SURVEYS OF FOREST RESEEVES. 63 



will secure the right kind of reproduction, are simple, and may easily 

 be introduced. 



The yellow pine has many enemies, but stands wind well. Compara- 

 tively few trees are uprooted, except through the giving way of the 

 rocks encircled by their roots, while specimens broken off on account of 

 rot originating in fire scars are frequent. Damage by lightning is com- 

 mon throughout the hills, and serious injury is being done by insects. 

 Perhaps 3,000 acres of yellow pine have been killed in this way, usually 

 at rather liigh elevations in the limestone. An insignificant amount of 

 damage is being done by smoke in the vicinity of the mills around Dead- 

 wood. Such injury can not be prevented, nor is it of consequence. 



Practically the whole area of the Black Hills bears more or less recent 

 marks of fire. An examination of the older trees allows the reconstruc- 

 tion of the history of forest fires during the last one hundred and fifty 

 years. The oldest fire of which record has thus been preserved passed 

 through the hills between 1730 and 1740. The next, a very extensive 

 one, occurred from 1790 to 1800. Indian tradition assigns to the year 

 1842 a very wide spread fire, from which dates the young growth now 

 about 50 years old in the northern hills and 40 years old in the south. 

 About twenty-five years ago a fire is said to have been started by 

 soldiers during a campaign. In 1881 fire burned from Preacher Springs 

 to Deadwood. Of more recent fires, those of 1893 were the most severe. 

 It results from this long successioifi of fires that the forest exhibits its 

 real character but rarely. Almost throughout the hills the latter is 

 distorted by the effect of the burning, and only here and there does the 

 capacity of the yellow pine for the rapid production of timber in the 

 Black Hills make itself fully evident. 



Among the causes of forest fires, lightningandraalice are both uncom- 

 mon. There is no record that prospecting has caused any fires, unless 

 prospectors are grouped with campers, who are responsible for very 

 many. Eailroads, the habit of burning brush, and the sawmills have 

 each been the source of severe burning. It is plain that no measures 

 short of the establishment of a permanent forest force will suffice to 

 check this evil. 



Where the fires are not sufficiently severe to destroy the standing 

 timber their action often results in a fire scar at the base of the tree, 

 and in consequent unsoundness, which may at times affect 75 or even 

 100 per cent of the whole -growing stock. Another serious injury is 

 the destruction of young growth. The forest is thus kept open, with 

 the result of short trunks and poor timber in the trees which reach 

 merchantable size. Elsewhere the pine is replaced by aspen or white 

 birch or grass through the operation of repeated fires, to the action of 

 which the larger parks and openings throughout the hills are wholly due. 



The Homestake Company has of late shown an admirable spirit with 

 relation to fires, and has spent considerable sums in attempting to 

 extinguish them. Elsewhere in the hills the desire to have fires checked 

 is very strong, but as a rule it does not lead to active measures on the 

 part of the inhabitants. Even when such measures are taken, in the 

 face of immediate danger to private property, they are apt to fail of 

 their full result through a tendency to abandon the scene of the fire as 

 soon as the latter is apparently, but not actually, extinguished. It is 

 true, however, that any attempt of the Government to cope with this 

 evil will meet with the hearty approval and support of the ranchers 



