208 



DESTRUCTION AND REPRODUCTION OF FORESTS. 



either purposel}' applied for iheir destruc- 

 tion or accidental. Forest fires have not 

 been confined to the period of European 

 occupation. The traditions of the Indians 

 tell of extensive ancient conflagrations ; 

 and it is believed that some of the aborigi- 

 nal names of places in Nova Scotia origi- 

 nated in these events. In later times, how- 

 ever, fires have been more numerous and 

 destructive. In clearing land, the trees 

 when cut down are always burned, and, 

 that this may be efl^ected as completely as 

 possible, the driest weather is frequently 

 selected ; although the fire then is much 

 more likely to spread into the surrounding 

 woods. It frequently happens that the 

 woods contain large quantities of dry bran- 

 ches and tops of trees, left by cutters of 

 timber and firewood, who rarely consider 

 any part of the tree except the trunk worthy 

 of their attention. Even without this pre- 

 paration, however, the woods may, in dry 

 weather, be easily inflamed ; for although 

 the trunks and foliage of growing trees are 

 not very combustible, the mossy vegetable 

 soil, much resembling peat, burns easily 

 and rapidly. Upon this mossy soil depends, 

 in a great measure, the propagation of fires, 

 the only exception being when the burning 

 of groves of the resinous coniferous trees 

 is assisted by winds, causing the flame to 

 stream through their tops more rapidly than 

 it can pass along the ground. In such 

 cases some of the grandest appearances 

 ever shown by forest fires, occur. The 

 fire, spreading for a time along the ground, 

 suddenly rushes up the tall resinous trees 

 with a loud crashing report, and streams 

 far beyond their summits, in columns and 

 streamers of lurid flame. It frequently 

 happens, however, that in wet or swampy 

 ground, where the fire cannot spread around 

 their roots, even the resinous trees refuse to 

 burn; and thus swampy tracts are compara- 

 tively secure from fire. In addition to the 

 causes of the progress of fires above refer- 

 red to, it is probable that at a certain state 

 of the growth of the forests, when the 

 trees have attained to great ages, and are 

 beginning to decay, they are more readily 

 destroyed by accidental conflagrations. In 

 this condition the trees are often much moss 

 grown, and have much dead and dry wood; 

 and it is possible that we should regard 



fires arising from natural or accidental 

 causes, as the ordinary and natural agents 

 for the removal of such worn-out forests. 



Where circumstances are favorable to 

 their progress, forest fires may extend over 

 great areas. The great fire which occurred 

 in 1825, in the neighborhood of the Mira- 

 michi river, in New-Brunswick, devastated 

 a region one hundred miles in length and 

 fifty miles in breadth. One hundred and 

 sixty persons, and more than eight hundred 

 cattle, besides innumerable wild animals, 

 are said to have perished in this conflagra- 

 tion. In this case, a remarkably dry sum- 

 mer, a light soil easily affected by drought, 

 and a forest composed of full-grown pine 

 trees, concurred with other causes in 

 producing a conflagration of unusual ex- 

 tent. 



When the fire has passed through a por- 

 tion of forest, if this consist principally of 

 hardwood trees, they are usually merely 

 scorched — to such a degree, however, as in 

 most cases to cause their death ; some trees, 

 such as birches, probably from the more in- 

 flammable nature of their outer bark, being 

 more easily killed than others. Where the 

 woods consist of softwood or coniferous 

 trees, the fire often leaves nothing but bare 

 trunks and branches, or at most a little fo- 

 liage, scorched to a rusty brown colour. In 

 either case, a vast quantity of wood remains 

 unconsumed, and soon becomes sufficiently 

 dry to furnish food for a new conflagration ; 

 so that the same portion of forest is liable 

 to be repeatedly burned, until it becomes a 

 bare and desolate " barren," with only a few 

 charred and wasted trunks towering above 

 the blackened surface. This has been the 

 fate of large districts in Nova Scotia and 

 the neighboring colonies ; and as these 

 burned tracts could not be immediately oc- 

 cupied for agricultural purposes, and are 

 diminished in value by the loss of their 

 timber, they have been left to the unaided 

 efforts of nature to restore their original 

 verdure. Before proceeding to consider 

 more particularly the mode in which this 

 restoration is effected, and the appearances 

 by which it is accompanied, I may quote 

 from an article in a colonial periodical, the 

 views of Mr. Titus Smith, Secretary of the 

 Board of Agriculture of Nova Scotia, on 

 this subject. These views, as the results 



