THE CONFERENCE AND DINNER. 187 



Dominion, and the Convention held then was one of the greatest 

 things we have had to help the Forest Administration in Canada. 

 The present Premier at this time has under consideration the 

 question of calling another Convention. We have, of course, a 

 different question in Canada from the question as it faces you 

 here, and one thing that does strike us very much at first is the 

 extent to which the matter is considered from a private point of 

 view here, in contrast to the way in which it is considered almost 

 entirely from the public point of view in Canada. The forests 

 are in the hands of the Government, and perhaps that is one 

 reason why that view is taken, but, at the same time, the 

 Government in assisting forestry work has not confined itself to 

 its own lands or to its own special interests. 



" I may just mention the three special ways in which forestry has 

 been assisted or taken up by the Government. In the first place, 

 I would mention that the Dominion Government makes an annual 

 grant to the Canadian Forestry Association to assist it in carrying 

 on its work. I do not know whether you have induced the British 

 Government to do that for the Royal Scottish Arboricultural 

 Society; but I know this, that you are just as deserving of that 

 support as the Canadian Association is, and I think more so, 

 because of your longer existence and the longer time you have 

 been struggling with this great problem, which is a very difficult 

 one everywhere. In the second place, we are giving some assist- 

 ance to private owners who are living out in the prairie districts. 

 We have taken up that phase of assistance to private owners 

 first, because it was a most pressing one. As you know, we 

 have extensive tracts of land in the west, prairies where for miles 

 you do not see a tree growing. Here and there is an isolated 

 home on these prairies, absolutely unsheltered, bare and uninvit- 

 ing-looking, and the Government came to the conclusion that it 

 was its province and duty to do something to provide shelter for 

 these people round their homes, and to give them a supply of 

 wood. As a matter of fact, the Government at the present time 

 is maintaining a large forest nursery at Saskatchewan, and is 

 giving trees without charge to the farmers in the Western 

 Provinces in order to assist them in this work. Thirdly, we are 

 doing some work in assisting private owners by giving advice. 

 We have at the present time one man on our staff whose special 

 duty it is to assist private owners by looking over their properties 

 and sivins: advice in regard to the management. We intend to 



