230 THE DESTRUCTION OF CANADIAN FORESTS. [Aug. 



Many railroads are now being built expressly to get out the timber 

 that could not otherwise be marketed, the direct effect of which is 

 to hasten the destruction already going on too fast. While this 

 extensive cutting will keep up the supply at the mills so long as 

 there are forests from wliich the supply can be obtained, it is every 

 day hastening the ruin that must inevitably follow, unless prompt 

 and adequate measures are taken to meet future wants by judicious 

 and extensive planting, and by effectual measures for protecting and 

 economizing the remaining supply. Should the effort now being- 

 made by the people of the Western States to have the import 

 duties taken off lumber prove successful, the rapid increase in the 

 demand would cause an exhaustion in the Canadian supplies which 

 would, Mr. Morgan says, be fearful to contemplate. Eespecting the 

 probable duration of the timber supply in Canada under the present 

 high pressure of cutting, Mr. Morgan does not attempt to fix any 

 term in the absence of data to enable him to form an opinion. 

 Alarmists place it at a very short period, while many think there is 

 no apparent danger of scarcity of the necessary supply. Mr. Phipps, 

 . quoting Mr. Little and other authorities, puts the duration of 

 Canadian supply, at the present rate of consumption, at ten years, 

 and after alluding to statistics regarding forest fires, says : '' We 

 may well doubt whether we have five years' supply." This much, 

 however, Mr. Morgan affirms, "that while there is no immediate 

 danger of wood becoming so scarce in the Dominion that we shall 

 have to send abroad for any, yet at the rate at which our commerce 

 and our industries are growing — the building and -repairing of I'ail- 

 roads, telegraph and telephone posts, all causing heavy drafts on our 

 supply — we may well be alarmed about providing for our future 

 wants. In the past, forests have been the greatest source of wealth 

 to Canada ; the exports of lumber, since Confederation, amounting to 

 the enormous sum of 330,520,000 dels., while the Provincial Govern- 

 ments, during the same period, have collected about 11,000,000 dols. 

 in revenue on the product of the forests. This rich harvest cannot 

 much longer be reaped, unless prompt measures are taken for the 

 • economic use, conservance, and reproduction of the woods." 



The late Dr. Hough issued circulars to correspondents in the 

 several States and Territories, with a view to ascertaining the extent 

 of injuries caused by forest fires, and the causes and the methods of 

 their prevention. One correspondent's suggestion is as follows : — 

 " Open the eyes of the people to the danger, the immense destruction 

 of property, the rapidly shrinking streams, the increase and duration 

 of drought, the blighting of landscape, and the general climatic 

 effect. This can be done by national publications fitted for the 

 common people, not by documentary reports. Force these upon the 



