12 
FORESTS OF WISCONSIN. 
as a pure growth. Either one or both together formed forests 
of considerable extent, usually with hardly any undergrowth 
and mixture save some scattering scrub oak. (Barrens of Bay- 
field county and in Douglas, Marinette, and Portage counties.) 
The greater part of the swamps in North Wisconsin were 
well stocked with dense thickets of tamarack, cedar (arborvitae)^ 
and some scattering spruce. The cedar (arborvitae) prevailed 
in those of the eastern part, especially the swamps of the sandy 
loam lands along and near Green Bay, the tamarack had undis¬ 
puted possession of those of the southern and southwestern part 
and also covered part of the swamps of the openings. The- 
swamps of the central, northern, and northwestern part were 
stocked without regularity, some with tamarack, others with 
cedar, and in many of them both trees occurred together. The 
spruce as a very runty shrub or half tree covered many open 
bogs and otherwise occurred scattered in the swamps, especially 
within the moister hemlock area. 
FOREST CONDITIONS OF THE PRESENT. 
At present these forests are materially changed. More than 
one million acres have been cleared and put in cultivation. Dur¬ 
ing forty years of lumbering nearly the entire territory has been 
logged over. The pine has disappeared from most of the mixed 
forests and the greater portion of pineries proper has been cut. 
There is to-day hardly a township in this large area where no- 
logging has been done. In addition to this, the fires, following 
all logging operations or starting on new clearings of the settler, 
have done much to change these woods. Nearly half this ter¬ 
ritory has been burned over at least once: about 3 million 
acres are without any forest cover whatever, and several million 
acres more are but partly covered by the dead and dying rem¬ 
nants of the former forest. 
In the better hardwood areas (Taylor, Marathon, Langlade 
counties) the least change has occurred; the former existence of 
the pine is scarcely noticed and the forest is damaged by fire 
only where it borders on “pine slashings” or spots where quite a 
