of flu' I^n'ittd Xt<if<* "/<'/ 



. . . nothing answering to gaeftfra, nor to benzoin tree, nor to hk&oty; 



neither mulberry i:or elm ; no l>eedi, true chestnut, hornbeam, nor ironwoi d, 

 Horn ju-npcr birch tree; and the, enumeration iiiiyht be continued very much 

 further by naming herbaceous plants and others familiar to botanists." 



323. The enormous sizes to which some of the conifers of this 

 retina grow, luis been the wonder of all traveler-; hut these im- 

 mense growths do not cover large areas, and nowhere can such 

 strong contrasts between abundance and >carcity be elsewlu'iv seen. 

 The heavy forests do not extend much beyond the _ r iou, the 

 borders of rivers or the mountain sides and vallevs, and tluse usually 

 present remarkable peculiarities in the prevailing growth. 



324. The consumption and waste that liave been going on since 

 settlement began, have already made serious inroads upon these ap- 

 parently " inexhaustible" supplies, and probably already more than 

 half, in all the accessible portions, is now gone. There is a mo>t 

 urgent need of conservative measures, and the time is not distant 

 when the inhabitants of that region, and those depending upon 

 these supplies, will be admonished by enhanced prices of the im- 

 portance of economy and the value of a growing tree. 



.'iL'."). In Cumuli!, there are found sixty-live 1 native species of trees, 

 in Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritime Province-;: of which alxnit 

 a do/en range as far north as James Bay. The birches, poplars, 

 and tamarac are found in the more northerly region, and south of 

 these the pines and the beech, the latter chiefly south of a line 

 drawn from the outlet of Lake Superior to Quebec. West of Ni- 

 agara river is a /.one where the walnut, butternut, tulip-tree, >as>a- 

 fras, and chestnut occur, with an increasing abundance of oaks. 

 The absence of trees and of mosses is a notable feature of the prairies 

 of Manitoba and westward. 1 The principal pine forests of Canada 

 have receded to the upper waters of the great rivers flowing into 

 the St. Lawrence and the lakes, and from the investigations that 

 have been undertaken by the government in recent years, it appears 

 evident that the time of principal exhaustion is not many yeaiv 

 distant. 



< ' rrat Britain. 



326. Of the native trees of Great Britain, there are only about a 

 do/en genera and thirty species, that grow to thirty feet or more 



1 Drummond's Canadian Timber Trees, p. 5. 



