ii6 North American Forests and Forestry 



The injury to seedlings and young trees is even 

 greater in places where the old trees have been 

 removed than it is under the growing timber. In 

 the latter places, reproduction is often prevented 

 or hindered by other causes, even if no fire inter- 

 venes. But on all detimbered areas there should 

 naturally come up a new forest growth, either of 

 the original or different species. These cut-over 

 tracts, however, are the very ones where fires are 

 most common. During the first dry season, often 

 in the very spring after the timber has been 

 cut, the debris left by the lumbermen is burned. 

 Thereafter, for a number of years, the danger of 

 fire annually running over the tract is very great. 

 The soil is very quickly covered with rank grass 

 and herbage, which in the fall dries up and be- 

 comes very inflammable. Few seedling trees, 

 coming up amid this tangle, remain alive after 

 even one such scorching. After the trees have 

 passed the seedling stage, still the danger is not 

 over. For although the young trees coming up 

 may be largely of broad-leaved varieties, what was 

 said of the comparative immunity of hard woods 

 refers to old timber and not to young trees. While 

 the latter remain in the sapling stage, they are liable 

 to have their foliage destroyed, even if the stems 

 escape serious injury. It stands to reason that such 

 loss of foliage interferes with the healthy growth of 

 the tree, and, if often repeated, must kill it. In any 

 event, there is danger of the trees remaining value- 

 less runts instead of producing tall, clean timber. 



