Chapter VII. 
MISCELLANEOUS RELATIONS. 
RAPID THAWS. 
The following extracts from a report for 1889 of the department of 
the interior of the Canadian government shows the influence of the 
change from warm to cold weather not only on forest trees but on 
other plants: 
Considerable attention has been paid to this subject during the past 
year, and there has been urged on the department of agriculture the 
desirability of the establishment at some point in the southwestern 
portion of the Northwest Territories of a farm or garden for con- 
ducting experiments on this line. Failure in tree culture so far as 
tried seems to be owing not to the severity of the winters, nor to the 
droughts of the summers, but to the winds. Those in the winter 
known as “ chinooks,’ which cause the sap to rise and the buds to 
swell, being followed by a lowering of the temperature (in some cases 
very rapid), prove destructive; and during the summer there are 
often high, dry, hot winds which blow continuously for several hours 
and which seem to dry up the young trees. By planting in close 
clumps the native trees which will grow (cottonwoods and others), 
and among them those ornamental “trees which are so much to be 
desired, these difficulties will probably be overcome, and in time it will 
be found what ones are best suited to the district. 
The great difficulty which at present impedes the cultivation of 
large plantations of forest trees in Manitoba and the northwest is 
climatic. In early spring, delightfully soft, balmy days, something 
like the maple-sugar weather in Ontario and Quebec, awaken the 
young trees to life and cause the sap to run; but then suddenly a 
terrific blizzard from the north and northwest comes down and 
freezes up the sap and destroys the trees. Professor Saunders is 
now engaged in experiments with a view to overcoming this climatic 
obstacle. I have thought that by planting the young trees very 
closely together, or by sheltering them during their earlier seasons, 
as is done in the case of the seedlings at the model farm at Ottawa, 
this trouble might be gradually lessened; or, willows or cottonwood 
might be planted with the young trees as a shelter-belt protection for 
them against these early spring frosts and sudden and extreme 
changes of temperature. As yet, of course, we have no practical 
experience in the northwest on the subject, and can only base any 
action we may take upon knowledge obtained from what has been 
(128) 
