JULY, 1900. BRUNCKEN— ON THE FOREST CONDITIONS, ETC. 181 
The most common fault observed in the management of these 
wood lots is the excessive breaking of the crown cover. The 
most common result of this is that grasses occupy the floor, and 
make it almost impossible for tree seeds to sprout. Where the 
locality is not too dry, the injury may stop with the ceasing of 
reproduction. But elsewhere the remaining trees, especially elm 
and basswood, are usually doomed to gradual decay. V'ery often 
the proprietors are rather pleased if the forest floor becomes bet- 
ter pasturage for horses and cattle. They help this process along 
by removing all underbrush. Of course, where pasturage is 
really the most profitable use to which a wood lot can be put, 
nothing can be said against the practice. But the proprietor 
ought to realize that in this way he dooms his forest to extinc- 
tion, unless once in a series of years he takes proper steps to re- 
generate it. 
Where in a wood lot treated in this manner the trees allowed 
to remain have survived the transition period without injury, they 
are sometimes benefited if looked at as individuals, rather than 
as a forest. The abundant light they receive from all sides tends 
to cause an increased diameter growth in their boles, and a 
spreading and rounding of their crowns. This gives a very 
pleasing, park-like aspect to a number of such tracts. It reminds 
one of the ''openings" in other parts of the state. Only, here the 
trees are mostly young, and do not present the picturesque 
gnarled appearance of the veteran oaks of the prairie "openings." 
Generally speaking, a grass-covered floor is an entire check to 
the reproduction of a forest in this region. There are some 
places, however, (for instance, in a young wood with northern 
exposure, in the south half of section 27, Wauw^atosa), where 
numerous seedlings of oak were observed in 1899 and 1900, not- 
withstanding a dense and long covering of grass. The seedlings 
of no species save oak were ever found by me in such localities. 
Next to a grassy floor, the poorest condition for the growth of 
seedlings seem to prevail in the places occasionally found (e. g. 
near Whitefish Bay) where the floor is occupied by Amphicarpaca 
monoeca, which allows no alien species to find a place in its 
dense carpet. Such weeds as goldenrod and sunflower, which 
are exceedingly common in many portions of this territory, seem 
to present no appreciable obstacle to the growth of tree seedlings. 
But the best conditions for the latter are found where herbagfe 
on the ground is entirely absent or confined to scattered patches. 
This state of things is rarely found in the smaller lots, but oc- 
cassionally met with in portions of the larger timber tracts, such 
as that west of the Soldiers' Home. 
