DESTRUCTION AND REPRODUCTION OF FORESTS. 



207 



THE DESTRUCTION AND REPRODUCTION OF AMERICAN FORESTS. 



BY J. W. DAWSOX, PICTOU, NOVA SlOTIA* 



The changes produced by the agency of 

 civilized man, in the condition of the earth's 

 surface, and the numbers and distribution 

 of its living inhabitants, though not of great 

 importance when compared with those which 

 result from the unceasing operation of na- 

 tural causes, are interesting to the natural- 

 ist, as they illustrate the vicissitudes which 

 many parts of the earth's surface have ex- 

 perienced in ancient times, the extent to 

 which plants and animals can accommodate 

 themselves to changes of circumstances, 

 and the natural compensations which have 

 been provided for the destruction or dimi- 

 nution of particular species. Inquiry into 

 such changes is also of importance as a 

 means of dispelling the mystery which fre- 

 quently envelopes the succession of orga- 

 nized beings in circumstances of physical 

 change ; a mystery which has induced some 

 naturalists to recur to the doctrine of spon- 

 taneous generation and the transmutation 

 of species, for explanations of phenomena 

 which if properly examined, would have 

 been found to result from some of the most 

 ordinary causes of the maintenance and 

 distribution of animal and vegetable life. 



In North America, and especial!}' in those 

 parts of it forming the United States and 

 British Provinces, such changes have oc- 

 curred with great rapidity, converting, in a 

 few years, uninhabited forests into coun- 

 tries having the aspect of regions long in- 

 habited by civilized men. The forests have 

 been destroyed, their living inhabitants ex- 

 tirpated, or obliged to adopt new modes of 

 life, new animals and plants introduced and 

 naturalized ; and indeed, a revolution effect- 

 ed in all the departments of organized na- 

 ture, in the lapse of a single generation. 

 To notice a few of these changes, with re- 

 ference more especially to the destruction 

 and partial reproduction of forests, is my 

 present object. The facts which I propose 

 to state have been collected principally in 

 the province of Nova Scotia. 



In their natural state, Nova Scotia and 



* From the Edinburgh New Philosopliical Journal. 



the neighboring provinces were covered 

 with dense woods, extending from the 

 shores to the summits of the hills. These 

 woods did not form detached groves, but 

 constituted a nearly continuous sheet of fo- 

 liage, the individual trees composing which 

 were so closely placed as to prevent them 

 from assuming full and rounded forms, and 

 to oblige them to assume tall and slender 

 shapes, that each might obtain air and 

 light. The only exceptions to this are cer- 

 tain rich and usually light soils, where the 

 forest is sometimes more open, and hills 

 too rock}' to support a covering of trees. 

 When viewed from the summit of a hill, 

 the forest presents a continuous undulatino- 

 surface of a more or less dark colour and 

 uneven form, in proportion to the prevalence 

 of the deep colours and uneven outlines of 

 the evergreen coniferas, or of the lighter 

 tints and rounded contours of the deciduous 

 trees ; and these two classes are usually ar- 

 ranged in belts or irregular patches, contain- 

 ing mixtures of trees corresponding to the 

 fertility and dryness of the soil. In o-eneral 

 the deciduous or hardwood trees prevail on 

 intervale ground, fertile uplands, and the 

 flanks and summits of slaty and trappean 

 hills ; while swamps, the less fertile and 

 lightest upland soils, and granitic hills, are 

 chiefly occupied by coniferous trees. 



The forest trees spring from a bed of 

 black vegetable mould, whose surface is 

 rendered uneven by the little hillocks of 

 earth and stones thrown up by windfalls ; 

 and which, though usually named Cra- 

 dle hills, are in reality the graves of de- 

 parted members of the forest, whose 

 trunks have mouldered into the mossy soil. 

 These cradle hills are most numerous in 

 thin soils ; and are chiefly produced by the 

 coniferous trees, and especially by the hem- 

 lock spruce. There is usually little under- 

 wood in the original forest ; mosses, lyco- 

 podia, ferns, and a few herbaceous flower- 

 ing plants, however, flourish beneath the 

 shade of the woods. 



The woods perish by the axe and by fire, 



