26 The Ottawa Naturalist. [May 



on the cleared land. The prairie should have been placed near 

 the Atlantic and the woodland in the Northwest. Arranged as 

 it was with the forest on the land that was close to the market for 

 its products, forest destruction was at first a necessity and later 

 became a habit. Fire, the good servant in clearing the land, ran 

 rampant, carrying forest destruction far beyond the necessities 

 of the people. 



The earliest settlers coming from Europe were used to forest 

 conservation. They had practised it in the countries from which 

 they came. Forest destruction was to them a new thing; but 

 the forests were so vast that they thought there never could be 

 a scarcity of wood, and they reasoned that the more the forest 

 was destroyed the more the agricultural interests of the country 

 would be advanced. But the modern settler sees the forest in a 

 different light, especially so in the great Northwest, where, on the 

 wide prairie, wood is a luxury. To him forest conservation is the 

 necessity, not forest destruction. He has no delight in the de- 

 vastation of the woods by fire, and he hails with hope legislation 

 and management tending to improve the condition of the forest. 

 He sees clearly that his comfort and his agricultural interests 

 are closely dependent upon a plentiful supply of wood. 



The country is so vast and the demand for wood so great 

 that it is a tremendous problem to so manage the forests that this 

 demand may be met continuously. Hope seems to lie in the 

 creation of forest reserves, and the policy of setting aside land 

 to be used as forest reserves is now pretty well established by the 

 Dominion Government. 



The Dominion Forest Reserves are intended to preserve and 

 produce a perpetual supply of timber for the people of the prairie, 

 the homesteader's needs being considered of first importance. 

 They are not intended to furnish wood for the lumber trade. 

 Hence the policy of the reserves is favorable to small mills 

 rather than to large ones which need large tracts of forest, and 

 manufacture lumber beyond the needs of the settlers. 



Let us consider some of the various purposes that forests 

 subserve. In the first place, we need them to supply us with 

 wood, and wood we must have to cook our food; to build and 

 furnish our houses, our railroads, our steamships; to erect our 

 telegraph and telephone lines; to mine our metals and our coal, 

 which takes no small amount of wood; to supply us with paper, 

 charcoal, tan-bark, dynamite, boxes, tools, pails, matches, and 

 many innumerable articles. 



On going from a forested country to a prairie, one realizes 

 the importance, convenience and cheapness of wood to a home. 

 To be sure, coal and gas may be used for fuel, and brick, stone, 

 cement and iron for building; but wood is still largely used 



