nd to an
acre. They stood among masses of fallen trees, the remains of a spruce
forest that had been killed by the same fire which had given this
lodge-pole forest a chance to spring up. Several thousand acres were
burned, and for a brief time the fire traveled swiftly. I saw it roll
blazing over one mountain-side at a speed of more than sixty miles an
hour. It was intensely hot, and in a surprisingly short time the
flames had burned every log, stump, and tree to ashes. Several hundred
acres were swept absolutely bare of trees, living and dead, and the
roots too were burned far into the ground.

Several beetles prey upon the lodge-pole, and in some localities the
porcupine feeds off its inner bark. It is also made use of by man. The
wood is light, not strong, with a straight, rather coarse grain. It is
of a light yellow to nearly white, or pinkish white, soft, and easily
worked. In the West it is extensively used for lumber, fencing, fuel,
and log houses, and millions of lodge-pole railroad-ties are annually
put to use.

Most lodge-poles grow in crowded ranks, and slow growth is the result,
but it is naturally a comparatively rapid grower. In good, moist soil,
uncrowded, it rapidly builds upward and outward. I have more than a
score of records that show that it has made a quarter of an inch
diameter growth annually, together with an upright growth of more than
twelve inches, and also several notes which show where trees standing
in favorable conditions have made half an inch diameter growth
annually. This fact of its rapid growth, together with other valuable
characteristics and qualities of the tree, may lead it to be selected
by the government for the reforestation of millions of acres of
denuded areas in the West. In many places on the Rockies it would, if
given a chance, make commercial timber in from thirty to sixty years.

I examined a lodge-pole in the Medicine Bow Mountains that was scarred
by fire. It was two hundred and fourteen years of age. It took one
hundred and seventy-eight years for it to make five inches of diameter
growth. In the one hundred and seventy-eighth ring of annual growth
there was a fire-scar, and during the next thirty-six years it put on
five more inches of growth. It is probable, therefore, that the fire
destroyed the neighboring trees, which had dwarfed and starved it and
thus held it in check. I know of scores of cases where lodge-poles
grew much more rapidly, though badly fire-scar