258 HANDBOOK OF NATURE STUDY 



Northern States. It finds shelter in the thickets, but feeds 

 mostly in the openings around lakes and grassy ponds. As 

 all these wild animals have very acute senses of smell and 

 hearing, they generally observe a man before he sees them, 

 and disappear into the thickets or lie unobserved by him. 



57. Importance of Pine Forests for North America. 

 Pines in the economy of nature. 



MATERIAL : Show on a map the areas which are largely occupied 

 by pine forests. 



What we have learned about the powers of other forests 

 to retain moisture is just as true of the pine forest, and 

 under this term we include all trees belonging to the pine 

 family. Pines are found especially in the northern part 

 of New England, around the Great Lakes, about the head 

 waters of the Mississippi in Minnesota and Wisconsin, in 

 the wooded parts of the Rocky Mountains, and on the 

 Pacific slope in Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and 

 Alaska. Who will tell me from the map what streams have 

 their head waters in pine regions ? An abundant precipita- 

 tion falls in these regions and supplies the water for count- 

 less mills and factories ; it fills the thousands of Minnesota, 

 Wisconsin, and Canada lakes, and carries ships on the greatest 

 system of navigable rivers and lakes in the world. The ex- 

 tensive deforestation, which has been going on ever since 

 the United States began to be settled, is partly the cause 

 of the disastrous floods which occur almost annually along 

 the lower Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Were these regions 

 entirely deforested, the spring floods would become still 

 more disastrous, while in August and September boys would 

 be able to wade rivers that had been a mile wide in April. 

 Chittenden, in his book on the Yellowstone National Park, 

 estimates on good authority that the forests in that region 

 retard the melting of the snow at least six weeks, and a 



