1905] Botanical Branch. 205 



prolific district, and soon the blue-gray clay mass and tints began 

 to disappear and assume a green appearance. Denudation and 

 reforestration had a struggle. The former had won outright at 

 the outset, but now it was the birth of a new forest, and it was 

 also the turn of plant-life to flourish and spread its beneficent 

 mantle over the land. 



"To-day there may be seen in the same district a dense 

 young forest of soft and hard-wood trees, with the usual asso- 

 ciates of the forest in the form of shrubs, flowers and grasses^ 

 sedges, mosses, etc. The humblest of these are, perhaps, the 

 greatest protectors to our forests. They keep back the rush of 

 the waters in periods of flood and rainstorm. In the Ironsides 

 district to-day we have a young pine forest which is apparently 

 growing to the best advantage for the production of fine pine 

 timber in the not distant future. 



" What are the conditions prevailing ? Along with the young 

 pines there may be seen growing in luxuriant form, poplar trees 

 {P. grandidentata, P. tre7nuloides and P. balsamiferd), also birches 

 and maple trees, amongst which we have Acer rubriim, whose 

 gorgeous tints of autumn time aff'ord such glorious pictures to 

 the view of the city folk from Parliament Hill. As is well known, 

 poplars grow much faster than pine trees. A visit to the locality 

 will show you a young pine-tree practically surrounded by other 

 trees, chiefly poplar. The poplars are taller than the pines, and 

 are likely to maintain their supremacy for some years to come. 

 As long as the poplar-trees keep growing taller, and in the grow- 

 ing period of the year over-top the pines, we find that the lower 

 branches of the pine-trees will be stifled or become more or less 

 abortive, owing to the density of the foliage surrounding the 

 trunk of the pine-tree. By the time that the poplar-tree reaches 

 its maximum height, the branches of the pine-tree will be mere 

 twigs This will give the pine-tree a trunk free from knots, and 

 form merchantable timber of the greatest value. The instant the 

 poplar-tree stops growing taller, the pine-tree in turn shoots up- 

 ward and out from the mass of foliage below, and soon towers 

 above the poplars till it reaches its maximum height^three or four 

 times that of the poplar. Then the life of the poplar begins to 

 decline, the trunk decays, its branches break and fall, whilst 

 insect-life comes in to accelerate its doom. The pine-tree, in the 

 course of a few years, begins to spread an umbrella-like shade 

 over the dying poplar, to hasten the final crisis, which the winds 

 of summer or storm soon bring about. Then the monarch of the 

 Eastern Canadian forest is king, and rules. 



" I imagine that there are few places on this continent where 

 a study of pine-life can be carried on to greater advantage than 

 in our immediate vicinity at Ironsides, Que. I had an opportunity 



