North American forest

“ In America the most widespread type of forest is the evergreen coniferous woodland of the north. Its pines, firs, spruces, hemlocks, and cedars which are really junipers, cover most of Canada together with northern New England and the region south of Lakes Huron and Superior. At its northern limit the forest looks thoroughly forlorn. The gnarled and stunted trees are thickly studded with half-dead branches bent down by the weight of snow, so that the lower ones sweep the ground, while the upper look tired and discouraged from their struggle with an inclement climate. ”

“ As is indicated on the map just referred to, the forests of North America in a general way form a broad belt, for the most part within the influence of winds from the ocean, which surrounds a large area of treeless plains and plateaus in the west-central portion of the interior continental basin, but is broken and rendered irregular in its southwestern part of the treeless valley of the Great Basin region. The irregular circular belt of tree-covered land is closed at the south by the forest on the lowlands of Mexico and Central America. ”

“ The natural condition of eastern North America is that of a forest-covered land. Wherever the primeval woodland has been cleared there springs up, unless thwarted by persistent tillage, a sturdy "second growth" which in time, and if allowed to spread, would restore the face of the country to something of its former appearance. We are familiar enough with such tracts, abandoned by men as unprofitable for cultivation and left to the genial influence of birds and winds and the chemistry of humus soils—nature's way of getting back to original conditions. ”

“ The change as one travels northward from the grassy prairies to the country of equally mild relief, but clothed with trees adapted to a rigorous climate, is gradual. Along the irregular and in part indefinite junction of these two vast plains, the alignment of the forest is broken in many places, and its margin fringed by a picket-line of groves and of isolated trees, which has advanced southward and invaded the grass-lands. ”

“ Most of the territory of North America is still comparatively a wilderness; but in the United States the forests have been so extensively invaded, that they seldom exhibit any distinct outlines, and few of them possess the character of unique assemblages. They are but scattered fragments of the original forest, through which the settlers have made their irregular progress from east to west, diversifying it with roads, farms, and villages. The recent clearings are palisaded by tall trees, exhibiting a naked outline of skeleton timber, without any attractions. ”

“ The vast, irregular belt of forest encircling the central treeless portion of the continent also dies out on its northern border, where the subarctic forest is succeeded northward by the Barren Grounds and tundra plains. Clearly the explanation of the absence of trees in the prairie region and the adjacent plateaus cannot be applied to scarcely less extensive treeless plains at the far north, where rain falls in summer and the soil is always abundantly charged with moisture. ”

“ The woods of North America are strikingly distinguished from those of Europe by the vastly greater variety of species they contain. According to Clave, there are in "France and in most parts of Europe only about twenty forest-trees, five or six of which are spike-leaved and resinous, the remainder broad-leaved." ”

“ Then will come the opportunity of British North America. The Southern forest of Canada, which extended for 2000 miles from the Atlantic to the head of the St. Lawrence, has indeed gone or is disappearing into pulpwood and timber, but there is still the great Northern forest from the Straits of Belleisle to Alaska (4000 miles long and 700 miles broad) , and in addition the beautiful forests of Douglas Spruce and other trees in British Columbia covering 285,000 square miles.
It is the wood-pulp industry which is at present destroying the Canadian forests. ”

“ Aside from the regions too cold or too dry to support any vegetation whatever, few parts of the world are more deadening to civilization than the forests of the far north. Near the northern limit of the great evergreen forest of North America wild animals are so rare that a family of hunting Indians can scarcely find a living in a thousand square miles. ”

“ So vast is the region occupied by the Pacific forest and so varied the conditions dependent upon climate, soil, and elevation which influence its growth, that great variations in the genera and species of trees composing it are to be expected. ”

“ Thus the average National Forest comprises about one million acres of government lands. The many private holdings scattered through the Forests make the average gross area of each Forest much greater. These Forests are located in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Porto Rico, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. ”

“ With the retreat of the ice at the close of the last glacial epoch, and the gradual assumption of the present climate and physical features of eastern North America, the more hardy coniferous trees, and some of the broad-leaved species that had adapted themselves to low temperatures along the edge of the ice sheet, began to occupy the newly uncovered land as a northern belt of pine forest. This expansion of tree life toward the north must have relieved the long overcrowded southern area and permitted a fuller development of the summer-green, broad-leaved forest with its great variety of forms. ”

“ In our vicinity, for instance, New Brunswick and Maine are exhibited as bare as Greenland. It may be that the children of Greenville, at the foot of Moosehead Lake, who surely are not likely to be scared by an owl, are referred to the valley of the Ohio to get an idea of a forest; but they would not know what to do with their moose, bear, caribou, beaver, etc., there. Shall we leave it to an Englishman to inform us, that "in North America, both in the United States and Canada, are the most extensive pine-forests in the world"? ”

“ When a patch of wood has been cut down to the very ground, five years suffice to cover the soil again with a growth of trees and shrubs so rank that the spot can scarcely be distinguished from the uncut forest all round. But this swift activity of life is hardly more wonderful than is the variety of forms. Each of the great forests of Europe and North America consists of a few species of trees. In the New Forest in England, most beautiful of all, in one place chiefly beeches are found, in another chiefly oaks, mixed, perhaps, with some birches and white thorns. ”

“ The multitude of species, intermixed as they are in their spontaneous growth, gives the American forest landscape a variety of aspect not often seen in the woods of Europe, and the gorgeous tints, which nature repeats from the dying dolphin to paint the falling leaf of the American maples, oaks, and ash trees, clothe the hillsides and fringe the water-courses with a rainbow splendor of foliage, unsurpassed by the brightest groupings of the tropical flora. ”

“ The second great type of American forest is deciduous. The trees have broad leaves quite unlike the slender needles or overlapping scales of the northern evergreens. Each winter such forests shed their leaves. Among the mountains where the frosts come suddenly, the blaze of glory and brilliance of color which herald the shedding of the leaves are surpassed in no other part of the world. Even the colors of the Painted Desert in northern Arizona and the wonderful flowers of the California plains are less pleasing. ”

“ From the interior of the Labrador peninsula westward to the shores of Lesser Slave Lake, southward through Newfoundland, the maritime provinces of Canada, Quebec and Ontario, northern New England, northern New York, northern Michigan to the shores of Saginaw Bay, and northern Minnesota and northeastern Iowa, and along the Appalachian Mountains from western Massachusetts and the Catskills of New York to the high mountains of southwestern Virginia; common and often forming a considerable part of the forest on low swampy ground ”

“ This drive through the heart of the Green Mountains will show managed northern hardwood forest types, including sugar maple.
In addition to these areas, many of the 800 National Forest ranger stations contain displays on local trees. All are designed to show the American people how the resources of the National Forests are cultivated and used to serve the country now and in the future. ”

“ The lower mountain slopes are covered with dark forests of pine, spruce, and juniper, which increase in density and extent as one follows the ranges northward until the influence of the high northern latitude is felt, and in northern Canada the zone of the subarctic forest is reached. ”

“ Bull's orchid shows. As a matter of fact, people who know the hot world well can tell you that the average tropical woodland is much more like the dark shade of Box Hill or the deepest glades of the Black Forest. For really fine floral display in the mass, all at once, you must go, not to Ceylon, Sumatra, Jamaica, but to the far north of Canada, the Bernese Oberland, the moors of Inverness-shire, the North Cape of Norway. Flowers are loveliest where the climate is coldest; forests are greenest, most luxuriant, least blossoming, where the conditions of life are richest, warmest, fiercest. ”

“ In the United States, on account of increasing dryness of the valleys from north to south, the forest becomes broken into many detached portions, which occupy the mountains and higher plateaus and in general are restricted to higher and higher locations with decrease in latitude. ”

“ Broadly speaking, the American portion of the sub-region consists of an Atlantic and Pacific forest area and an intervening non-forest one, partly occupied by the Rocky Mountains, partly by intervening plains. Its arboreal vegetation is richer both in genera and species than that corresponding to it in the Old World. ”

“ Besides these, examples of our northeastern forests, the pines of the southern Appalachians, the everglades of Florida, the tangled woodlands of the gulf, and other typical forests which perchance may have escaped the desolation of civilization, should be added to the splendid forest reserves of the national parks of the West, first-grown as Nature made them, forever to remain untouched by the axe. ”

“ In one point the plan was fatally defective, since it involved the deadly enmity of a race whose character and whose power were as yet but ill understood,—the fiercest, boldest, most politic, and most ambitious savages to whom the American forest has ever given birth. ”

“ Although the Western prairies have the temporary advantage that they are more readily brought under cultivation than wooded regions, the forests of a land contribute so largely to man’s well-being, that without them he can hardly maintain the structure of his civilization. The distribution of American forests is peculiar. All the Appalachian mountain system and the shore region between that system and the sea, as well as the Gulf border as far west as the Mississippi, were originally covered by the finest forest that has existed in the historical period, outside of the tropics. ”

“ AN eastern North American landscape is chiefly characterized, at least in the more settled portions of the country, by its diversified aspect of woods and fields. All other distant features gradually melt away and leave to the involuntarily closing eye a checkered expanse of darkly shaded masses and broadly open sunlit spaces. In the wilder parts, along the ranges and spurs of the Appalachians, the forests still hold undisputed sway over the fields, yet surely and rapidly the venerable woods are falling away as the axe sweeps with ever-widening swath along the clearing's edge. ”

“ Even if the trees were within the reach of a market, their wood is of inferior quality and not generally suitable for lumber. A modern industry has been developed, however, which may bring it into demand, namely, the manufacture of wood-pulp, so largely employed in the making of paper and for other purposes. 238
The Pacific Forest.—In the northern portion of the Rocky Mountain region in Canada and Alaska the boreal forest, as already stated, merges by insensible gradations with the forests occupying the Pacific mountains from Alaska southward to Mexico. ”

“ America's National Forests grace more than 191 million acres of our land. Thirty-four million of those acres are part of our wilderness preservation system, which works to safeguard this invaluable resource for future use and enjoyment. The American National Forests are among our country's greatest gifts-gifts we share with all of Earth's creatures today and with generations of new life to come. ”

“ The author discusses the sociological aspects of forestry, and the distribution of forests in North America. It is of interest to note that the forest is treated as a living plant formation subject to many vicissitudes in the struggle for existence with neighboring societies of plants, particularly with the bog and prairie. The fate of the forest in front of the advancing pioneer is well delineated, and forest finance management and protection are most sensibly considered. ”

“ No other equally large area of the earth is so generously equipped by nature for the production and distribution of the articles of commerce as southern Canada and that part of the United States lying east of the Rocky Mountains. The simple build of the North American continent, consisting of a broad central trough between distant mountain ranges, and characterized by gentle slopes to the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, has generated great and small rivers with easy-going currents, that everywhere opened up the land to explorer, trader and settler. ”