CANADIAN TIMBER TREES. 29 
the various applications of similar materials to the arts in other 
couutries.* 
Canada is said to produce about seventy kinds of timber trees, of 
which at present we make profitable use of not more than eight or 
ten, the rest being left to absolute decay. Her forests extend over 
about 360,000 square miles, aad are unrivalled throughout the 
world for the variety of species, and more particularly for the size 
of the timber of full growth. Of sixty-four samples sent to the 
Paris Exhibition of 1855, by Mr. Andrew Dickson, of Kingston, 
one half were collected from an area of one hundred acres. The 
trees which we find most generally in our woods are, the oak, beech, 
maple, iron-wood, elm, birch, ash, pine, hemlock, tamarack, cedar, 
poplar and bass-wood. All these trees attain to a considerable size, 
and grow, to a greater or less extent, in all parts of Canada except 
on the coast of Labrador, where the only trees that thrive are the 
white birch, the fir, spruce, beech, and one of the varieties of pine. 
The trees of smaller growth common to all the country are the 
hickory, willow, alder, wild-cherry, dogwood, sassafras, and a few 
others. The black walnut, tulip-tree and chestnut are confined ex- 
clusively to the western peninsula. Oak and elm are more abun- 
dent and of better quality in Canada West than in the eastern part 
of the province; but all the other woods attain greater perfection 
in Canada East. 
It is a lamentable circumstance that materials, which in Europe 
are so highly esteemed and valued, should in this, the country of 
their preduction, be burnt up as fire-wood or left to rot on the ground. 
Hickory, beech, maple, birch, bass-wood, and white-wood are unsur- 
passed by any other timbers for their various useful qualities; and 
yet the exports at Quebec consist almost exclusively of pines, oak, 
elm, ash and tamarack ; the latter having only come into demand 
within the last few years. Asa remedy for this state of things, the 
attention of parties interested is directed to the recommendations 
contained in the Hon. Mr. Taché’s Report of “Canada at the 
Universal Exhibition of 1855.”’+ 
* The chief authorities consulted are Dr, Gray’s “Manual of the Botany of the Northern 
United States,” and Holtzapffel’s Turning and Mechanical Manipulation ;” supplemented by 
the author’s practical knowledge of the subject. 
+ See Canadian Journal for 1857, page 37, 
