FOREST TREES. 279 



quired in the woods. Of the sixty or seventy varieties of 

 trees in the Canadian forest, there is not one without its 

 use ; it may be said of them in the words of the Psalmist, 

 " In wisdom hast Thou made them all." 



The cedar, or arbor vita3 ( Thuja occidentalism) is the most 

 remarkable wood in the Canadian forest, the most useful 

 one to the settler, and, next to the white birch, the most 

 valuable to the Indian and the backwoodsman. It grows 

 generally in wet places and on the banks of lakes and 

 rivers, and is by no means a sign of bad land. There 

 are hundreds of square miles of cedar forests in Lower 

 Canada and New Brunswick, but, strange to say, it does 

 not grow in Nova Scotia. This is the lightest and the 

 most durable of Canadian woods. A bridge made of it 

 lasts for fifty years without repairs, and a fence for seventy 

 or eighty. Cedar, exposed to the air and clear of the 

 ground, as fence rails, actually wears out before it rots. 

 It is largely used for making shingles ; also for telegraph- 

 posts, gate-posts, sills of houses, &c., &c. I think if its 

 wonderful durability were better known in England it 

 would be largely imported. A good woodman can split a 

 cedar log into boards of a uniform size, using no tool but 

 his axe. It is very useful in the backwoods for roofing 

 sheds, barns, and camps. The bark peels off in long 

 strips, and when green is as tough as leather, and makes 

 excellent ropes. The cedar is a very pretty tree, and 

 grows to a large size. I have seen it in the Bay of 

 Chaleur from 3 to 4 feet in diameter at the butt. The 

 ecent of the timber is delicious. 



