2 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



this very serious trouble. All through Eastern Canada, and a con- 

 siderable part of the Eastern United States, one meets with the Jack 

 Pine {Pinus Banksiana), whose distribution extends northwards, 

 almost to the borders of Alaska. It rarely forms a large tree, the bulk 

 of the specimens one sees being no more than a foot or so in diameter ; 

 but it is easily satisfied and furnishes a large quantity of useful timber, 

 which is employed for telegraph poles, railway sleepers, and similar 

 purposes. Ten or twelve years ago German foresters planted this 

 species on a considerable scale on the poorest class of forest soils, and 

 although under these conditions it grows rapidly it has failed to fulfil 

 expectations, and the probability is that one will not hear a great 

 deal of it in future. Over a great part of Eastern Canada and the 

 United States the Red, White, and Black Spruces are much in 

 evidence, and furnish most of the wood that suppHes the numerous 

 pulp mills. 



When one gets beyond Winnipeg, going westwards, forests in the 

 strict sense of the term are unknown, the trees that are scattered 

 over the prairie region being largely confined to the river valleys. 

 Recognizing, however, the advantages of shelter to homesteads on 

 the bare prairies, the Agricultural Department of Canada has during 

 recent years done much to stimulate the creation of shelter-belts, for 

 this purpose supplying trees free of charge, or at a merely nominal 

 rate. One of the most important of the Government Nurseries is 

 situated at Indian Head, which was practically a treeless area in 1905, 

 but so well have the trees grown that now fine healthy plantations 

 are to be seen round that centre. The trees that give the best results 

 on the prairies are Scots Pine, European Larch, Norway Spruce, and 

 Box Elder (Acer Negundo), and it is worthy of remark that Dr. 

 Saunders, who was for long the head of the Agricultural Experimental 

 work of Canada, gives it as his opinion that no Canadian two-leaved 

 Pine grows so well in Canada as the Scots Pine, no Larch so well as 

 the European Larch, nor any Spruce so satisfactorily as the Norway 

 Spruce. 



When one gets into the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains one 

 comes across great numbers of Lodge Pole Pine (Pinus contoria var. 

 Murrayana), a tree very similar in character to Pinus Banksiana, and 

 used for much the same purposes. In the Rocky Mountains 

 themselves one sees more of Picea Engelmanni than any other tree, 

 this species being much in evidence in the Yoho Valley, all down the 

 Kicking Horse Pass, round Lake Louise, &c. It grows with a fine, 

 tall, straight stem, and very short branches, and is altogether of 

 attractive habit, but apparently of httle use for planting in Europe. 

 As one travels in the Rocky Mountains one sees many long bare 

 strips resembhng " rides " running straight up the mountain-side. 

 These are the fines down which avalanches descend every summer, 

 and on which young trees are thus prevented estabhshing themselves. 

 High up above Lake Louise, in the neighbourhood of Lake Agnes, one 

 encounters lam Lyallii, a rather dwarf Larch of httle economic value. 



