THE FORESTS OF ACADIE. 41 



able backwoods farmer, towards whose clearings it was 

 sure to trend. Perhaps for hours before we had almost 

 despaired of quitting the forest by nightfall. On sending 

 the Indians into tree-tops to reconnoitre, the disheartening 

 cry would be, " Woods all round as far as we can see." 

 Further on, perhaps, we should hear that there were 

 "Lakes all round !" Worse again, for then a wearisome 

 detour must be made. But at last some one finds signs 

 of chopping, then a stack of cord-wood, and then we 

 strike a regular blazed line. Now the spirits of every 

 one revive, and we soon emerge on the forest road with 

 its clean-cut track, corduroy platforms through swamps, 

 and rude log bridges over the brooks, which brings us 

 within the welcome sound of cattle bells, and at length 

 to the broad glare of the clearings. 



Before leaving the woods, however, we m?vy not omit 

 to notice those characteristic trees of the American forest, 

 the maples, particularly that most important member of 

 the family, the rock or sugar maple — Acer saccharinum. 

 Found generally interspersed with other hard-wood trees, 

 this tree is seen of largest and most frequent growth in 

 the Acadian forests on the slopes of the Cobequid hills, 

 and other similar ranges in Nova Scotia, often growing 

 together in large clumps. Such groves are termed 

 " Sugaries," and are yearly visited by the settlers for 

 the plentiful supply of sap which, in the early spring, 

 courses between the bark and the wood, and from which 

 the maple sugar is extracted. Towards the end of 

 March, when winter is relaxing its hold, and the hitherto 

 frozen trees begin to feel the influence of the sun, the 

 settlers, old and young, turn into the woods with their 

 axes, sap-troughs, and boilers, and commence the opera- 



