REPORT OF THE SOCIETY 29 



There is also the tamarack, but owing to the dangers to which it is exposed, the 

 use of this species on a large scale would bring results worse than the evil itself. 

 I did not mention as general substitutes the deciduous trees because in this 

 respect our forests were practically untouched, so that in our reforestation projects 

 we must use only species of the highest value as accessory species in order to 

 minimize the dangers to which pure stands of resinous species are particularly 

 subject through insect attacks or fungous diseases. 



Morever I may remind you that our white pine reproduces itself so poorly 

 in the forest that if man does not help nature, this species within a few more 

 decades will have ceased to be of commercial importance. For these reasons we 

 should not abandon white pine culture immediately, even if the disease proves to 

 be more widely scattered, for it may be less injurious that it was in the European 

 nurseries, where white pine had to be abandoned. I venture to say that we could 

 submit the nurse.ies to many experiments to make the evidence more complete 

 and conclusive. 



Moreover, our forests are endangered by numerous other potential enemies 

 waiting for favorable circumstances to break out. You are aware that a few 

 years ago the spruce bud worm {Tortrix fiimiferana) threatened to destroy our 

 spruce with far greater rapidity than the rust would ever kill our seedling stock, 

 but fortunately it was checked in due tim.e by natural parasites. 



Undoubtedly you were told that the balsam fir, in most of the forest dis- 

 tricts of this province, is injured by the attacks of a somewhat similar larva and 

 to such an extent that, according to a forest investigation made last summer in 

 the Upper St. Maurice, we found out of a total of 102 balsam trees per acre an 

 average of 41 dead and 30 in a dying state. We must admit, therefore, that this is 

 a very serious situation. 



Everybody has still in mind the time of the notorious Nematus Erichsonii, 

 which has killed our tamarack. We are not quite free from this pest which 

 thrives in our woods and nurseries awaiting perhaps the favourable conditions 

 which prevailed years ago to reappear. 



Our white pine reproduction is badly hindered by the white pine weevil, 

 which was found by our inspectors in the whole area covered last summer. It 

 would be interesting to determine which of the two, this pest or the rust, will 

 prove the worse in the long run in the reproduction of this species. If we pass to 

 the fungous diseases we find that there are thousands of trees affected by them; 

 the debris which we are wont to take as necessary waste in lumbering operations 

 tells us how much there is to be learned yet in forest biology. 



I cannot conclude these remarks in a pessimistic tone; I would be sorry to 

 leave you under the impression that we do not fully realize the serious nature of 



