I 



11 



The WHITE and RED PINES are, however, the trees in which 

 centre perhaps the most interest. PITCH PINE is of mere local 

 occurrence and the BANKSIAN PINE, though abundant in the Lake 

 Superior region eastward to the Lower St. Lawrence and of mer- 

 chantable size, according to Prof. Robert Bell, along the southern 

 branches of the Albany River, is in the more accessible sections 

 only a scrubby tree. In the Province of Quebec south of the St. 

 Lawrence little pine is now left, though thirty years ago large 

 lumbering operations were carried on in the country lying south of 

 Quebec and east of Sherbrooke. In the Ontario peninsula as well, 

 pine is now scarce and even what is there is of small size. The 

 maximum development of the red and white pine appears to have 

 been attained in the stretch of country extending from Gaspe" and 

 New Brunswick through Northern Maine and the Saguenay dis- 

 trict along the valley of the St. Lawrence westward to the Ottawa 

 River and Georgian Bay, and onward through Northern Michigan 

 and the district on the north shore of Lake Huron and the Lake 

 Superior country to Rainy Lake. In Eastern Manitoba there is 

 some pine, but the zone of true forests beyond that province on- 

 ward to the Rocky Mountains chiefly includes aspen, balsam* 

 poplar, white birch and Banksian pine. Large as this territory is 

 in which the white and red pine are found, the extensive sections 

 of country now left quite destitute of pine warn us that these pine 

 forests are not co-extensive with our annual requisitions on them. 

 In the Ontario Legislature it was recently stated that one source 

 of revenue of that province was visibly affected because that now 

 though this is probably an error there were no more timber limits 

 available, all apparently being under lease, to lumbermen. At the 

 present time the St. Lawrence and Ottawa valleys furnish the larger 

 part of the pine lumber and timber. Very nearly as much is an- 

 nually cut on the St. Lawrence and its tributaries below Montreal 

 as in the Ottawa valley, but contrary to the general impression and 

 to the customs returns, very nearly two-thirds of the square timber 

 and the lumber, manufactured on the Upper Ottawa is, as Mr. A. J. 

 Russell has pointed out to me, from the Ontario forests. Some 

 conception of the^abundance of these trees in these valleys, and also 



