24 STATE OF MICHIGAN. 



aie clearly indicated by the absence of stumps or other signs of logging. 



At present only the swamp forests and the "jack pine plains" retain 

 anything of their former appearance, much modified by fire, and, in the 

 swamps, by lumbering operations. The great pine forest is gone, and not 

 a single acre of the original woods remains. The present appearance and 

 cover of the lands varies according to the length of time elapsed since 

 logging, and also according to the number and thoroughness of the fires 

 wliicli have passed over the lands. 



Jn general the changes from the old pine forest to present conditions 

 may be traced more or less clearly, and while the progress varies with 

 land and former condition and recurrence of fires, the cover of most of 

 these pine lands has passed through a circle of transformation about as 

 follows: After logging, the fires consuming the tops and other debris de- 

 stroyed the forest cover. Usually several fires followed each other at short 

 intervals, and killed the young growth of pine, poplar, birch and oak 

 v.'hich springs up after the fires, leaving the land in the blackened waste 

 condition in which many thousands of acres may still be found throughout 

 the pinery region. In spite of the injury to the soil, nature, after a few 

 years' rest, begins again the work of reclothing these lands. Sprouts of 

 oak, and, on the better pine lands, spi-outs of cherry, maple, birch and 

 poplar make their appearance, and in cases where a few fire-scarred pines 

 have survived, there appear usually a few scattered seedlings of pine. 

 This growth continues for some years, and with it comes a more ample 

 cover of the low, long-lived, tenacious shrab tribe peculiar to this region, 

 sweet fern, buckle blueberry, blackberry, bush honeysuckle, dwarf cherry, 

 Jersey tea (Ceanothus), with occasional willow, witch hazel, rose, haw- 

 thorn and sumach, and among these a very variable amount of grass and 

 sedge. Of these all, the sweet fern stands out conspicuous on the lands 

 under consideration, and it is common to see it form a perfect mat, cover- 

 ing acres of land, almost to the exclusion of everything else. This dense 

 shrub cover, one to three feet high, while of some benefit to the land itself, 

 is a great obstacle to restocking with trees, either natural or by planting, 

 and it is also a serious menace to the use of those lands by grazing, for 

 grass and sedge naturally give way to these persistent, long-lived, rugged 

 pioneer plants. 



While in this stage, we find cases like the following : On a sample acre 

 taken on a large, fiat piece of good pinery land, there are about 100 pine 

 stumps to the acre, indicating that considerable timber was taken from 

 this land. The land was thoroughly burned over several times. At pres- 

 ent Ibere is a fair cover of shrubbery, about 80% sweet fern, and in addi- 

 tion there is a beginning of a forest cover consisting of about 100 oak 

 "stools" (a stump with all its sprouts forms a stool) to the acre, besides 

 about 50 to 75 small, bushy plants of jack pine, the seed of which had 

 evidently blown from the neighboring stand of scattered jack pine. 



A sample acre of another pine flat, with a much denser cover of shrub- 

 bery, again, mostly sweet fern, has about 120 oak stools, with sprouts 

 three to seven feet high, quite a scattered growth of cherry, poplar, 

 willow and witch hazel, and over 200 small plants of white pine, the seed 

 of which had evidently come from a neighboring swamp, along the edge 

 of which a number of small white pine trees had escaped the fires. 



Unfortunately, such conditions soon terminate. After a few years the 

 accumulation of dry material, leaves, dead grass and twigs, makes it pos- 



