FOREST PLANTING IN THE INTERMOUNTAIN REGION. 21 



aspects are characterized by brushy species such as bitterbrush 

 {Kunzia tridentata) , snowberry (SympJioricarpos oreopMlus), snow 

 brush, serviceberry, myrtlebrush, cnokecherry, and wild rose. (PL 

 V,fig.2.) 



These areas lie between 5,500 and 6,000 feet elevation, near the 

 center of the extensive area in northern Utah and southern Idaho 

 in which native western yellow pine is not found. All of these areas 

 receive scanty precipitation. The rainfall during the growing 

 season averages about 12 inches. The days are warm and the nights 

 cool during the growing season, only two and one-half months being 

 free from kilhng frosts. The soil on the planting areas varies from a 

 rather heavy brown silt loam on the sagebrush site to a gray to black 

 silty very fine sandy loam on the other areas. The soil, derived 

 from schist, diorite porphyry, limestone, and quartzite, is not excess- 

 ively calcareous. While the majority of the plantations were 

 installed in 1917, the sagebrush area was planted in 1916. An aspen 

 area planted in the spring of 1915 was burned over the same fall. 

 The area with temporary brush cover was planted in the spring of 1918. 



Western yellow pine was planted to a limited extent on the Salina 

 Canyon watershed of the Fishlake National Forest, the Payson 

 Canyon watershed of the Uinta National Forest, in Lamb's Canyon 

 on the Wasatch National Forest (all in Utah), and on the Rock 

 Creek watershed of the Targhee National Forest in eastern Idaho. 

 Table 10 gives a complete record of all of the experimental planta- 

 tions of western yellow pine installed on the above-mentioned areas 

 with sites and dates indicated, and with stock of the various age 

 classes also shown. On most of these areas the plantations were 

 composed of units of 100 trees each, although occasionally 200-tree 

 units were used. In the earlier work up to and including the plan- 

 tations installed in the spring of 1916 the trees were arranged in 

 from 2 to 4 parallel rows, but subsequently square plots having 10 

 rows of 10 trees each were used in all the studies of planting sites. 



Table 10 shows a considerable number of plantations which are 

 now old enough to give reliable indications, of the final results. On 

 the Big Cottonwood watershed the plantation of the fall of 1913 in 

 permanent brush shows up very much the best, probably because of 

 exceptional circumstances (light winter snow) at the time of plant- 

 ing. At Beaver Creek results in oak-brush are also good. On the 

 Mink Creek watershed two plantations in temporary brush show up 

 very much the best, most of the other plantations being considerably 

 less favorable. 



A study of the first-year results in Table 10 shows that the poorest 

 results in Ephraim Canyon are found in fall plantings and in spring 

 plantings where poor age classes of stock were used. Sites which 

 give subnormal survival are west-slope oak (1916 plantations), be- 

 cause the area planted that year was a very severe site with poor 

 soil. Some of the sage and sage-oak plantations are very poor also, 

 while the snowberry site is extremely unsatisfactory. These fail- 

 ures have occurred where soils are poor and heavy or where there 

 has been excessive shallow-root competitions from sagebrush and 

 snowberry. In Big Cottonwood Canyon, plantations have been 

 made on fewer sites and the differences in success are due more to 

 the variations in the wetness of different seasons. Certain planta- 

 tions, both in permanent and temporary brush, and planted both in 



