CONDITIONS IN COUNTIES. 
59 
also along the St. Croix river and the railways, but there is still a 
great deal of standing timber in large and small bodies, estimated to 
cut about 3,500 million feet, xhe hardwoods have been little invaded, 
but since they form here but a secondary mixture, they are largely 
killed by fire when the pine slashings are burned, as is well illustrated 
by the country about, and south of Superior. On Maple Ridge con¬ 
siderable hardwood is cut, and strangely enough, oak forms often as 
much as 25 per cent, of the yield. Scattering as they are, the hard¬ 
woods are still believed to be about 700 million feet. 
Dunn. —Of the sandy eastern half the northern portion is jack pine 
woods and openings, the rest oak openings with real prairies. Of 
the western half the clay and loam land ridges were covered with al¬ 
most pure hardwoods and the more sandy valleys were stocked with 
a mixed growth of large pine and hardwoods, the former often pre¬ 
vailing. The woods on Hay river partook of the regular pinery form 
and merged into the jack pine w r oods of the northeastern towns. The 
pine is practically all cut, though the scattering patches still amount 
to several million feet. The hardwoods are much interrupted by 
clearings, many tracts have been culled and even cut clean. The iso¬ 
lated tracts of hardwood, with a yield of about 4 M. per acre, are es¬ 
timated to cut 400 million feet of which oak is 25 per cent., and bass¬ 
wood and maple form 50 per cent. The few swamps are generally 
bare of merchantable material. Large areas of bare wasteland occur 
in the jack pine district and may be seen along the railway between 
Wheeler and Summit. Many groves of fine young white pine are fast 
growing into timber about Menomonie. 
Florence. —The greater part of this county was a mixed forest of 
pine, hardwoods, and hemlock on a gray loam, with smaller tracts of 
regular pine land, especially along the streams, and a larger tract 
in the northeastern part, where even jack pine woods covered con¬ 
siderable ground. At present the pine is largely cut, and only about 
150 millions of feet are believed to exist in this county. The hard¬ 
woods and hemlock have not been cut except small patches about the 
towns, but have been injured in places by fire. With 4 M. feet per 
acre of both hardwood and hemlock, the cut of the latter is about 
300 million feet and that of the former about 400 million feet, of 
which basswood, birch, and maple form 75 per cent., while oak 
scarcely occurs. The swamps are generally covered and swell the en¬ 
tire cut of timber by over 100 million feet. Burned areas occur in 
every town of the county, occupying 20 per cent, of the entire land 
surface. Here, as in other counties, they form a far greater propor¬ 
tion of the area than is usually supposed. 
Forest. —The northwest quarter of the county is largely a flat. 
