THE RED SPRUCE. 25 



ANIMALS. 



Young spruce may be severely damaged by the tearing off of its 

 bark by deer when rubbing their antlers to remove the "velvet." 

 Balsam, however, is much more liable to injury of this sort than is 

 spruce, presumably because of its smoother bark and the healing 

 effect of its resin. Hedgehogs also damage spruce to some extent 

 by gnawing the bark. Squirrels and mice eat enormous quantities 

 of seed, and undoubtedly do further damage by burrowing about 

 the roots, thus exposing them to danger of fungous infection. The 

 rodents may even be the means themselves of inoculation. Squir- 

 rels, particularly, feed on the fruiting bodies of different fungi, 

 which can often be found on dead limbs along the trunk of spruce 

 where they have been carried and partly eaten. 



GRAZING. 



Spruce is susceptible to very little injury by the browsing either 

 of deer or domestic animals. When very young the seedlings are 

 liable to serious injury by being trampled by the grazing stock. 

 If it were not for this, the presence of stock in young spruce stands 

 would be of advantage in keeping the grass cropped down and the 

 young hardwoods and balsam browsed. 



There is at the present time a tendency in parts of the spruce 

 regions of New Hampshire and Vermont to allow pasture land to 

 grow up to spruce, at the same time allowing stock to graze as long 

 as they can find sufficient pasturage. Such an attempted dual use 

 of the land is of advantage to neither the cattle grazed nor to the 

 forests to be grown. The resulting stand of spruce is very ragged and 

 uneven-aged, being composed of large, spreading-crowned, scrubby 

 trees interspersed by occasional thickets of younger growth. These 

 latter come up in the openings which are from time to time cut off 

 from grazing by the interlacing of the low crowns of the larger trees, 

 which hinders the passage of the stock. On account of the gradual 

 encroachment on the intervening areas of the crowns of the larger 

 trees, many of these younger saplings are eventually suppressed. 



The yield from such a stand is very much less than the land is 

 capable of producing; the quality of the material in inferior, and 

 much of it is useless even for pulp. Much time also is wasted in 

 cutting the big-limbed, scrawny trees, which materially reduce the 

 output per day, increase the cost, and yield heavy sticks difficult to 

 handle. Thus the normal value of the land is reduced not only as a 

 pasturage investment but as an investment for pulpwood production. 



WIND AND SNOW. 



The susceptibility of spruce to damage by windthrow is very 

 great on certain situations on account of the shallow nature of its 

 root system. The foliage and young shoots may be considerably 

 damaged by hail and are thus rendered more vulnerable to insect 



