36 



FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE. 



pears, and hence is very useful, both as a shelter to the 

 land, and as holding it against the encroachment of the 

 sea. Its dark glaucous foliage assumes an almost impene- 

 trable aspect under these circumstances. I have seen 

 groves of white spruce on the shore, the foliage of which 

 was swept back over the land by prevailing gales from 

 the south-west, nearly parallel to the ground, and so 

 compressed and flattened at the top that a man could 

 walk on them as on a platform, whilst the shelter be- 

 neath was complete. 



The Balsam Fir growinff in these situations assumes a 

 very similar appearance in the density and colour of its 

 foliage and trunk to the white spruce, from which, how- 

 ever, it can be quickly distinguished, on inspection, by 

 the pustules on the bark and its erect cones. In the 

 forest the white spruce is rare in comparison with the 

 black, whose place it however altogether usurps on the 

 sand hills bordering the limit of vegetation in the far 

 north-west. The former tree prefers humid and rocky 

 woods. 



Our Silver Fir (Abies balsamea, Marshall) is so like the 

 European picea that they would pass for the same 

 species were it not for the balsam pustules which charac- 

 terise the American tree. Both show the same silvery 

 lines under the leaf on each side of the mid-rib, which, 

 glistening in the sun as the branches are blown upwards 

 by the wind, give the tree its name. We find it in moist 

 woods — growing occasion ally in the provinces to a height 

 of sixty feet where it has plenty of room — a handsome, 

 dark-foliaged tree ; short-lived, however, and often falling 

 before a heavy gale, showing a rotten heart. 



The silver fir is remarkaljle for the horizontal regularity 



