﻿64 



BOTANICAL GAZETTE 



abandoned land in this locality were needed, it is furnished by a 

 few seedlings of pine in the neighboring hay field. 



The indications are that this entire locality was once covered 

 with pine, and that on the better soils (those with more clay) the 

 pine soon gave way to oak. Unquestionably the oak stage was 

 reached on these better soils many years ago, probably not long 

 after the oak forest had become established on the near-by hills to 

 the north. But when, through the interference of man, the oaks 

 are completely destroyed, as in clearing land for farming, and when 

 the land is again abandoned, pine takes possession. The reason is 

 probably to be found in the more rapid methods of seed dissemina- 

 tion possessed by the pine as compared with the oaks. This 

 would account for the presence of gray birch, and occasionally 

 aspen, on lands beginning to revert to forest. 



When the forest is cut for wood, and the stumps are left to 

 coppice, the pine has another but far less favorable opportunity to 

 establish itself. From observations on other areas, it seems that 

 after cutting, provided no fire occurs, a considerable number of 

 pine seedlings come in, but with a few exceptions are unable to 

 develop on account of the more rapidly growing oak sprouts. 

 The exceptions are probably seedlings which happen to grow in 

 larger openings among the sprouts, or near old stumps which fail 

 to sprout. Such exceptions readily account for the pines which, as 

 noted above, might have been considered as relicts in the oak 

 forest; for this forest, or rather the generation preceding it, had 

 unquestionably been cut over for wood some 50 years ago. 



It is evident then that we have here two forms of pine forest: 

 (1) a temporary form which will be replaced by an oak forest in a 

 Comparatively short time, roughly 150-300 years or possibly longer, 

 depending a great deal on the size of the area; and (2) another 

 form of which much less is known. The temporary form occurs on 

 soils containing clay; the other form on sands. The question is: 

 Will this second form occurring on sands be replaced by oaks 

 through an amelioration of edaphic conditions brought about by the 

 pine forest itself ? The tendency, on the strength of all the quanti- 

 tative investigations of the subject to date, would be to answer yes. 

 Such an answer would be most unfortunate in creating a bias in 



