FORESTRY COMMISSION. 25 



sible for a fire to run, and, since fires liave always been supplied, the land 

 is again burned over. While such a fire naturally is not very severe or 

 dangerous, and while, in the opinion of most people, there "was no dam- 

 age," yet the little prospect of a forest cover is again destroyed com- 

 pletely, the seedlings are all killed and the sprouts killed or injured 

 sufficiently so that in a few years all the growth is gone, and nature 

 must begin her work anew. 



There are hundreds of acres of land in the reserve in this condition, and 

 it is in this manner that the repeated fires have prevented millions of acres 

 in this region from producing any timber or revenue for many years past. 

 After a number of years the sprouts of oak, less of other growth, again 

 mix in with the persistently returning ground cover of sweet fern and 

 olhor shrulibery. In this condition the appearance of the oak is peculiar. 

 A broad bush of ten to thirty green oak sprouts, two to five feet high, 

 su'rrounds the 3-6 old, fire killed oak sprouts of the former growth stretch- 

 ing five to fifteen feet above the green sprouts and proving clearly by their 

 blackened feet the cause of their destruction. 



The second or third crop of these oak stool openings, as they may well 

 be termed, usually resemble the first, but generally lack the seedlings of 

 pine, especially of the white or Norway pine. 



Where the land has had a longer period of rest from fire, the oak growth 

 takes on the tree form, the majority of the sprouts die, leaving commonly 

 2 (i sprouts to occupy one old stump. Now the cover begins to appear 

 distinctly "woodsy," or forest-like, and one is justified in speaking of this 

 cover as a "stand" of coppice oak. Thi'oughout, the oak retains the scrub 

 oak character peculiar to the sand-land oak; it is limby, grows well in 

 diameter, but lacks the height. In addition, it is too thin, on the land, 

 either to clear itself of limbs or to produce a satisfactory amount of tim- 

 ber per acre. Nevertheless, it is the best there is; it is a good material, 

 excellent fuel, and well suited to posts -and a variety of purposes in the 

 manufacture of smaller objects, and above all it is a forest cover, a be- 

 ginning to a forest such as will make these lands valuable and supply 

 the niaterial for which we are already going abroad. 



Such a thin stand of the oak openings on fairly good pine lands was 

 found, in one case, to be composed of about 130 young trees, 2-4 inches 

 breast high, and 290 oak stools, 2-6 feet high, per acre. On another tract 

 there were, per acre, 140 oak trees, mostly 4-8 inches in diameter and 25-30 

 feet high, and 300 oak stools, 2-6 feet high, besides a few sprouts of cherry, 

 maple and poplar. 



On good Norway pine lands, where the old forest contained some jack 

 pine, and was rather open, i. e., free of brush or undergrowth, the young 

 oak woods are sometimes mixed with considerable jack pine and some- 

 times a few Norway pine survivals. A sample acre of such a case, where 

 the fires had been checked by a narrow arm of swamp, and thus reduced 

 in their intensity, the following condition is met at present: There are 

 on. one acre about 30 jack pine, mostly between 3-8 inches, about 10 crip- 

 pled, small Norway pine; about 40 young scrubby oak, mostly 2 to 6 

 inches in diameter, breast high, and about 90 oak stools with sprouts 

 2-5 feet high, and mostly injured by some recent ground fire. On this 

 same tract about 80 Norway pine stumps clearly indicate the capacity 

 of the land for the growth of a pine forest by the crop which was har- 

 vested some years ago. 

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