FORESTRY. 



393 



In one locality where small Norway 

 pines stood close together, making a thick 

 stand, it was found that almost without 

 exception the trees were of the same age, 

 138 years. No matter how large or how 

 slender the tree, it was just as old as its 

 neighbor. 



The rings on all these trees were large* 

 at the heart, but as 50 or 60 years went by, 

 they got narrower and narrower, until 

 some of the smaller trees seemed hardly to 

 grow at all. The reason was plain ; there 

 were too many trees, and as none would 

 give up the struggle, all suffered alike. 



They were not the only sufferers. Here 

 and there was a slender, struggling white 

 pine, making a vain attempt to capture its 

 share of sun and rain. Counting reveals 

 that these white pines are also all of the 

 same age, but, unfortunately, only 126 years 

 old. The Norways had 12 years the start 

 of them, and the delay was fatal. 



How did it happen that these trees came 

 in so thickly and all the same year? Per- 

 haps further study will help us to find out. 

 We go to another cutting, over a mile 

 from the first. Here we find many trees, 

 about the size of those we have left, and 

 counting the rings, we find them to be the 

 same age, 138 years. But here is some- 

 thing more. In a secluded nook stands 

 a group of immense white and Norway 

 trees, perhaps a dozen. These prove 

 to be very old, but also of even age ; each 

 stump showing 315 rings. Where is the 

 rest of this patriarchal forest? Close about 

 the few remaining may be seen the forms 

 of many more, stretched upon the ground 

 and slowly decaying. These have evidently 

 been blown down, possibly after being 

 killed by fire. Their fate gives us the clue 

 to the disappearance of the others. It is 

 plain that some time before 1763, a great 

 disaster overtook the pine forest in this 

 place. Most of it was wiped out of exist- 

 ence, either by fire or wind. But here and 

 there a clump remains, and from them in a 

 favorable seed year came the seed which 

 started the new and thriving crop of Nor- 

 way pine. 



To find out, if possible, whether this con- 

 flagration or blowdown was more than 

 local, we go to a cutting some 10 miles 

 from our first, and there again the oldest 

 and largest of the stand, which is all 

 rather small, prove to be 138 years 

 old. Whatever the cause, it must have 

 operated over a large area, but this is 

 not a thick stand ; in fact, there are 

 many gaps, and much of the timber is 

 limby and knotty, a sure sign that it has 

 not been grown close together. Soon we 

 find that many, in fact most, of the trees 

 are but 101 years old, there being 2 distinct 

 age classes. 



How did this come about? Let us look 



at the older trees. On one of them is 

 a fire scar, made when the tree was 18 

 years of age. On another we find a similar 

 scar, made in the same year; and on close 

 examination we can hardly find one of the 

 older trees free from the marks of this 

 fire. How plain it is, that this fire, occur- 

 ing just 120 years ago, or in the year 1781, 

 when the young forest was 18 years of age, 

 killed nearly all the young pine and gave 

 the forest a blow from which, in this place 

 at least, it never fully recovered. It did 

 the best it could, however, for the age of 

 the second class of trees, 101 years, shows 

 that the young survivors of the fire grew 

 rapidly until at the age of 38 years they 

 were enabled to produce a crop of seeds ; 

 or, possibly, the old trees from which the 

 first ones came were still living and seeded 

 down the ground a second time, so that a 

 fairly good stand of trees was finally pro- 

 duced. 



These studies lead us to infer that pines 

 reproduce themselves as forests generally 

 under exceptional or unusual circum- 

 stances, and that it is their natural way 

 of maintaining themselves as species. The 

 young white and Norway pine, especially 

 the latter, can not endure much shade when 

 small, and could not possibly grow up as 

 a dense forest under their own shade 

 or the shade of other trees ; yet, we nearly 

 always find them in dense groves. The 

 rings tell us the secret. In the long period 

 of 200 to 300 years during which the pines 

 live, the accident of fire or wind becomes 

 a certainty, and when a strip of forest is 

 laid low or burned, the neighboring trees 

 stand ready to scatter the seed far and 

 wide in the wind, and the new growth 

 springs up and flourishes. 



This is nature's method; but nature's 

 methods are so perfectly harmonized that 

 but little is needed to throw them out of 

 balance. Nature clears in strips and dashes 

 seed there, and fires are rare and far apart. 

 Man clears over wide areas and fires of 

 his origin sweep repeatedly over his slash- 

 ings. The young pine spring up even after 

 the second and third fires, but by perse- 

 verance the fires finally destroy them all, 

 and what nature intended to be the young 

 pine forest becomes a barren wilderness. 



ADIRONDACK FOREST PRESERVE. 



New York City. 

 Editor Recreation : 



A bill is about to be introduced in Albany 

 to sanction the cutting of conifers in the 

 Adirondack Preserve, and forbidding the 

 cutting of hard woods. This removal of 

 the evergreens would be most destructive 

 to game. It is the hard woods that should 

 be removed. The supply of game in a region 

 depends largely on the abundance of food; 



