174 
Ohio Biological Survey 
Cultivated lands, lying waste, grow up in tall weeds, among which 
may be a few of the taller grasses, but never blue grass, at least in the 
earlier stages. Saplings are more abundant on such areas than on pas¬ 
ture land. 
Land which has been cleared, or partially cleared and not cultivated, 
returns to forest much more rapidly than is the case in the two former 
instances, doubtless because of the presence of living seeds and roots in 
the soil. 
The stage in the original succession influences the character of the 
new growth in two very different ways. First, the former association 
depended for its being upon the nature of the soil, its physical state and 
water content, as influenced by the plant cover and by the stage in the 
physiographic cycle. The former plant cover affects the new association 
because of its modifying influence on the soil. Second, if any of the 
original trees remain in the clearing, they will be represented in the new 
growth, and often in larger numbers than would otherwise be possible. 
For this reason, a few mesophytes are sometimes represented in the first 
clearing association. 
Clearing always has a retarding effect on the succession. An oak 
forest is commonly replaced by one composed almost entirely of the pio¬ 
neers of new slopes. In many places groves of locust (Rohinia -Pseudo- 
Acacia) occupy the cleared slopes. Though not an indigenous tree, this 
is probably the most common pioneer of clearings. In bluff successions, 
it does not long retain the precedence which it may have originally had, 
but is soon replaced by native trees. In clearings there is, however, 
often no indication of what will succeed it—the groves are pure stands 
of locust. The predominance of locust, when once it is introduced into . 
a clearing, may be partially accounted for by the rapid vegetative propaga¬ 
tion of this tree by root shoots,^ which gives it an advantage over other 
bluff xerophytes. 
Other common clearing pioneers are honey locust (Gleditsia triacan- 
thos), thorns (Crataegus mollis, C. Crus-galli, and C. punctata), Sassafras 
and red elm. These may be found together composing a mixed copse, 
or separately forming almost pure stands (dg. g8). 
In a few localities, especially in the Little Miami drainage basin, red 
cedar (Juniperus virginiama) is the facies of the early stages of slope 
successions, in clearings as well as on young bluffs. Locust may be 
® The terms water shoot, water sprout, shoot, sprout, and sucker, are largely used indis¬ 
criminately for shoots from roots, both at and far from the main stem. It is here sug¬ 
gested, that root shoot be used to designate those shoots arising from roots, at a distance 
from the original plant. 
