FORESTS. 131 



tion engaged in the fisheries keeps up a supply of 

 hardy and excellent seamen. At present only wooden 

 ships are built, but when Canada comes to be one of the 

 great countries of the world, her dockyards, winter 

 harbours, and building yards will be in Nova Scotia. 

 There is no better place for the manufacture of iron ships. 

 Even as it is Nova Scotia boasts that she owns more 

 shipping per head of her population than any other 

 country in the world. As a coaling station for the steam 

 navy of England the importance of Nova Scotia cannot be 

 over-estimated. In fact, it is not too much to say that if 

 in any future war we had the misfortune to be shut out 

 from Nova Scotian ports, we might at once proceed to 

 haul down the Union Jack on the Atlantic Ocean. 



There is a good deal of lumbering done in the province. 

 Two thousand acres of forest is the nominal limit allowed 

 to one person for lumbering purposes, but there are ways of 

 evading this law, and it is held by many that the forests 

 are better protected when leased by individuals for lum- 

 bering purposes than when owned directly by the State. 



" In a province like Nova Scotia," I quote from the 

 report of the Commissioner of crown lands, " which in the 

 nature and fitness of things, must become largely a 

 manufacturing and commercial country, every effort 

 should be made to save and protect the trees, every day 

 becoming more and more valuable, and which cover and 

 render more beautiful and profitable, large tracts of 

 country; which, if stripped of its timber, would become 

 an unsightly barren waste. The rate at which the settled 

 portions of North America are being denuded of trees, 

 and the rapidly increasing demand for timber, and 



