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arrangement more difficult. The other Provinces of the Dominion are still well supplied 

 with timber, and the system of selling " timber limits " to lumbermen is conservative to 

 the forests, but there is need of great precaution against forest fires or wasteful uses of 

 valuable timber. A capable commissioner of woods and forests for the Dominion would 

 therefore prove a very valuable functionary, if he were not only an expert, but an en- 

 thusiast in forestry, as otherwise his appointment would merely add another salary to the 

 expenses of Government. 



Mr. Thistle, Pembroke, suggested that the forest rangers, whose work cease in the 

 spring, should hereafter be employed during the summer in an attempt to preserve the 

 woods from fires. 



Mr. E. B. CowpER, Crown Lands Department, Toronto, did not think the time had 

 come when the planting of forest was a practicable question for Ontario or Quebec. Clear- 

 ing must go on. 



Mr. Little, said too much, perhaps, had been made of planting as compared with the 

 preservation of forests, which was of infinitely more importance. He had seen splendid 

 pine destroyed for the sake of clearing land in Florida, which would only grow fifteen 

 bushels of corn to the acre. He scarcely thought that was right. It was like flying in the 

 face of providence. 



CONDITIONS OF FOREST GROWTH. 



By Bernhard E. Fernow, Slatington, Pa. 



To clearly understand and devise methods of forest management, and to forsee the 

 results of such, it is primarily essential that the natural conditions of forest growth be 

 first well understood ; that the principles be first recognized on which rest forest produc- 

 tion. This is the more important, as forestal operations extend over long periods of 

 time, and the results and effects thereof are often recognized only when the growth of 

 many years has been irretrievably injured, thus inflicting a heavy financial loss on the 

 economy. 



In this paper the endeavour has been not to produce anything new and original, but 

 rather to so arrange the known facts of the natural sciences which contribute to the 

 understanding of the conditions of plant growth, that they may easily be applied to the 

 study of forest reproduction, a subject important before all to us at this present moment. 



As the idea connected with the term "forest" is vague and undefined, I am desirous 

 before I proceed to clear the conception of what 7nay or ought to be called a forest. When 

 we speak of a forest in connection with the science of forestry, we do not mean a mere 

 collection of trees, a wood or a park, a plantation, but an aggregate of trees or woodlands 

 which are intended and so set aside for the production of timber or lumber. If we speak 

 of planting and cultivating forests, we do not mean the laying out of parks or groves, 

 which have a very different object in view, which present very different conditions of tree 

 growth, and require in consequence very different methods of culture. Forestry has 

 nothing to do with the planting of fruit or ornamental trees, nor indeed with single trees 

 — just as agriculture does not consider the individual wheat plant. The object of forestry 

 is a financial effect, which is represented by the highest rent from the soil through the 

 cultivation of the same for timber growth. 



Of the factors which condition forest growth the soil presents itself first to our con- 

 sideration. 



The soil forms the standing place of the forest tree, as it does that of the wheat 

 plant. But this similar use of the same factor must not induce us to assume too close a 

 resemblance between agricultural and forestal conditions of growth. 



It is natural that since agriculture and forestry have both to do with the products of 

 the soil they should be compared with each other, and the principles which govern the 

 one are often mistakenly applied to the other. The difference in these two branches o 

 economy is not merely one of financial import. Though both these sciences — or arts i 

 you prefer the term — have to deal with the products of the soil, this factor takes a very 



