DAWSON — RESTORATION OF FORESTS. 409 



municate their own colour to the whole surface, when viewed 

 from a distance. This plant appears to prefer the less fertile 

 soils, and the name of fire-weed has been given to it in conse- 

 quence of its occupying these when their wood has been destroyed 

 by fire. Various species of Senecio, Solidago and Aster, and 

 Equiseta, Ferns and Mosses, are also among the first occupants 

 of burned ground ; and their presence may be explained in the 

 same way with that of the Epilobium, their seeds and spores 

 being easily scattered over the surface of the barren by wind. A 

 third group of species, found abundantly on burned ground, 

 consists of plants bearing edible fruits. The seeds of these are 

 scattered over the barren by birds which feed on the fruits, and, 

 finding a rich and congenial soil, soon bear abundautly and attract 

 more birds, bringing with them the seeds of other species. In 

 this way, it sometimes happens that a patch of burned ground, 

 only a few acres in extent, may, in a few years, contain specimens 

 of nearly all the fruit-bearing shrubs and herbs indigenous in the 

 country. Among the most common plants which overspread the 

 burned ground in this manner, are the raspberry, which, in good 

 soils, is one of the first to make its appearance ; the species of 

 Vacciniese or whortleberries, and blueberries ; the tea-berry or 

 wintergreen {Gaultluria procumbens) ; the pigeon-berry (Conias 

 canadensis) ; and the wild strawberry. It is not denied that 

 some plants may be found in recently burned districts whose 

 presence may not be explicable in the above modes; but 

 no person acquainted with the facts can deny that nearly all 

 the plants which appear in any considerable quantity within a 

 few years after the occurrence of a fire, may readily be included 

 in the groups which have been mentioned. By the simple means 

 which have been described, a clothing of vegetation is speedily 

 furnished to the burned district ; the unsightliness of its appear- 

 ance is thus removed, abundant supplies of food are furnished to 

 a great variety of animals, and the fertility of the soil is 

 preserved, until a new forest has time to overspread it. 



With the smaller plants which first cover a burned district, 

 great numbers of seedling trees spring up, and these, though for 

 a few years not very conspicuous, eventually overtop and, if 

 numerous, suffocate the humbler vegetation. Many of these 

 young trees are of the species which composed the original wood, 

 but the majority are usually different from the former occupants 

 of the soil. The original forest may have consisted of white or 



