The composition in general is the same as that of the northern forest in the United States: hardwoods (birch, maple and elm prevailing) with conifers mixed, the latter, especially spruce, becoming occasionally pure. The nearly pure hardwood forest of the southern Ontario peninsula has been almost entirely supplanted by farms, and here, even for domestic fuel, coal, imported from the United States, is largely substituted for wood. Although White Pine, the most important staple is found in all parts of this forest region, the best and largest supplies are now confined to the region north of Georgian Bay. Unopened spruce and fir lands still abound especially in Quebec on the Gaspé peninsula and northward. Spruce forms also the largest share in the composition of the New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland forest, the pine in the first two provinces having practically been cut out. Extensive, almost pure Balsam Fir forest, fit for pulp wood, still covers the plateau of Cape Breton, while Prince Edward Island is to the extent of 60 per cent. cleared for agricultural use. Much of this Eastern forest area is not only culled of its best timber, but burnt over, and thereby deteriorated in its composition, the inferior Balsam Fir appearing in largest number in the reproduction. North of the Height of Land, in Ungava and westward, spruce continues to timber line, but, outside of narrow belts following the river valleys, only in open stand, branchy, and stunted, hardly fit even for pulp, for the most part with birch and aspen intermixed. This open spruce forest, interspersed among muskegs continues more or less to the northern tundra and across the continent to within a few miles of the mouth of the Mackenzie River and the Arctic Ocean, the White Spruce being the most northern species. In the interior, northern prairie belt, groves of aspen, dense and well developed, skirt the water courses and form an important wood supply. The forests of British Columbia partake of the character of the Pacific forest of the United States, the Coast Range along the coast for about 200 miles being stocked with conifers of magnificent development, Douglas Fir, Giant Arborvitæ, Hemlock, Bull Pine and a few others, the Rocky Mountain range also of coniferous growth, pine and larch, but of inferior character, large areas being covered with Alpine Fir (_Abies lasiocarpa_) and Lodgepole Pine, important as soilcover and for local use in the mining districts, but lacking in commercial value. If much of the forest area in the settled provinces is burnt over and damaged by forest fire, much more extensive destruction is wrought in this northern forest by fires sweeping annually over millions of acres unchecked, many of them said to be started by lightning. About 50 per cent. of this country is said to be fire-swept.