1885.] THE DESTRUCTION OF CANADIAN FORESTS. 231 



attention of all by tracts and placards, in the places of summer 

 resort, in lumbering camps, in all centres of population adjacent to 

 the forests." Another says : — " By stringent national and State 

 laws fastening responsibility upon careless guides and tourists, and 

 also upon those who are clearing land. When a man wishes to 

 burn a fallow piece, he should girdle it witli a swathe, liesponsible 

 men who would not think of endangering their neighbours' houses 

 with a bonfire in their gardens, think nothing of letting loose their 

 fallow fires into adjoining timber." A detailed summary of the 

 causes of fires shows that about 70 per cent, are attributable to care- 

 lessness, the greater part being avoidable, if not in the starting of 

 the fires, to a great degree in the provisions that might be made for 

 their suppression, 



Keferring to the vast area of prairie lands in the Canadian 

 Xorth-West with little or no timber, Mr. Morgan says :- — " The 

 climate of this vast territory is one of the healthiest in the world, 

 but it is very cold, and ought therefore to have a large proportion 

 of its area in woods. Woods would have a most beneficial and 

 ameliorating effect on the climate. They would temper the cold 

 winds of the spring, and retard the autumnal frosts. It is a well- 

 established fact that the atmosphere of the woods in summer is 

 much cooler as well as moister during the day than in open field, 

 and that the reverse is the case during the night. So soon as the 

 sun's rays leave the surface of the earth it chills very rapidly, and 

 often in a dry climate, while the air at say 5 feet from the 

 ground is moderately warm, the temperature of the earth is chilled 

 by radiation, and often goes below the freezing-point, while the air 

 at an elevation of 5 or 6 feet is several degrees warmer. The 

 presence of woods would often avert these early frosts, more espe- 

 cially if the woods occupied the higher grounds. The moist, warm 

 air from the woods would spread out over the fields after the sun 

 had gone down, and act as a protecting mantle to tlie unripe crops, 

 and become the means of averting what otherwise would be an 

 almost certain danger. The drier the atmosphere, the more liable 

 are we to refrigeration of the earth's surface, consequently the 

 greater and the more imperative the necessity for planting forest 

 trees in our Xorth-West." Of the great necessity of tree-planting 

 on the prairies there can be no practical doubt, — fuel and shelter 

 being among the first wants of the settlers. 



In respect to the contention of some scientists, that the character 

 of the soil of some of the high plains is such that trees will not 

 grow thereon, he cites, in refutation, the experience of the pioneers 

 of the adjoining . territories and States, which affords promise of 

 unquestionable success. The work to be done is one of great 



