Copies to: Mr. Darling 
               Dr. Fassett 
               Mr. Patterson 
               Prof. Moore 
               Mr. Noble Clark 
                                                   New Soils Building 
                                                   April 3, 1934 
 
 
 
 
General Ralph M. Immel 
ConserVation Department 
Madison, Wisconsin 
 
Dear General Immel: 
 
          Matt Patterson has been to see me in his round of getting 
"scientific opinion about the marsh-burning question. 
 
          I have had to tell him, and I now want to tell you, that there

are many important questions about marsh vegetation on which little opinion

and no facts are available. To get answers to these questions is vitally

important to the ultimate success of the marshland project and the proposed

administration of marshland areas. 
 
          A marsh, like a forest, tends to progress through a series of 
successions toward a "climax type." Some stages in the succession
produce 
much wild life, others little. Fire and grazing tend to throw the succession

backward; complete protection throws it forward toward climax. The backward

thrusts are often rapid, the forward ones slow. Management, to be intelli-

gent, mast know, f    each k   of marsh soil and for each     e of th.e Eu-

cession on it, whether the next stages forward and back are better or worse

than the present. 
 
          We do not know these stages, but in my opinion they are, for peat

marshes in southern Wisconsin, as follows: 
 
             1. Bare marsh 
             2. Pure nettles (worthless in every way) 
             . Coarse grasses (cover but no food) 
                Grass and dogwood with weeds and herbs (good food and cover)

              5. Dogwood, tamarack, and grass (cover but little food) 
              6. Tamarack (cover but no food) 
 
           If this is correct, a marsh in No. 4 stage would be ruined by
burn- 
ing or grazing it back to No. 3, but a marsh in No. 5 stage would be benefited

(for game) by burning or grazing it back to No. 4. However, if the burn were

severe enough to throw it back to 3 or 2 instead of 4!, it would be rained
for 
perhaps a decade. 
 
           We have very large areas in No. 2 and 3, and very few in No. 5
or 6 
 stages. That is, our capital account is "overdrawn." 
 
           This whole example is oversimplified, since it assumes grazing
to 
act the same as fire (which it does not) and it ignores water levels and
hay 
cutting. A raised water level, for example, makes cattails instead of nettles

in No. 2, and possibly rice instead of shrubs and trees in the latter stages.