CHAPTER IX 

 CANADIAN FORESTS 



THE forests of North America are found in three main 

 groups: the great eastern forest, stretching from the 

 Atlantic westward to the Mississippi and well past the 

 Great Lakes ; the Rocky Mountain forest, including not 

 only the wooded slopes and valleys of the Rocky Mountains 

 themselves and their foothills, but also numerous smaller 

 and mostly parallel ranges with their intervening valleys ; 

 the coast forest, covering the shores of the Pacific and ex- 

 tending inland up the river valleys and covering the moun- 

 tain ranges nearest the coast. These regions are more 

 or less perfectly divided by treeless tracts and are some- 

 what sharply distinguished by the species of trees they con- 

 tain. The level grass plains, or prairies, separate the two 

 former, while a dry and more or less treeless region lies 

 between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific coast. 

 Farther south, this forms an arid desert, but desert con- 

 ditions do not extend as far north as Canada. On the 

 north these three wooded belts are united in an unbroken 

 stretch, reaching across the continent and extending north- 

 ward to and beyond the Arctic Circle. 



The Canadian forests include the northern parts of these 

 three distinct and parallel wooded belts, along with the 



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