Glimpse of a Saskatchezvan Forest. 173 



of practically pure jack pine, the soil was examined. Below an 

 inch or two of humus lying on the very level forest floor .there 

 was pure, fine, white sand, evidently of lacustrine origin. At a 

 greater depth the sand, of the same fineness and evenness of grain 

 was red, similar to that seen by the writer in the longleaf pine belt 

 of the Texan coastal plain. This suggests the close and wide- 

 spread relation between sands and certain pines, and in a broader 

 sense, between the geologic origin of soils and forest distribution. 

 Whether or not either the fires or the climatic conditions or both 

 together, are wholly, or even chiefly, responsible for the distri- 

 bution and composition of the forest, or ultimately for the 

 presence of forest or prairie on the plains of the Canadian North- 

 west, is a fundamental problem of great interest and importance. 



The general, estimated height of mature stands is 60 to 90 feet, 

 the trees having a usual diameter of 12 to 14 inches. The jack 

 pine grows unexpectedly tall, straight, and clean, with its fairly 

 great density producing a large quantity of timber- When aspen 

 was mixed with it, the latter grew equally tall and straight, while 

 birch in mixture reached only about two-thirds their height. 

 White spruce is fully as tall as the pine, and black spruce is 

 slightly shorter. The jack pine is a binodal (or trinodal) pine, 

 hence a little difficult to estimate as to age, but the maximum 

 height growth of dominant individuals was estimated at from 14 

 to 16 to 18 inches per year. A few felled trees of the size of tie 

 timber were uniformly but 58 years old on the stump, or about 

 63 years from the seed. Considering the brevity of the growing 

 season, this is rapid growth. 



The jack pine is exceedingly fructiferous. Two branches on a 

 certain tree bore 17 distinct and consecutive whorls of cones each, 

 while others were seen to bear cones throughout their entire 

 length, showing an even greater number of whorls of several 

 cones each. As nearly every branch is usually loaded, some idea 

 may be gained of the total number of cones and seeds borne by a 

 single tree. It begins to bear cones at an early age (5 years), 

 and unlike many other pines, keeps on doing so every year. The 

 cones are sessile, highly persistent and serotinous, a few remain- 

 ing closed even after the fire-killed branches have fallen to the 

 ground. Some branches were seen, evidently from near the top 

 of trees, with the apices of the tightly closed cones turned upward 

 and inward, clinging to the branch as it were, with great tenacity. 



