The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1939-04-20
BY ]. w. TRYGG
Junior Administrative Assistant,
Superior National Forest

Since the beginning of the Civilian
Conservation Corps program, we have
heard of many impressive statistics Of
its accomplishments April 10, marked
the sixth birthday anniversary, and we
learn that trifle over 100000 man
days have been performed on various
conservation projects within the Su-
perior National Forest. If they were
spread out over every acre of land with
in the Forest boundaries, there would
have been less than half of a working
man-day spent on each acre.
Reforestation on burned and cut-over
lands has received high priority, with
total of 22,934 acres planted during
these six years This represents ap-
proximately 2O,640,OO0 young trees, all
of confer species. Before planting,
these trees were grown from seed in the
two forest nurseries, also developed by
CCC on this forest. At the present
time, the Knife River nursery has a
capacity of 2h million spruce trees an
nually, while the Eveleth nursery pro-
duces Az million young pine trees each
year. With the development of these
nurseries, the annual planting program
has now been organized to reforest over
1000 acres annually.
Related to the reforestation program,
there is the task of maintaining all the
plantations to keep them free Of harm
full brush growth. just another chore
of wedding the garden until the young
trees gain sufficient growth and
strength to withstand the competition
of forest weeds" Likewise, each plan
tation has been adequately kept free of
rabbits that would otherwise have des-
ltroyed thousands of the young trees.
It would make an interesting tour to
visit this complete cycle of operations,
from the gathering of the seed until
the trees are left free to grow naturally.
Each year during the latter part of
August, seed collection takes place in
all of the camps. To date a total of
5000 bushels of cones from all species
of pine and fir have been harvested,
later to be extracted for seeding in the
nurseries. Another interesting phase is
the large scale blowing operations pre-
Iparatory to planting in the field.
Special plows so large and powerful
that they can be drawn by heavy duty
caterpillar tractors most anywhere in
the forest are in general use. The
Operation of this machinery is all per-
formed by operators trained from the
ranks of the CCC enrollees. Thus, with
a highly trained organization of young
men skilled in the many phases of this
work, the entire summer season is taken
|up by large share of the young men
in the camps.
During the winter months, another
lphase of timber management takes
tplace in the form of treating young
Stands of timber to their highest pro-
Iductivity. Quite often the trees grow
Ito a density of 8 to 10 thousand trees
Iper acre and therefore require thinning
Ito normal density of less than 1900
stems per acre. Other forms of i'm
provement require the removal of un-
desirable species that hinder the growth
and very often damage the more varu-
able species. In young white and red
Norway pine, it has also proven pro-
fitable to prune the lower branches so
as to produce higher, quality timber
ALI told, there are over $1,000 acres
treated in this manner in addition to
having reduced the fire hazard over the
same area. Through these operations
there is practically sufficient material
salvaged from the cuttings to supply
the camps with fuelwood, which in an
average camp amounts to 1900 cords
annually.
These timber stand improvement OPP
erations employ the greater number of
the men in the camps during the winter
months. In the late fall and early
spring, fire hazard reduction is taken
on, since 1t is then possible to dispose
of the debris by burning and yet to do
a good cleanup job, since the depth Of
snow is favorable. A total of 1880 miles
Of firebreak cleanup along roads and
trails have been completed, in addition
to 1920 acres of general hazard re-
duction.
4lfC COlitl lUtelOll w WIN il1O oiiI 41sAA
propagation and care has given the
sportsman something to appreciate. In
this connection, there have been planted
a total of 31,89O,O0O young fish in lakes
and streams, where it has been pre-
determined the correct kind of fish to
plant Four hundred forty lakes and
200 miles of streams have been surveyed,
SO it may be known how suitable each
may be for fish propagation. An adj
ditional IS miles of streams have been
improved to make conditions more
favorable to natural habitat for brook
trout
Other forms of wild life conservation
have not been possible to perform to
"a desirable degree until all the necessary
surveys and data can be collected as a
basis for proper management. Surveys
have been conducted to acquire data on
food conditions over the forest areas;
this, combined with a census of the
population of game in these areas, has
made it possible to make plans for its