CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 63 



CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 

 By Robson Black, Manager and Secretary 



The Canadian Forestry Association was founded in 1900 at 

 Ottawa, Canada, by a group of public-spirited lumbermen and others 

 interested in forest conservation. It is devoted wholly to arousing 

 public interest and promoting legislative action in forest protection 

 and the advancement of sylvicultural practice. The Association has 

 been successful in stimulating an intelligent public sentiment result- 

 ing, year by year, in a steady advancement toward a sane forestry 

 regime. 



Accepting forest fire prevention as the predominant necessity, 

 the Association's educational program has largely been concentrated 

 upon overcoming public indifference and ignorance. This task of 

 education, in which many Government and private agencies are now 

 giving valued assistance, has not been an easy one to accomplish. For 

 long years financial support of the Association's campaigns proved 

 sluggish, but as public interest in the subject of forestry deepened 

 and economic changes placed new pressure upon the forest possessions, 

 the practical patriotism of the Association's propaganda rapidly 

 widened the circle of supporters until at the present time the revenues 

 total about $80,000 a year with an additional $15,000 received in the 

 form of donated materials and services. 



The Association's program makes use of a Forest Exhibits Car, 

 which has been called " A Travelling School in Forest Protection," 

 attracting more than 250,000 people in the smaller communities 

 annually and about 65,000 additional at the evening lectures on forest 

 fire prevention; the Tree Planting Car, confined to the Prairie 

 Provinces, devoted wholly to the stimulating of tree planting in the 

 open agricultural sections, carries practical help and inspiration to about 

 400 public gatherings annually and to thousands of individual farmers ; 

 the Publicity Bureau, in league with 500 Canadian editors ; travelling 

 lecturers, with motion picture equipment, visiting the forested com- 

 munities where fires frequently get their start; popular lectures to 

 business mens' clubs ; cooperative educational work through thousands 

 of schools and churches ; a Speakers' Bureau, with 6000 members, two 

 thirds of them school teachers, utilizing Association manuscripts in 

 their classrooms month by month; use of essay competitions, with 



