By 1954 several areas of hilltop-edge and north slope, which presumably had been wooded originally, but which had been subjected to heavy cutting, supported thriving stands of young hickories mostly two to six inches in trunk diameter. Most of these saplings seemed to have originated as stump-or root-sprouts. These numerous and closely spaced saplings produced a dense and almost continuous leaf canopy, shading and killing out many of the smaller trees of their own species as well as competing elms, redbuds, dogwoods, hackberries and others. On a north slope in the southeastern part of the Reservation, many large stumps were found in late stages of decay, cut from 20 to 30 or more years before. Insofar as could be determined, these old stumps were mostly of oaks, but in 1954 the trees growing on this slope were chiefly elms and coffee-trees less than one foot in diameter. Effects of Livestock Livestock importantly affected the trend of succession. The tendency of grazing animals to hold back the forest by stripping the foliage from young trees and killing them is selective, however; the several kinds of trees differ in their tolerance to browsing and in their palatability to animals. The kind of animal and the season and intensity of use also have important bearing on the ultimate effect. Several kinds of shrubs and small trees seem to be especially susceptible to damage by browsing; chinquapin oak, crab-apple, plum, hazel, dogwood, prickly ash, and paw paw were found to be either absent entirely from the parts of the woodland that were heavily used by stock, or much scarcer than they were on adjacent unbrowsed areas. Some woody plants that are even more susceptible may have been completely eliminated by browsing. In the thirties when most of the woodland area was fenced off and protected from grazing, three wooded hillside areas of a few acres each, were maintained as connecting strips between the pastures of the hilltops and those of the bottomlands. These areas were utilized only at certain seasons, but by 1948 the effect of trampling and heavy browsing by livestock was conspicuous. Herbaceous ground vegetation was almost lacking and low woody vegetation was also scarce, in contrast to the parts of the woodland that were adjacent but separated by fences that excluded livestock. The contrast was perhaps heightened along the fences because the animals tended to follow along the fence lines and their effects were concentrated there. Table 4.--Numbers of Young Trees of Various Kinds and Sizes in 1954 on a .919-acre Area Consisting of Six Hillside Strips Each 20 Feet Wide. Each Strip Was Equally Divided by a Fence Line, Excluding Livestock from One Side During the Period 1934 (Approximately) to 1948.