EDITORIAL NOTES. 



There has probably never before 

 been such a strong effort on the part 

 of maple sugar makers to protect 

 their pure product. The Chief An- 

 alyst for Canada recently analysed 

 128 samples of maple syrup and 

 found 55 adulterated. It is reported 

 that the adulterated samples were 

 wholesome and palatable and a con- 

 troversy has arisen. Some hold that 

 as these adulterated samples are 

 cheaper than real syrup and yet 

 wholesome there is no reason why they 

 should not be sold so that the poor 

 man might get his 'maple' syrup and 

 sugar as well as the rich man. The 

 Pure Maple Syrup and Sugar Asso- 

 ciation of Quebec does not object to 

 the sale of wholesome syrup made 

 from cane or beet sugar, flavored with 

 coal tar products, but what it does 

 object to is the use of the word 

 ' maple. ' The controversy is going on 

 warmly just now and the maple sugar 

 men will undoubtedly make an effort 

 to have a change made in the law and 

 regulations to restrict the word 

 'maple' to products wholly of the 

 maple tree. 



The interest of the Canadian Fores- 

 try Association comes in to this con- 

 troversy in this way: Maple sugar 

 making is carried on in Ontario, Que- 

 bec and the Maritime Provinces and 

 its centre is the Eastern Townships. 

 Much of the land devoted to maple 

 groves is fit for nothing but tree 

 growth. A good maple grove pro- 

 perly worked and cai;ed for is the most 

 profitable use to which this land can 

 be put provided a fair price can be 

 got for the product. The claim is 

 made that owing to the ease of making 

 up substitutes for maple spgar and 

 syrup, substitutes that contain noth- 

 ing whatever of maple, the real pro- 

 duct has been saleable with great dif- 

 ficulty. Many farmers have cut 

 down and sold their groves for cord- 

 wood and the land is totally unpro- 



ductive. This is a state of affairs to 

 which conservationists are opposed. 

 They want to see such land put to 

 the best use, and the best use at the 

 present time is a profitable maple 

 grove. Maple syrup is a luxury and 

 the people who buy it want to get 

 'maple' not syrup. They pay for 

 'maple' and they ought not to be 

 humbugged with sugar cane or beets, 

 no matter how life sustaining a com- 

 bination of beet sugar and coal tar 

 may be. The friends of forest conser- 

 vation want to see the land devoted 

 to its best use and will do what they 

 can to keep rocky and non agricultur- 

 al lands covered with trees instead of 

 becoming barren wastes. 



Readers of Canadian publications 

 of all kinds and particularly readers 

 of agricultural journals, have had 

 dinned into them the dangers in the 

 decline of population in rural On- 

 tario — Ontario being the province in 

 which the tendency is most marked. 

 Rev. John MacDougall, Spencerville, 

 Ont., has issued a book 'Rural Life in 

 Canada,' on this subject. He estim- 

 ates that in the decade 1901-11 rural 

 Ontario lost 373,567 people. One of 

 the chief causes of this decline in 

 population noted by Mr. MacDougall 

 is the farming of soil unfit for culti- 

 vation. The invariable rule is found 

 to be that rural depopulation is great- 

 er from those localities with the less 

 fertile soils. Many of these soils are 

 splendidly adapted to forestry, and 

 Mr. MacDougall regards it as a duty 

 of the nation to see that such soiLs 

 are reforested and that further de- 

 nudation of such soils be prevented. 

 This is not a new story to the forest 

 conservationist but evidently other 

 people are arriving at this conclusion 

 from another starting point. Some 

 of the counties that have lost most 

 heavily have large areas of abandoned 

 sand lands and it would be interesting 

 to follow this out county by county. 



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