58 



Canadian Forestry Journal. 



cers of the Department is that such 

 a plantation would demonstrate to 

 the farmers of Ontario how best to 

 proceed Avith the reforestation of 

 any such lands they may have on 

 their farms, and also to demonstrate 

 that the reforestation of considerable 

 blocks of these lands can be profit- 

 ably undertaken by municipalities 

 or by individuals who are able to 

 wait a considerable time for re- 

 turns. 



The village of St. AVilliams is 

 ninety miles from Toronto, and the 

 plantation is situated three miles 

 from the village. The county of 



the land farmed. Norfolk county was 

 one of the earliest settled in the 

 western peninsula of Ontario, and 

 the farm which forms the centre of 

 the Government's operations was 

 settled in 1804. It was bought back 

 by the Government in 1908 for $5 

 per acre. A picture of the home- 

 stead just after it had been abandon- 

 ed is given herewith. (See page 61.) 

 A study of this district on the 

 spot gives a different impression 

 from that obtained from reading or 

 even from pictures. The situation is 

 both worse and better than it seems 

 at a distance. It is better in that 



Blow sand held by Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), planted in Spring of 1910. 



Norfolk is on the whole a most fer- 

 tile one and one of the best in the 

 province of Ontario. It is becoming 

 famous as a great apple country, 

 and cherries, plums, pears and even 

 peaches are grown. It has, however, 

 a number of sandy ridges, covering, 

 all told, nearly ten thousand acres, 

 and it is on these that the work of 

 reforestation has begun. Starting 

 three years aero with the purchase of 

 three hundred acres the Department 

 has now acquired a block of thir- 

 teen hundred acres of ridge land. 

 Most of this has been cut over and 



the good land reaches up so close to 

 these ridges, and it is worse in that 

 it has been bad farming (using that 

 Avord in its broad sense) that has 

 brous-ht these ridges to their present 

 condition, made them useless in 

 themselves and dangerous as regards 

 the good lands adjoining. 



Professor Zavitz has gone to work 

 vigorously, and has already made 

 a great change in the area. Two of 

 the best farmhouses on adjoining 

 farms having the largest amount of 

 land suitable for nurseries have been 

 improved and fitted up for the fore- 



