26 BULLETIN 1496, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
of hardwood sprouts and seedlings (the latter mostly maple) has 
come in, while weeds and briars are conspicuous by their absence. 
In a comparatively few years the forest cover will have reestablished 
‘itself on this area, and the fire hazard will be reduced to a minimum. 
The area burned over will continue to be a fire hazard for years to 
come, as there is little prospect of the early reestablishment of a 
forest cover. A conservative estimate is that the area over which 
the slash was piled has at least a 10-year start over the other in the 
matter of reforestation. 
On one of the sample areas examined in detail were 29 brush piles, 
of which 4 had not been burned. The diameter of the average burned 
spot was about 15 feet, making the total burned-over area approxi- 
mately one-tenth of an acre, or 10 per cent. 
The cost of slash disposal on this tract is in the neighborhood of 
$2 per thousand board feet. It is estimated that $1 of this is offset 
by reduced logging costs resulting from the disposal of slash, ap- 
proximately 75 cents per thousand being saved on skidding and 25 
cents per thousand upon logs that would otherwise be overlooked and 
left in the woods. There is also an appreciable saving of horseflesh. 
Another example of hardwood slash disposal is that ef piling and 
subsequent burning as it was at one time done on the Menominee 
Indian Reservation. The slash there was loosely thrown together in 
large piles at the time of logging and burned in the fall. The men 
in charge of this operation considered that because of the benefits 
resulting, the piling and burning of the slash did not constitute any 
addition to logging costs. Some of the contractors working on the 
reservation, lumbermen of 40 years’ experience in the woods, were 
sure of this. They paid the sawyers by the log and required them to 
pile the slash as they went along. This reduced the number of 
swampers from three for every two skidding teams to one, and in a 
pinch to none. At the wages paid at that time this saving amounted 
to from 30 to 45 cents per thousand. They felt that piling saved 
from 5 to 10-per cent of logs, which otherwise got buried. It was 
easier on the horses and the sawyers, and after the sawyers got used 
to doing it their work was so facilitated that they would not have 
had it otherwise. j 
The piling and burning of the slash on this hardwood operation 
was certainly economically justified, and it was claimed to be a good 
fire-protective measure; but it can not from a silvicultural standpoint 
be considered a success. The large piles loosely thrown together 
burned fiercely and, as a rule, burned over the entire area. It 
amounted, therefore, practically to broadcast burning. 
A third illustration, of method and cost of disposing of slash in 
hardwoods by lopping and leaving, is offered by a small logging 
operation in Wisconsin. The method of disposal consists of so 
lopping the tops and limbs that they will he flat on the ground. 
Large limbs lying together are scattered. Along roads, trails, and 
other frequented places the tops are piled and burned to reduce 
the fire hazard and to improve the appearance of the forest. (PI. 3, 
A and B.) These provisions, included in the contract, have been 
carried out at a cost of 40 cents a thousand board feet cut and may 
be considered as satisfactory both silviculturally and as fire-protec- 
tion measures, 
