Forest Investigations in Canada 511 



area actually covered by fire protective forces is not materially 

 less in the United States than it is in Canada, and yet it is pretty 

 generally agreed in the States that the forest fire problem, except 

 in a few very conservative states of the South, is solved, and all 

 that is now necessary is to see that the feeling of security does 

 not result in a lessening of annual effort and appropriations. 



Now, these fire problems are of very considerable importance 

 to foresters because adequate fire protection must necessarily be 

 our first step toward proper forest management and ultimate sus- 

 tained yield, and unless we can secure such protection at a rea- 

 sonable cost we might just as well quit the business, because we 

 cannot hope to undertake the more technical branches of forest 

 management until we have a demonstrated basis of efficiency in 

 fire protection upon which to build. Lest anyone think we are 

 a long way from extravagance in forest protection expenditures, 

 I would point out that there is a forest reserve in Ontario where 

 the fire protection costs 7 cents per acre per annum and there is 

 one man to every 9000 acres. This approaches rather closely to 

 European standards as regards expenditure, but not as regards 

 results. It has been necessary for me to give some attention to 

 the question of forest protection expenditures and results in 

 Canada as compared with other regions, and my general conclu- 

 sion has been that, except in one or two instances, our main 

 problem is not the securing of more funds for fire work, but 

 rather the securing of a rational control over the expenditure 

 of the funds appropriated, and that surprisingly large areas of 

 Canadian timberlands are, from the expenditure standpoint, the 

 most thoroughly protected forest lands in America. As a gen- 

 eral problem throughout Canada, it is not more money that we 

 need, but more efficiency in the use of the funds we already have 

 available. 



. The Mission of the Forest Expert 



This brings up the second general question of public policy that 

 is of direct vital importance to foresters, namely, the proper role 

 of the expert in government activities. It was long held as an 

 axiom of democracy that the best government was that which 

 governed least. That was the theory which animated a large 

 number of the founders of the American Republic, and for a 

 hundred years or more this theory had full opportunity to demon- 



