40 North American Forests and Forestry 



did not suffer on this account. A cargo of beaver 

 and marten represented a vastly higher value than 

 the quantity of lumber or naval stores a single ship 

 could carry. But the manner in which furs were 

 obtained was very different indeed from the pro- 

 duction of other staples. It depended almost 

 entirely upon trade with the Indians, and conse- 

 quently the people engaged in this business could 

 not confine themselves to the narrow strip along 

 the coast where the settlements were, but had to 

 penetrate deeper and deeper into the wilderness. 



To the fur trader, therefore, is due the first knowl- 

 edge the white man obtained of the interior of 

 the continent. The French in Canada were on 

 the whole far more successful in this branch of 

 trade, largely on account of their better ways of 

 dealing with the aborigines. To French voyageurs 

 and coureurs de bois we owe the discovery of the 

 country about the Great Lakes. But while they 

 ■were the first to penetrate the interior of the great 

 eastern forest, the inhabitants of the British col- 

 onies were not slow to follow. And there was 

 this difference between the French and the peo- 

 ple from the British plantations : the latter made 

 permanent agricultural settlements wherever they 

 went ; the French established nothing but trading 

 posts, with hardly more agricultural industry than 

 that of the Indians themselves. 



This slow invasion of the forest by the people 

 from the seaboard resulted, at first, not in any 

 very decided change in the forest conditions, but 



