52 FORESTS OF WISCONSIN. 



beginning can be made by planting a mucii smaller number (say,, 

 600 per acre) than is really needed to make a satisfactory stand. 

 These plants, together with the poplar, birch, and other brush,, 

 would soon make a cover for the ground, the young pine would 

 rapidly be growing into marketable wood and at the age of 

 twenty years and less would begin to shed abundance of seed so 

 that before the first trees are ready to cut every foot of ground 

 would be covered by a promising pine thicket. 



Fire may have to be resorted to as a cheap and rapid means 

 of clearing the ground where it is covered with large quantities 

 of dead and fallen timber, and especially where dense thickets 

 of fire-killed brushwood offer serious obstacles to any sylvicul- 

 tur.al processes. The outlay for all work of this kind need be 

 made but once; the forest once established will be permanent 

 and by judicious logging and adequate protection against fire 

 will renew itself indefinitely. 



Of equal and perhaps greater importance than the choice of 

 proper methods will be the selection of the proper kinds to plant. 

 Among the native growth the pines are preferable to the hard- 

 woods, and the white pine is foremost here as in every other re- 

 spect. Nevertheless, red (ISTorway) pine and even jack pine will 

 prove of great value and may often have to be resorted to. The 

 value of these pines lies in part in their frugality, since they are 

 perfectly satisfied with poor soils, really unfit for farming. 

 They are still more valuable in their gregarious habit, thriving 

 in great numbers together and thus facilitating exploitation, and 

 in their capacity of developing a large number of trees on a 

 small area. These powers, together with the great length of 

 their trunk, causes them to produce large yields, and, finally, 

 the character of their wood ensures for their product an almost 

 unlimited market at all times. 



The white pine will thrive on 90 per cent, of all sandy areas 

 of Wisconsin and on all loam and clay lands, grows fast and in 

 very dense stands, is useful for pulp at 30 years, for box boards 

 at 50 and makes lumber at 80 to 100 years. According to the 

 experience in Massachusetts and ISTew Hampshire, groves 60 



