Vegetation of Northern Cape Breton. 



345 



or have been ravaged by repeated fires, white spruce, with local 

 exceptions, is everywhere the most abundant tree of second 

 growth forests. The explanation of this fact is obvious. The 

 white spruce is essentially a pioneer. It seeds prolifically and 

 rapidly colonizes open grounds of almost any description 

 (Fig. 39). The effect of cultivation and fire in destroying the 

 seedlings of balsam fir and other trees, which otherwise might 

 have dominated, enables the spruce, with its capacity for rapid 

 reproduction in the open, to establish itself and to make head- 



FiGURE 40. — Blueberry barren near Frizzleton. 



way which otherwise would be impossible. The common practice 

 of burning over woodlots in order to keep them open for 

 pasturage or for some other reason, naturally favors the spruce. 

 In brief, the combined effect of cultivation and fire is to arrest 

 the succession, so that it rarely progresses beyond the pioneer 

 forest stage. 



Blueberry barrens. — Among the most unique features of the 

 interior plateau of northern Cape Breton are the Barrens. 

 These natural barrens, which will be described later, should not 

 be confused with the barrens of the lowlands (Fig. 40), which 

 are the result of repeated fires, usually set intentionally every 

 few years in the interest of the blueberry crop. Extensive blue- 



