9 



dary district, contains a large quantity of very valuable timber, compris- 

 ing one of the chief timber reserves in all the north-west, so far as present 

 information is obtainable. This timber is in a position where it will 

 always command ready sale, and comparatively untouched by the lum- 

 bermen or settler, offers as yet a most excellent opportunity not only for 

 procuring timber, but also for maintaining the supply. In Muskoka, 

 Parry Sound, Algoma, and the Georgian Bay district there are forests of 

 some size, and on the north-east of the Province a large extent of forest 

 exists. The great water-shed which crosses the eastern part of Ontario 

 stretches from north-west to north-east, from near Nipissing till it strikes 

 the St Lawrence near Kingston. This height of land separates the 

 waters running into the lakes, and those running into the Ottawa River. 

 It is emphatically a land of moisture and of streams. It abounds with 

 numerous and beautiful lakes, rivers and water powers that would 

 delight the eyes of a manufacturer. The great slope leading to this 

 watershed from the Ottawa River, bordering the north-east of the settled 

 portion of Ontario, is, so far as fire has yet spared them, clothed with 

 w r oods. Partly the lumberman has here and there taken out timber, 

 partly they are untouched by his axe. But the settler is gradually 

 encroaching on this district, and all along the northern border its edge is 

 annually being fretted, and pierced with roads. Isolated farms are being 

 cleared in its solitude, and the forest is yearly becoming drier and more 

 dry, and its outer edge presents a most inviting aspect for fires to run 

 through it in a dry summer. This, the principal forest reserve, as the 

 one which feeds the sources of most of the streams east of Toronto, is 

 likely, under present conditions, to disappear much more rapidly than 

 did the more heavy and deciduous woods in the older settled districts. 

 The main reason why this mass of forest has not been ere this more 

 deeply penetrated by the settler is that the land is not nearly so good for 

 agricultural purposes as that in the older settled districts of the Province. 

 It is a granite formation and lacks lime, and will never equal in an agri- 

 cultural capacity that based on a limestone formation. Referring to this, 

 to the Muskoka and to the Parry Sound regions, which in many respects 

 are similar, Mr. Phipps says, it is a matter of great importance to preserve 

 the pine forests in these vicinities, and that, for these reasons 



1. They are the true pine reserves of the older districts of Ontario. 



2. The land whereon they stand can never yield, for purposes of agri- 

 culture, anything like the return it is capable of producing if maintained 

 in continual pine-bearing forest. 



3. If proper care be taken these great districts can, by the adoption of 

 European methods, be placed in a state of continual reproduction, which 

 will allow, every year, a very large amount of valuable pine to be cut 

 without clearing the land or in any way injuring the forest capacity for 

 production. 



4. It would be far better to commence the preservation of forest areas 

 along the present existing line of clearing than to commence similar 



