124 MAKING A "DEADENING." 



the last terrible eventuality, the stranger " concluded 

 to settle " or not, deponent sayeth not. It is not easy 

 however to conceive a scene of more utter desolation 

 than some of these spots recently set down in the 

 midst of the primeval forest, at first necessarily display. 

 To use a cant phrase of the acute Yankee trader 

 " The forest is rapidly disappearing before the industry 

 of man " and on every side a wilderness of burnt 

 stumps accordingly appears, studding the ground 

 throughout the clearing, which is enclosed by the 

 black walls of the pine forest rising all round it to a 

 vast height. 



On this head we feel bound to add a few words of 

 explanation, for a clearance of the forest is unfortunately 

 the first step which settlement renders imperative: 

 experience having again and again proved that it is 

 exceedingly dangerous to leave old trees standing 

 anywhere in the immediate neighbourhood of settlers' 

 houses; because once a breach has been made in the 

 forest, any such trees left standing, for ornament or 

 shelter, are almost sure to come down in one of the 

 violent storms which are of such frequent oc- 

 curence in the interior of great continents and 

 numerous fatal accidents have occurred in this way. 



It may perhaps be interesting to Europeans, or to 

 the dwellers in cities, to give a short account of the 

 process of clearing forest lands. 



There are two ways by which this is usually effected 

 the first and quickest by what is called a "dead- 

 ening," that is to say (the underwood and small 

 trees having been first removed) the large timber is 

 all destroyed by having a ring cut in the bark round 

 the trunks, after which the trees, of course, speedily 



