Reproduction of Forests in British North America. 267 



cultivation, is now thickly covered with poplars thirty feet 

 in height. In Prince Edward Island, fine hardwood forests 

 have been succeeded by fir and spruce. The pine woods of 

 Miramichi, destroyed by the great fire above referred to, have 

 been followed by a second growth, principally composed of 

 white birch, poplar, and wild cherry. When I visited this 

 place, a few years since, the second growth had attained to 

 nearly half the height of the dead trunks of the ancient pines, 

 which were still standing in great numbers. 



As already stated, the second growth almost always in- 

 cludes many trees similar to those which preceded it, and 

 when the smaller trees have attained their full height, these, 

 and other trees capable of attaining a greater magnitude, 

 overtop them, and finally cause their death. The forest has 

 then attained its last stage, that of perfect renovation. The 

 cause of the last part of the process evidently is, that in an 

 old forest, trees of the largest size and longest life have a 

 tendency to prevail, to the exclusion of others. For reasons 

 which will be afterwards stated, this last stage is rarely at- 

 tained by the burned forests, in countries beginning to be 

 occupied by civilized man. 



In accounting for the presence of the seeds necessary for 

 the production of the second growth, we may refer to the 

 same causes which supply the seeds of the smaller plants 

 appearing immediately after the fire. The seeds of many 

 forest trees, especially the poplar, the birch, and the firs, and 

 spruces, are furnished with ample means for their convey- 

 ance through the air. The cottony pappus of the poplar 

 seems especially to adapt it for this purpose. The seeds of 

 the wild cherry, another species of frequent occurrence in 

 woods of the second growth, is dispersed by birds, which are 

 fond of the fruit ; the same remark applies to some other 

 fruit-bearing species of less frequent occurrence. When the 

 seeds that are dispersed in these ways fall in the growing 

 woods, they cannot vegetate, but when they are deposited 

 on the comparatively bare surface of a barren, tliey readily 

 grow ; and if the soil be suited to them, the young plants 

 increase in size with great rapidity. 



It is possible however, that the seeds of the trees of the 



