48 THE VERMILION IRON-BEARING DISTRICT. 



very little undergrowth in these places, and this is chiefly cherry, balsam, 

 spruce, and ground hemlock. Extensive lumbering operations are carried 

 on in these pineries, and in a very few years the pine will have been cut 

 from most of the large tracts. It will then probably be but a year or two at 

 the most before fire will get into the old pine slashings, and any isolated 

 uncut tracts will thereby be destroyed, as will also adjacent hardwood areas. 

 Scattered through this western area are large tracts which have been 

 bui'ned over one or more times within the last ten to twenty years. In 

 some places the fire was so severe as to destroy the humus as well as the 

 timber. As a consequence of the removal of these protections, the major 

 2Dortion of the soil, and even in some cases the subsoil, has been washed 

 into the valle5^s, and the hills are now practicall}^ bare rock. Such an area 

 is that known as the "Burned Forties," in sees. 23 and 24, T. 62 N., R. 15 W. 

 Where the soil only was removed it has required some time for the subsoil 

 to reach a condition suitable for plant growth, and the hills in such areas 

 are covered only with grass, weeds, and stunted poplars, birch, and jack 

 pine. In other areas the fire occui'red so long ago that sufficient soil has 

 accumulated to support a dense growth of poplar, birch, and jack pine, 

 which has reached fair size. In some places in such burned areas the 

 second growth is almost exclusively poplar; in other localities the jack 

 pine or birch may predominate. The usual history of such an area 

 after it has been burned is as follows: The year after the fire has run 

 through the forest there is always a heavy growth of fireweed (so called in 

 that region) — mare's tail — which springs up. This is soon succeeded by 

 poplar, cherry, birch, jack pine, and rarely seedling white and Norway 

 pine. As a result of the deadening of the original forest trees and their 

 consequent weakening, they very readily succumb to the strong winds. 

 They are blown down, and this fallen timber, with the dense second growth 

 that springs up between the recumbent trunks, renders such areas extremely 

 difficult to traverse. Not many years elapse before this second growth is 

 swept by fire, and in its turn falls and is replaced by a third growth. The 

 repetition of such occurrences renders it increasingly difficult to traverse 

 such burned country unless the fire has been very recent and of sufficient 

 intensity to destroy completely both standing and fallen timber. An 

 occasional rotted and partly burned log of large size in the midst of the 

 pines seems to indicate that long ago fires ran through even those areas in 



