154 



FOREST TREES. 



lumber, find their way. It would be a curious history could we follow 

 one of our grand old forest Pines, — from its first development in the 

 backwoods — a tiny slender thing, of a few thready-spiny leaves— to its 

 towering height and pillar-like grandeur, lifting its dark plumy head 

 above its compeers, drinking in the light and rains of heaven, — to the 

 time when it measures its giant length upon the ground, brought low by 

 the axe of the sturdy chopper. It would be vain to follow out the 

 destiny even of one such mighty Pine, or to weave a romantic history of 

 its voyagings, its wanderings, and its uses. So, leaving the imaginary, 

 we will take up again the sober thread of our subject. 



Extensive as is the reign of the Pine tribe in this country of woods 

 and forests, forming a large proportion of the native trees, it has 

 probably at some distant period occupied a still further range than 

 it does now. In the hardwood lands — where the largest Pine trees are 

 now found growing, singly or in isolated groups, from three or four to 

 perhaps a small group — the resinous substance commonly known as 

 fat pitie is found in larger quantities and in finer quality than that on 

 the pine ridges where the trees are more abundant. This fat pine is 

 the residue of concentrated resinous knots, and roots, where the mighty 

 trunks of which they formed a part have long since crumbled into dust ; 

 now Oaks, and Beeches, and Maples, in every stage of growth, from the 

 hoary tree in extreme old age to the tiny seedling, occupy the soil 

 where once those giant Pines grew and flourished. The decay of the 

 Pine is a slow process — more than a century, perhaps two or three, 

 must have passed over before one of the massive trunks, to which those 

 knots and roots belonged, would have become so completely decomposed 

 as to leave no trace behind, excepting these almost imperishable 

 portions. Some of the pieces of fat pine are so saturated with the oils 

 and resinous secretions as to assume somewhat the colour and fragrance 

 of fat amber, an article that is often found in small nodules and water- 

 washed fragments on the beach of the eastern shores of England. 



The forced marches of civilization have wrought such wondrous 

 and rapid changes in what used to be the backwoods of Canada forty 

 years ago, that now it seems almost a thing of the past, to write about 

 or to speak of such matters. The writer recalls to mind the old time 

 when in early Spring the waters of the still lake, with its dark Pine-clad 

 shores used to be enlivened with the canoes and skiffs of the fisher, 

 stealing out from the little bays and coves, with the red glare of the fat- 

 pine all ablaze, casting its stream of light upon the dark surface of the 

 waters, from the open-grated iron basket or jack, as it was called, raised 

 at one end of the little vessel on a tall pole. In those days the lakes 

 and inland waters swarmed with fish, which formed one of the resources 



