1905] WHITFORD—FORESTS OF FLATHEAD VALLEY 285 
spruce are the dominating trees, and that these are mixed with lodge- 
pole pine, silver pine, and lowland fir. Suppose that the trees surround- 
ing this area all bear cones, and all have their seeds equally well 
adapted for wind distribution. Since not one of the conifers found 
in the region is able to sprout from the roots that would be protected 
from the fires, all would have to start from seed. Let us suppose 
east slopes of 
1G. 19.—A clearing in a lodgepole pine forest in Swan valley; 
Mission Mountains in the background; these slopes have a mesophytic forest of 
Western larch and Douglas spruce.—Photograph by PRAEG 
that the seeds of all fall in equally favorable places, and that the 
seedlings that spring up are numerically proportional to the parent 
trees in the undestroyed stand surrounding the burn. Each species 
in the forest adjoining the new growth will thus be represented in 
the burn in the same proportion as it is in the mature stand. If all 
the young trees grow with equal rapidity, and the natural thinning 
Out is proportionately distributed among the species, the new stand 
will be just like the old. There are some small burns where this 
