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Figure 17.— Some aspen (and paper birch) areas have an under- 

 story of pine seedlings and saplings, but on most of this 

 natural pine land natural conversion is progressing slowly. 



and brush types. This leaves 12 million acres of 

 potential spruce-fir land, about half of it in Minne- 

 sota. The prospects are good for natural conversion 

 I over a period of 50 years (fig. 18). However, the 

 ! new forests will be largely balsam fir unless spruce 

 is encouraged by planting. 



In the original forest, hardwood types occupied 

 about 46 million acres— 24 million northern hard- 

 Avood, 13 million oak-hickory, and 9 million bottom- 

 land types. About 24 million acres of this total has 

 been cleared and devoted to other uses, and about 

 4.5 million may remain more or less permanently 

 in aspen. This leaves a potential hardwood area 

 of approximately 17.5 million acres. About 7.6 

 million acres is in Michigan and 6.5 million acres 

 1 in Wisconsin. 



Much of the aspen has an understory of maple, 

 basswood, elm, and some other species. Eventually 

 most of it will revert to other hardwoods unless 



Forest Resources of the Lake States Region 



cutting, burning, pasturing, or other activities inter- 

 fere. Limited areas may require planting. 



These potential conversions would leave approxi- 

 mately 8.5 million acres in aspen. Under good 

 management this aspen land should produce large 

 quantities of box bolts, pulpwood, fuel wood and 

 some saw and veneer logs. 



Noncommercial Forest 



Forest lands too poor to produce saw timber or 

 pulpwood in loggable quantities have been classified 

 as noncommercial. These consist largely of swamp- 

 lands covered with a scrubby growth of black spruce, 

 tamarack, or aspen. They include some scrub oak 

 savannas and limited areas of dune sand. Largest 

 tracts are in Minnesota. 



Forest land set aside for parks or other uses which 

 preclude ordinary timber harvesting has been classi- 

 fied as reserved forest. The largest units are the 

 "no-cut area" within the Superior "roadless area" 

 (24) and Itasca State Park in Minnesota, Isle Royale 

 National Park and Porctipine Mountain State Park 

 in Michigan. Many small parks and military and 

 other reservations make up the remainder. 



The timber volumes and current and j^otential 

 growth on these areas have not been included in 

 the estimates given in this report. 



Forest-land Ownership 



The ownership pattern is beginning to crystallize 

 in the Lake States although numerous adjustments 

 still need to be made. 



In 1920, less than 10 percent of the forest land in 

 the region was in public ownership. The Federal 

 Government in its national forests, Indian reserva- 

 tions, and other tracts held less than 2 million acres. 

 The States retained only about 3 million acres of 

 their huge land grants. Coimty forests were virtu- 

 ally nonexistent. 



Between 1925 and 1945, the States and counties 

 took over about one-totirth of the privately owned 

 forest lands through tax forfeitine. During the 

 same period the Federal Government enlarged its 

 holdings by about 6 million acres, mainly by pur- 

 chases and exchanges (fig. 19). Ciurently, public 

 agencies control about 44 percent of all foi^est land, 

 41 percent of the commercial forest area (table 8). 



The newly acquired public forest areas consist 

 largely of cut-over land. Thus, the holdings of the 



15 



