264 Mr J. W. Dawson on the Destruction and 



after ; but in a few years, the raspberries and most of the 

 herbage disappear, and are followed by a growth of firs, 

 white and yellow birch, and poplar. When a succession of 

 fires has occurred, small shrubs occupy the barren, the kal- 

 mia or sheep-poison being the most abundant ; and, in the 

 course of ten or twelve years form so much turf, that a 

 thicket of small alder begins to grow, under the shelter of 

 which fir, spruce, hacmetac (larch), and white birch spring 

 up. When the ground is thoroughly shaded by a thicket 20 

 feet high, the species which originally occupied the ground 

 begins to prevail, and suffocate the wood which sheltered it ; 

 and within sixty years, the land will generally be covered 

 with a young growth of the same kind that it produced of 

 old.'* Assuming the above statements to be a correct sum- 

 mary of the principal modes in which forests are reproduced, 

 we may proceed to consider them more in detail. 



1^^, Where the wood is merely cut down and not burned, 

 the same description of wood is immediately reproduced, and 

 this may be easily accounted for. The soil contains abund- 

 ance of the seeds of these trees, there are even numerous 

 young plants ready to take the place of those which have been 

 destroyed ; and if the trees have been cut in winter, their 

 stumps produce young shoots. Even in cases of this kind, 

 however, a number of shrubs and herbaceous plants, not for- 

 merly growing in the place, spring up ; the cause of this may 

 be more properly noticed when describing cases of another 

 kind. This simplest mode of the destruction of the forest, 

 may assume another aspect. If the original wood have been 

 of kinds requiring a fertile soil, such as maple or beech, and 

 if this wood be removed, for example, for firewood, it may 

 happen that the quantity of inorganic matter thus removed 

 from the soil may incapacitate it, at least for a long time, 

 from producing the same description of timber. In this case, 

 some species requiring a less fertile soil may occupy the 

 ground. For this reason, forests of beech growing on light 

 soils, when removed for firewood, are sometimes succeeded 

 by spruce and fir. I have observed instances of this kind, 

 both in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. 



^dly^ When the trees are burned, without the destruction 



