FOREST FIRES. 351 



injury to the younger growths, the native forest will bear several 

 "cuttings over" in a generation — for the increasing value of 

 lumber brings into use, every four or five years, a quality of tim- 

 ber which had been before ^ejected as unmarketable — a fire may 

 render the declivity of a mountain unproductive for a century.* 



partly from the greater or less depth at which their roots habitually lie below 

 the surface, difierently affected by running fires. The white pine, Pinus stro- 

 bus, as it is the most valuable, is also perhaps the most deUcate tree of the 

 American forest, while its congener, the Northern pitch-pine, Pinus rigida, is 

 less injured by fire than any other tree of our country. I have heard expe- 

 rienced lumbermen maintain that the growth of this pine was even acceler- 

 ated by a fire brisk enough to destroy all other trees, and I have myself seen 

 it still flourishing after a conflagration which had left not a green leaf but its 

 own in the wood, and actually throwing out fresh foliage, when the old had 

 been quite burnt off and the bark almost converted into charcoal. The wood 

 of the pitch-pine is of comparatively little value for the joiner, but it is useful 

 for very many purposes. Its rapidity of growth in even poor soils, its hardi- 

 hood, and its abimdant yield of resinous products, entitle it to much more 

 consideration, as a plantation tree, than it has hitherto received in Europe or 

 America, though Prof. Sargent, of Cambridge, informs me that it is now very 

 extensively used for that purpose in the United States. I quote from him : 

 " There are in Barnstable County, Mass., especially about South Orleans, 

 plantations of this tree, hundreds of acres in extent, raised directly from the 

 seed. The seed of this species is not only more easily procured than that of 

 the White Pine, but it germinates much more easily and surely, and is there- 

 fore preferred by the farmers to its more valuable congener. Unfortunately, 

 however, several himdred acres of these artificially reared forests have lately 

 been destroyed by fire." 



* Between sixty and seventy years ago, a steep mountain with which I am 

 familiar, composed of metamorphic rock, and at that time covered with a 

 thick coating of soil and a dense primeval forest, was accidentally burnt over. 

 The fire took place in a very dry season, the slope of the mountain was too 

 rapid to retain much water, and the conflagration was of an extraordinarily 

 fierce character, consuming the wood almost entirely, burning the leaves and 

 combustible portion of the mould, and in many places cracking and disinte- 

 grating the rock beneath. The rains of the following autumn carried off much 

 of the remaining soil, and the mountain-side was nearly bare of wood for two 

 or three years afterwards. At length a new crop of trees sprang up and 

 grew vigorously, and the mountain is now thickly covered again. But the 

 depth of mould and earth is too small to allow the trees to reach maturity. 

 When they attain to the diameter of about six inches, they uniformly die, and 

 this they will no doubt continue to do until the decay of leaves and wood on 

 the surface, and the decomposition of the subjacent rock, shall have formed, 

 perhaps hundreds of years hence, a stratum of soil thick enough to support a 

 full-grown forest. Under favorable conditions, however, as in the case of the 

 fire of Miramichi, a burnt forest renews itself rapidly and permanently. 



