I may have confused the cans-of-wood-ash experiment with the patch of burned-off forest.
>> I often hear that the Native Americans often used their version of controlled burns to make the forest more healthy and to lessen the danger of an uncontrolled wildfire in this area,
I've read that native Australians would deliberately start fires to change the wild population towards more edible species. Someone speculated that that was one step in the direction towards agriculture (but that Australia had few plants that were well-suited to breeding for agriculture. Large-headed cereal grains were thought to be the easiest candidates for cultivation.
