12 



little railway imaginable, all bumps and jolts, and 

 at the end dumped off with a splash into a little 

 arm of the sea like the one in which the poor settlers 

 had taken shelter. Then we were hauled up to the 

 saws and cut into beams and boards and here I 

 am." 



"Douglas Fir had a more exciting time than the 

 others who have told their tales" said the Stove, 

 "but our friend Yellow Birch here seems to have seen 

 dreadful 'devastation. Let us hear what further he 

 has to say." 



"I did indeed come from a land which suffered 

 from forest fires" said Yellow Birch, when thus ad- 

 dressed by name "and it was on account of the pre- 

 valence of fires that I was cut. The fire did not 

 reach our township, but the lumbermen were afraid 

 their property would be burned and so they cut all 

 the trees on their limits. The most of the trees 

 were Spruce and only a few were my brothers, the 

 Yellow Birches. This was not to be regretted, 

 because, as all trees know, Birch is not a good 'floater.' 

 It soon gets waterlogged and sinks to the bottom of 

 the river, where it is lost to the lumberman. You 

 see, Mr. Stove, that the Pines, Spruces, and Douglas 

 Fir are all cone-bearing trees or conifers, sometimes 

 called needle-leaved trees or softwoods, while Birches, 

 Maples, and Oaks are broad-leaved trees, sometimes 

 called hardwoods. The conifers, being light, float 

 well, while the broad-leaved trees are so heavy that 

 after they have been a little time soaking in water 

 they sink. The river-drivers chained me between 

 two spruce logs and so I floated safely down to the 

 saw-mill. After being sawn up into boards I was 

 sent a long way by train to a furniture factory, 



