Oct. i, 1917 Reproduction from Seed Stored in the Forest Floor 
17 
The reason for such sparse reproduction and for its location in patchy 
areas must be sought in the fact that in 1892 a second severe fire swept 
through the bum of 1875 in an irregular width, as most fires do. 
The reproduction 011 the area swept over by fire for the second time 
averages less than one seedling per square rod, and even this figure is 
exaggerated by the occurrence of whitebark pine seedlings in clumps of 
from 6 to 14 in a single spot. There are many areas several acres in 
extent which are absolutely bare of coniferous growth. 
Although these areas are now dry and inhospitable to tree growth, the 
occasional tall, standing snags which have escaped destruction attest by 
their size that a forest of real value once occupied the ground. 
Similar conditions were found on the East Canyon Creek area where a 
1910 bum followed a 1902 fire. On this area the source of scattered 
seedlings 1 to 3 years old was demonstrated to be seed produced by a few 
young trees which had escaped the previous fire and had now just reached 
seeding age. One such tree is shown in Plate 5, A. 
The reproduction found on scattered areas which have escaped the 
second fire suggest that after the first fire the entire burned-over area, 
wherever the duff was not completely burned out, must have had a 
similar reproduction. Since the second fire occurred 17 years later or 
before the young stand could produce a large amount of seed and before 
the ground provided favorable conditions for seed storage, there was no 
stored seed from which a new stand could come up, and therefore the 
area covered by the second fire resulted in a barren. This point is more 
clearly brought out in the Tower Rock burn. 
Tower Rock burn. —The Cispus fire of 1902 burned in two distinct 
age classes of forest, one a mature Douglas-fir forest previously untouched 
by fire and the other a second-growth stand of pole size of almost pure 
Douglas fir about 40 years old. The results which followed in the two 
cases were strikingly different. 
In the mature Douglas-fir forest the conditions after the burn repeated 
practically the conditions found on the Columbia bum. There was here 
the same occurrence and distribution of dense and sparse reproduction 
independent of the position of seed trees; there was the same proportion 
of age classes in the reproduction, evidencing the greatest germination 
during one or two years after the fire; there was the same alternation of 
patches of the original brush cover and reproduction, outlining the limits 
of irregular ground fire. There was, moreover, abundant proof of the 
inadequacy of survived seed trees to restock a burned forest area of large 
extent. There were left on this burn numerous groups of living seed 
trees of Douglas fir and minor species ideally placed for a study of their 
seeding influence. In spite of the most favorable conditions of site for 
the germination and establishment of seedlings, it was invariably found 
that 1-, 2-, and 3-year-old seedlings were limited to a radius of 3 and 
