10 
FORESTS OF WISCONSIN. 
FOREST CONDITIONS OF THE PAST. 
An uninterrupted forest, extending from Michigan through 
Wisconsin into Minnesota, originally covered almost the entire 
surface of these 27 counties. Along the southern and south¬ 
western border, this forest faded into oak and jack pine “open¬ 
ings” and in places gave way to regular prairies. It was gen¬ 
erally a mixed forest of white pine and hardwoods on all loam 
and clay lands; it approached to the regular pinery on the tracts 
of sandy loam and the red clays of Lake Superior, and on all 
sandy and loamy sand districts, it was invariably pinery proper, 
generally a mixture of white and red (Norway) pines. This 
great forest changed in character along a line extending approx¬ 
imately through Range 7 W. from Lake Superior to Town 31 
N., from here to the southwest comer of Marathon county 
and thence east to Green Bay.* To the east and north of this 
line the hemlock joined the hardwoods and pine on all gravelly 
clay and loam lands; the birch (not white birch) disputed prec¬ 
edence among hardwoods, so that we may designate the forest 
as birch forest with admixtures; the red oaks were thinly scat¬ 
tered and the white oaks practically wanting. To the south 
and west of this line, the hemlock generally did not grow at 
all, the birch became scattering, white oaks were abundant, and 
the oaks gave character to the hardwood mixture, making the 
bodies of pure hardwoods distinctly oak forests. These bodies 
of hardwood were much more common on this side of the line. 
Along the edge of the forest to the south and west the dense 
cover of a variety of tall hardwoods and conifers gave way 
rather suddenly to monotonous brushwoods, composed of scat¬ 
tered, bushy oaks, either alone or mixed with jack pine. (Port¬ 
age, Dunn, St. Croix, Polk counties.) 
In almost all parts of the mixed forest of the loam lands, the 
hardwoods formed the body of the forest and the conifers the 
* The lines of distribution as here laid down refer only to the occurrence 
of trees as timber of economic importance, and not to their botanical dis¬ 
tribution . 
