12 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



QUEBEC FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



The annual meeting of the Province 

 of Quebec Forestry Association was 

 held in Forestry Hall, St. James street) 

 Montreal. The President, Hon. H. G. 

 Joly, M.P.P., occupied the chair, and 

 after the usual routine bwsiness, ad- 

 dressed the meeting as follows : — 



Gentlemen. — This Association was 

 founded in October of last year. We have 

 had no meeting since then.as it would have 

 been difficult to collect our members, 

 scattered as they are all over the province, 

 but when we parted, we all knew what 

 each one of us had to do, and we can show 

 some work. 



The first year of our existence has been 

 a good year for us and one of unexpected 

 success, but has been darkened by the loss 

 of a dear and valued fiiend, our Honorary 

 President, Mr. James Little. He died full 

 of years, knowing that the seed sown by 

 his hand so many years ago, in what 

 appeared a hard and ungrateful soil, had 

 sprung up at last and bid fair to ripen and 

 bear fruit bountifully, seemg that his 

 warnings had awakened the country at last 

 and that the danger of total destruction to 

 our forests, first pointed out by him. had 

 been admitted by the thinking men of this 

 continent. 



I will now briefly sum up the work of the 

 year, merely reminding you beforehand, 

 that our association has no t^unds or next 

 to it, and that it relies on the personal 

 exei'tions of its members for doing the 

 woik that the association had in view, 

 planting trees, as each meml)er undertakes 

 to plant or sow twenty-five forest trees 

 every year. 



We iiavobeen well supported by the Hon. 

 AV. W, Lynch, the Connnissionor of Crown 

 Lands ; he has thrown himself, heart and 

 soul, into the work, and we are deeply in- 

 debted to him, not only for the success of 

 our fiist "■ Arbor Day," but for the intro- 

 duction, in our I^egislature, of laws which 

 have for their object tiie carrying out of the 

 views expressed by the American Forestry 

 Congress and by u.s, for the protection of 

 forests a/ainst fire and waste, and for the 

 classification of public lands in such a man- 

 ner that settlement should be encouraged 1 



on the lands best fitted for agriculture, and 

 that lands only fit for the growth of timber, 

 and especially pine, should be reserved for 

 that purpose, as long as it does not inter- 

 fere wi'th the colonization of the country. 



Our first " Arbor Day " has been an un- 

 expected success, not only in the large 

 cities, like Montreal and Quebec, but espe- 

 cially in many of the country parishes, 

 where it was much wanted, and where the 

 clergy were most zealous in encouraging 

 the people, in many cases setting the 

 example by planting trees with their own 

 hands. 



The Council of Public Instruction are 

 equally entitled to our gratitude for the way 

 in which they have encouraged the observa- 

 tion of " Arbor Day " in all educational 

 establishments under their control. 



It will be a satisfaction for you to know 

 that the news of the first '' Arbor Day " in 

 the Froviuce of Quebec has reached such 

 distant countries as Algeria, and that the 

 example set by us is likely to be followed 

 there. 



In the absence of reports I'rom all the 

 different localities, it is iurjossiblc for me to 

 sa)'^ how many forest trees have been sown 

 or planted in the pr'ivince by the members 

 of our association and by the people at 

 large, on Arbor Day. I hope we shall be 

 able to devise means for securing all those 

 reports for another year, and for publishing 

 a summary of them, if not the whole. 



In the meantime I can take upon myself 

 to state that many thousands of forest trees 

 hive been planted or sown since our meet- 

 ing last auiumn. 'fhere is one tree, how- 

 ever, upon which I can speak with a good 

 deal of certainty ; it is the ash-leaved 

 maple (acer negundo, or box elder or erable 

 a giguiei'es). During the last twelve or 

 thirteen months from four to five hundred 

 thousand seed-; of that tree must have been 

 sown in the Province of Quebec. I come 

 to that conclusion from the number ot 

 pounds of seed that have been sold during 

 that time, as reported to me by those who 

 most largely deal in that article. 



The extraordinary rapidity of growth of 

 the ash-leaved maple, the shortness of the 

 time required before it can produce sugar 

 (and thereby replace the old sugar oi'chards 

 of the past) have acted as a wonderful sti- 



