FOREST PROBLEMS. 157 
acre, and if the work is carefully done in the spring, just before 
the growth of young pine starts, there should be scarce any fail- 
ures. In setting out the seedlings it is important that they be 
kept in water or in damp moss from the time they are pulled out 
until they are put into the soil again. They must not ever be 
allowed to appear dry. 
7. B. has land in Northern Minnesota covered with a mixed 
growth of pine and poplar. The poplar is about twelve inches 
thick, and overtops the pine, which varies from four to eight 
inches in diameter and from twenty to forty feet high. What 
treatment would be best to secure an even stand of White Pine? 
Answer: While the poplar is hardly marketable at present, 
yet it should be removed even if the material taken out hardly 
pays for the expense of so doing. This should be done in order 
to give the pine a chance to shoot upward. After the poplar is 
removed the pine will probably stand for several years without 
serious crowding, when it should be thinned to obtain best 
results. 
8. A. has 2,000 acres of burned-over land in Northern Min- 
nesota. This has quite a number of crooked and branching 
seeding trees, probably sufficient to seed the land, but the soil is 
so covered with raspberries, grass and poplar that the pine has 
very little chance to grow. 
Answer: The best way for giving a chance for the pine seed 
to grow is to drag the land in good seed years as well as can be 
with a drag made of oak branches or logs. This will tear up a 
good deal of grass or bushes, and make a loose surface soil in 
which the pines can take root; but the next year the weeds will 
again start, and will destroy the pine unless they are held in 
check in some way. This is probably best done by going over 
the land in June and July, and cutting off some of the weeds 
where the pines have seeded thickest. This practice should be 
followed at least two years, after which but little attention of 
this sort will be needed, as the pines will probably be able to take 
care of themselves from then on. If the land can be used for 
sheep pasture for one or two years, most of the weeds and bushes 
will be destroyed, and the land will be left in improved shape 
for the treatment outlined in dragging the land to get it into 
good shape for a seed bed. In fact, without any further treat- 
