MacDonald—himself deeply invested in floral imagery—was so captured by "Marguerites, Wood Lilies and Vetch" that he kept it for himself, writing "Not For Sale" on the back. Thomson's work is contrasted from MacDonald's by what Joan Murray calls, "its elegant, slightly funky form and throwaway spontaneity." Lawren Harris instead noted "Wildflowers" as a favourite, writing "1st class" on the verso. The colour of the sketch is less brilliant, but has superb brushwork and is well coordinated, setting blues against yellows and reds against whites. Responding to his subject with improvisation, every painting is different in its colour scheme and arrangement. In all the sketches, he redirected emphasis from the delicacy of the flowers towards simple broad strokes of colour, something Harold Town thought "[imparted] a toughness of design sometimes missing in his harder themes of rock and bracken". In "Water Flowers" particularly, the shapes are handled so summarily that the focus moves entirely to the colour of the flowers. This, combined with the black background, produces a more abstract effect. The black backdrop also causes the colours of the flowers to appear more vivid. During Thomson's time in Algonquin Park, logging and the lumber industry were a constant presence. He often painted the machinery left behind by lumber companies; Lismer, MacDonald and he were especially drawn to the subject. Jackson wrote,   Around 1916, Thomson followed the drive of logs down the Madawaska River, painting the subject in "The Drive". MacDonald similarly expressed the drive in his 1915 painting "". Besides the dams, pointer and alligator boats and log drives that appear in Thomson's work, other less obvious depictions of the lumber industry are evident. For example, areas cleared out due to logging appear in early sketches, such as "" (1913) and "". The painting "Drowned Land" similarly displays the damage caused by logging operations and flooding due to damming. As well, the white birches present in many paintings only thrive in "sunny, open areas whose previous tree cover had been removed", meaning that logging was in some way necessary for them to flourish. Thomson's and the Group of Seven's work reflects the typical Canadian attitudes of the time, namely that the available natural resources were meant to be exploited. Harold Town has argued that, while Thomson was not directly critical of industry, mining and logging, he "did not glorify industry in the bush."