In the 1950s, Michigan foresters began experimenting to find the ideal amount of space a tree needs to grow. By removing certain trees through thinning, the remaining trees have more room to grow and less competition for nutrients, making thinning one technique professional foresters use to manage a forest and produce larger, healthier trees. The stand of red pines ahead was planted in the 1960s and never thinned, so although the trees are tall and provide valuable habitat and oxygen, they remain very skinny and small in diameter because of the limited space available for growth. These red pine trees grew from seed as part of operations at the Higgins Lake Nursery, which closed in 1965 before the seedlings could be transplanted.