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We can find plenty of spare room for growing forest trees ; they are not only tlie most 

 beautiful ornaments to a country and the most useful product of nature, giving fuel, 

 timber, shade, shelter, retaining moisture and a protection against droughts, etc., etc., but, 

 considering the question from a strictly 7noney-maJcing point of view, the culture of forest 

 trees is perhaps the best and safest investtnent that can be made. 



It is rather difficult, I admit, to induce people to plant forest trees in this Province, 

 where, for generations, they have been brought up to look upon the forest tree as their 

 natural enemy, to be got rid of at any cost, hacked down, burnt out of the way (for want 

 of a better mode of disposing of it), and still troubling the settler for years with its ever- 

 lasting stump, an obstacle to thorough cultivation. The children and grandchildren of 

 the old settlers remember too well ; they cannot be expected to love the forest tree, but 

 self-interest ought to conquer instinct and prejudice. With us, land is not too valuable 

 for forest tree culture. In Europe, where land is scarcer and more valuable than here, 

 they plant, every year, thousands and thousands of acres in forest trees. 



To those who say that our country is too new to think of that, I will answer that 

 New Zealand, the Australian Colonies, India (so far as the settlement of the land by 

 Europeans is concerned), are newer countries than ours, and they are all taking active 

 steps towards the planting of forest trees on a large scale. In the United States, the 

 Federal as well as the State Governments encourage the culture of forest trees by grants 

 of land, and money, and exemption from taxation, and powerful societies are co-operating 

 with energy and liberality. The Government of Canada has begun by offering free grants 

 to those who undertake the planting of a certain number of trees on the western prairies ; 

 but I will here observe that it will require more active measures to set the people in 

 motion, and especially the establishment of nurseries, where the people can buy young 

 trees and seed, and the beginning of some large plantations, as an example, to show to 

 the people, by practical results, that the culture of forest trees is within the reach of 

 erery one. 



We see in the papers that the western railways have started the culture of trees on 

 their own account ; the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway is reported as hav- 

 ing appointed a superintendent of tree culture, who has just contracted for three hundred 

 thousand trees, and most of the roads west of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers have 

 also begun to raise trees, in order to insure a supply of ties, and for other purposes. 



How many give as their reason for not planting forest trees, that they will not live 

 long enough to get any profit out of them. You do not hear that in Europe. Are people 

 more selfish in America than they are in Europe 1 Or is the feeling of self-reliance so 

 much more developed in America that the people here expect the next generation to take 

 care of itself as they have taken care of themselves 1 Then leave them some timber, if 

 you wish them to have the same chance that you had. It was but a heathen who wrote, 

 more than eighteen hundred years ago : " Arbores serit diligens agricola quorum fructus 

 nu7nquam videbit." " The good husbandman plants trees whose fruits he will never see." 

 But I must not drift away from my subject into philosophical considerations ; it will be 

 more to the point to show that the profits of forest tree culture are not only enormous, 

 but that their realization is far from being delayed to an indefinite future. 



I do not pretend that the whole of our farms should be planted in forest trees ; that 

 would be too absurd. Our farms are generally too large for the small number of hands 

 we employ ; there are always some odd corners, idle strips, stony or damp patches which 

 it does not pay to cultivate ; begin and plant forest trees there, suiting the tree to the 

 nature of the soil — you will find some for every kind of soil. Once planted and fairly 

 started, they will take care of themselves, give no trouble and increase yearly in value, 

 in a wonderful ratio, so well expressed by the Honourable F. B. Hough, chief of the 

 Forestry Division of the United States Agricultural Department, in the address lately 

 delivered by him at Columbus, Ohio. 



For years past, I have sought the best and cheapest mode of re-wooding ourdeniided 

 lands, and have made some experiments ; they have not yet been carried over a great 

 many years and are, so far, most encouraging, notwithstanding my numerous mistakes 

 and enforced absence at the best seasons, and they satisfy me as to the correctness of the 

 statements made by the leading advocates of forest tree culture. I trust not to be 



