Canadian Forestry Journal. Af'ril, ipso. 



Sir Andrew's Forest Obsequies 



155- 



When the President of the Can- 

 adian Pulp and Paper Association is 

 persuaded to deliver an address be- 

 fore the Academy of Medicine on the 

 Thyroid Gland, perhaps the news- 

 papers will give the delivery as much 

 publicity as the recent speech of Sir 

 Andrew AlacPhail on Forestry. Sir 

 Andrew is professor of "The History 

 of Medicine," at McGill Universiy. 

 He spoke before the Canadian Pulp 

 and Paper Association on the eco- 

 nomics of forestry and repeated the 

 address before a Toronto audience. 

 Probably five thousand people read 

 parts of the address from newspaper 

 columns to a hundred who sat beneath 

 the speaker. The efifect of the deliv- 

 erance has been in direct ratio to Sir 

 Andrew's standing as a scientist and 

 editor, and without relation to his 

 scholarly inexperience in the techni- 

 cal subject with which he chose to 

 deal. 



Hie Forestry journal has not the 

 slightest intention of considering the 

 address seriously. We give below 

 certain excerpts typical of Sir An- 

 drew's conclusions. There are many 

 men in Canada who hold such fragile 

 opinions, men who ha\e ])icked up a 

 bit here, a bit there, but who do not 

 muster enough audacity to put the 

 product forward as a treatise on a 

 complex suliject. tested by two cen- 



turies of scientific eftort, and by half 

 a dozen great nations. 



No, Sir Andrew, the principles of 

 forestry, applied to the forest have 

 given one European nation a forest 

 property worth seven billions of dol- 

 lars in not more than one hundred 

 years. She grew it from stuff as pro- 

 mising as the Duck Mountain Re- 

 serve in Manitoba, if you've seen that. 

 We can do things equally great in 

 Canada. To suggest nowadays that 

 Canadians have deliberately built up 

 a pulp and paper industry with 250 

 millions invested, and an export busi- 

 ness of 100 millions a year, only to 

 .sit in the parlor car and watch" the 

 forests disappear and the mills rot. — 

 No. Sir Andrew, that is almost im- 

 probable. It happens in Tien Tsing. 

 but nowhere near Three Rivers. 



"So you must not be too disconso- 

 late and think too much of the end,"" 

 advises the good physician. 



Once a train came rushing- toward 

 a river bank ; its speed was fifty miles 

 an hour. Surely it must plunge to a 

 fearful destruction ! The faces of all 

 beholders were l)lanched with terror. 

 But it was all for naught. The train 

 happened to find a bridge and passed 

 across the ri\er without vibrating a 

 tcacu]). 



llierc was a bridge in front of vour 

 eyes all tlie time you were -peaking. 

 Sir Andrew, but you couldn't see it. 

 Tt was bidden I)v a Tree. T\. R. 



The Doctrine oj ''All Is Lost" 



( Excerpts from Sir Andrew MacPhail's Speeches ) 



"About a year ago, after five years' 

 absence, I came back and looked u]:)on 

 these woods. I found that what had 

 happened was i:)reciscly what had 

 happened throughout tlir \\hi«1c of 

 Canada; that the w(X)d had been tle- 

 caying, and into the holes caused by 

 this decay had come disease, because 

 that is the law. 'I'hat is the law of 

 human pathology, as well as the law 

 of the forests, that wherever you have 



age, and wherever you have sickness, 

 and wherever you have age and weak- 

 ness, disease will follow in its train. . . 

 "If you are dispi^sed to ask .ulvice. 

 the ad\ice thai 0110 would gi\e vou 

 would be to continue in _\our work, 

 get rid of all the pulp wood that exists 

 as quickly as possible, for thi'^ ro.ison. 

 that if you don't, it will onl\- perish, 

 and we ^A' this generation might just 

 as well gel what we can out of it.. 



