THE RED SPRUCE. 25 
ANIMALS. 
Young spruce may be severely damaged by the tearing off of its 
bark by deer when rubbing their antlers to remove the " velvet." 
Balsam, however, is much more liable to injury of this sort than is 
spruce, presumably because of its smoother bark and the healing 
effect of its resin. Hedgehogs also damage spruce to some extent 
by gnawing the bark. Squirrels and mice eat enormous quantities 
of seed, and undoubtedly do further damage by burrowing about 
the roots, thus exposing them to danger of fungous infection. The 
rodents may even be the means themselves of inoculation. Squir- 
rels, particularly, feed on the fruiting bodies of different fungi, 
which can often be found on dead limbs along the trunk of spruce 
where they have been carried and partly eaten. 
GRAZING. 
Spruce is susceptible to very little injury by the browsing either 
of deer or domestic animals. When very young the seedlings are 
liable to serious injury by being trampled by the grazing stock. 
If it were not for this, the presence of stock in young spruce stands 
would be of advantage in keeping the grass cropped down and the 
young hardwoods and balsam browsed. 
There is at the present time a tendency in parts of the spruce 
regions of New Hampshire and Vermont to allow pasture land to 
grow up to spruce, at the same time allowing stock to graze as long 
as they can find sufficient pasturage. Such an attempted dual use 
of the land is of advantage to neither the cattle grazed nor to the 
forests to be grown. The resulting stand of spruce is very ragged and 
uneven-aged, being composed of large, spreading-crowned, scrubby 
trees interspersed by occasional thickets of younger growth. These 
latter come up in the openings which are from time to time cut off 
from grazing by the interlacing of the low crowns of the larger trees, 
which hinders the passage of the stock. On account of the gradual 
encroachment on the intervening areas of the crowns of the larger 
trees, many of these younger saplings are eventually suppressed. 
The yield from such a stand is very much less than the land is 
capable of producing; the quality of the material in inferior, and 
much of it is useless even for pulp. Much time also is wasted in 
cutting the big-limbed, scrawny trees, which materially reduce the 
output per day, increase the cost, and yield heavy sticks difficult to 
handle, Thus the normal value of the land is reduced not only as a 
pasturage investment but as an investment for pulpwood production. 
WIND AND SNOW. 
The susceptibility of spruce to damage by windthrow is very 
great on certain situations on account of the shallow nature of its 
root system. The foliage and young shoots may be considerably 
damaged by hail and are thus rendered more vulnerable to insect 
