- 

 shed of Lake Winnipeg. On the rivers flowing into Lake Superior, hemlock, cedar, 

 spruce, fir, and birch prevail. 



The Zone of Pine. — The principal pine forests of Minnesota, which constitute one of 

 its main resources of industry and wealth, stretch in a broad belt near the southern 

 border of the great northern forest district, from the eastern side of Pine County, ia 

 the Upper Saint Croix Valley, northwestward across the water-shed to the outlet of 

 Red Lake. The principal pineries where lumber is bought are upon the headwaters 

 of Kettle, Snake, Rum, Crow-Wing, and the Upper Mississippi, aud recently upon the 

 extreme upper waters of the Red or Otter Tail River. 



Belt of Oak Openings. — Below latitude 4G°, the pine, hemlock, spruce, birch, and all 

 the Conifei'(B, generally disappear with the forest-line. A narrow range of cedar and 

 tamarack swamps between Saint Croix and Crow Wing Rivers, and some pine, mingled 

 with large maple, oak, ash, and small birch and spruce, intervene for half a degree 

 further, when the oak becomes the prevailing tree ou the ui)lands, distributed in 

 groves and large parks, its growth usually dwarfed by the annual ravages of prairie 

 fires. These oak openings characterize the whole delta of rolling prairie below lati- 

 tude 45° on the east side of the Mississippi. The soft maple, elm, ash, willow, and 

 alder, line the bottoms of the Rum and Elk Rivers. There are no compact forests in 

 this section, except upon the Saint Croix Valley, where a dense mass of hard-woods, 

 in which the sugar-maple prevails, occupies the upper part of Washington and Chicago 

 Counties to the pine belt in Pine County. 



The Bois Franc, or Big Woods. — West of the Mississippi the western flank of the 

 great coniferous forest of the north, extending with a thick border of hard- wood west 

 of Otter Tail River, and around Otter Tail Lake, terminates upon the valley of the 

 Crow Wing, where it merges its characteristics in a new forest growth of the decidu- 

 ous forms, which stretches in a broad angular belt across the great prairies of the 

 southeast and south, and generally known as the Big Woods. This belt of wood forms 

 a deep fringe, of from ten to twenty miles in width, along the western slope of the 

 Mississippi, from the Crow Wing Valley to the Sauk at Saint Cloud. Crossing into the 

 valley of the Crow River, and keeping a general southeasterly course, it occupies a 

 large strip of country between the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, nearly one hun- 

 dred miles on its longest side, with an average breadth of forty miles ; its western 

 limit being formed by a line crossing the counties of McLeod and Meeker, diagonally 

 through the middle, and its easiern by a line drawn from near the mouth of Rum 

 River to Carver, on the Minnesota. Throwing its left flank across the Minnesota at 

 Louisville, its main body crosses the river between Belle Plaine and Le Sueur, and 

 covers nearly the whole of Le Sueur County, with its right wing extending south- 

 westward to Blue Earth River, in Blue Earth County, and its left occupying about one- 

 half of Rice and Scott Counties. The area of the tract of country covered by the 

 Big Woods is about 5,000 square miles, of which 4,000 is occupied by the division 

 north of the Minnesota, and 1,000 by its southern division. This woodland district is 

 full of lakes, aud, in some sections, the dense mass of forest is broken by small prairies. 

 The varieties of timber in this district are mainly oak, maple, elm, ash, basswood, 

 black walnut, and hickory. 



Southern Belt of Valley Woods and Oak Openings. — Besides the tract above described 

 there are no large forests in Minnesota west of the Mississippi. But nearly all the 

 streams have narrow fringes of woodlands, and some of the valleys east are dense 

 masses of timber. The wide bottoms of Minnesota aud Mississippi have a deep border 

 of thick aud massive woods, in which the large cottonwood and maple are conspicu- 

 ous, with white an<l black wahnit, butternut, linden, boxwood, aud hickory. The 

 Zumbro Valley, Wal)ashaw and Dodge Counties, supports some large tracts of forest 

 growth. The Root River also affords a considerable body of thick woods on the bor- 

 ders of Fillmore and Olmstead Counties, in which all the varieties of the Big Woods 

 are reproduced. But the oak-openings and groves which are scattered thnmgh the up- 

 lands along the streams form a large resource of the i^rairie population for domestic 

 and mechanical purposes. 



The Sjiarsely Wooded District. — The UpperValleyof the Minnesota and Red River sus- 

 tains no forest-growth, except upon the trough of the main and tributary streams and 

 the margins of the lakes. The minor streams of the Upper Mississippi are, however, 



