18 



upon poor gravelly soil, in cold mossy swamps, and very barren places 

 all over the province. It is very easily raised from seed or seedlings, 

 grows rapidly, but rarely exceeds eighteen inches diameter. 



Hackmatack, on account of its very valuable qualities, deserves to be 

 extensively cultivated ; there are thousands of acres in every county in 

 the province of worthless barren and swampy land that might be covered 

 with these trees or with the European larch, which is nearly the same in 

 respect to excellence of its qualities but superior in rapidity of growth. 



WHITE PINE. This tree is so valuable that it is difficult to conceive 

 how its place could be supplied were our white pine forests to become 

 exhausted. With ordinary care to prevent destructive fires, this can 

 ,hardly ever happen as it grows upon every kind of poor soil, and if the 

 young trees are protected a supply is certain, as the tree is a rapid grower. 

 Intelligent lumberers consider that a white pine forest renews itself every 

 twenty years. It is the tallest of any tree that grows in our forests ; it 

 rises in a single straight column from sixty to seventy feet high, and 

 from twenty to thirty inches diameter, five feet from the ground this we 

 consider a large pine. In the neighboring States and further west in 

 Canada, its height is much greater, being sometimes 200 feet to the 

 branches and five to six feet diameter. Very large pines in Nova Scotia 

 are generally shakey, full of small cracks, probably owing to the high 

 winds which bend the trees backwards and forwards ; the position occu- 

 pied by these trees, generally along the sides of lakes, ^exposes them to 

 the action of wind. 



YELLOW PINE, called HARD, PITCH, or NORWAY PINE. This I am in- 

 formed is not the true pitch pine, but the description is very like it. It 

 is a rapid growing tree, has a tall trunk, the bark is in broad scales of a 

 reddish colour, free from lichens. It is found growing on the poor sterile 

 lands of every county in the province, and is highly esteemed for various 

 purposes, particularly as deck plank, and for masts and pumps, and 

 indeed is considered not much inferior to proper Pitch Pina Formerly 

 there were large trees of this species, but now it would be difficult to 

 find a tree exceeding 18 inches diameter at 5 feet from the ground, and 

 40 feet of clear stem. 



On the sandy plains of Aylesford and Wilmot there are beautiful 

 groves of this tree. The leaves are in twos, five or six inches long, form- 

 ing large conspicuous tufts or brushes at the end of the branchlets. The 

 young are very handsome in form ; the showy tufts of massive dark 

 green foliage contrasted with the lighter green of deciduous trees is 

 particularly beautiful. 



HEMLOCK. Of this tree we have two kinds, the red and white; the 

 white makes the best quality of boards and is comparatively free from 

 sh iki-s and cracks, but the red is very shakey. It has somewhat the 

 figure of the white pine ; the trunk diminishes very little until it reaches 

 the branches, usually from forty to forty-five feet from the ground. The 

 wood is used for the frames of wooden houses, for planks and boards, for 

 boarding in and rough flooring; it is also used for split laths and many 



