No. 216.] «65 



August 3d, 1847. 

 Philip Schuyler, Chairman of the Board of Agriculture in the 

 Chair. 



Mr. Meigs read from the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journalj 

 an excellent paper by John Wilkinson Dawson, Esq. of Pictou, on 

 the Destruction and Partial Reproduction of Forests in British North 

 America. 



After ilescribing the general arrangements of the forests, viewed 

 from the summit of a hill, presenting a continuous undulating surface 

 of a more or less dark color, and uneven outlines of the evergreen 

 coniferae, or of the lighter, tints and round contours of the deciduous 

 trees; and their classes usually arranged in belts or irregular patches, 

 containing trees corresponding to the fertility, or dryness of the soil. 

 In general, the deciduous or hard wood trees, prevail on intervale 

 ground, fertile uplands, and flanks and summits of stately and trap- 

 pean hills; while swamps, the less fertile and lightest upland soils, 

 and granite hills, are chiefly occupied by coniferous trees. These 

 woods perish by the axe and by fire. Forest fires have not been con- 

 fined to the period of European occupation. Indian traditions tell of 

 extensive ancient conflagrations. In dry weather, the mossy vegeta- 

 ble soil much resembles peat, burns easily and rapidly, and on this 

 depends the propagation of our fires in a great measure — the only 

 exception being when the burning of groves of the resinous conife- 

 rous trees is assisted by winds, causing the flames to stream through 

 their tops more rapidly than it can pass along the ground. In such 

 cases some of the grandest scenes ever shown by forest trees, occur. 

 Swamp tracts are more secure from fire. In old forests, when the 

 trees have attained great age — are beginning to decay- — much moss 

 grown, much dead wood and dry wood, they are more readily de- 

 stroyed by fire. And we should regard these fires, arising from natu- 

 ral or accidental causes, as the ordinary and natural agents for the 

 removal of worn out forests. The great fire of 1825, near the river 

 Mirainichi, in New Brunswick, devastated a region of 100 miles long 

 by 50 broad ; many persons and cattle, and innumerable wild animals 

 perished in that conflagration. Such fires have scorched trees which 

 soon furnished food for other fires, and ultimately there is what 

 is termed a barren. Such is the fate of large districts in Nova 

 Scotia and the neighboring provinces. Mr. Smith, Secretary of the 

 Board of Agriculture of Nova Scotia, says: If an acre or two be cut 

 down in the midst of a forest, and then neglected, it will soon be oc- 

 cupied by a growth similar to that cut down; but when all the tim- 



