CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 11 



FATHER BURKE. I would move that the report be received and discussed clause 

 by clause. 



Mr. WHITE. On a motion to adopt the report it can be discussed as widely as it 

 is desirable to discuss it. 



The CHAIRMAN. The report is now open for discussion. I notice by the pro- 

 gramme that the president is expected to make an address. However, I have not 

 been very well, and I feel that the report covers pretty much anything that I could 

 say. Therefore, I think the association will excuse me from making a lengthened 

 address, further than to say that last year, at the annual meeting it was decided to 

 hold the present annual meeting in the city of Toronto, the capital of Ontario, and 

 we were all pleased to be able to fall in with that view, and very highly pleased to 

 see how well the association has been received in the city of Toronto. 



It is a most important matter, this matter of forestry. I am not going to make 

 a speech about it, but I do not think there is anything that the people in Canada 

 should think more of than presenting their views and securing for themselves that 

 great heritage which is given to us in this great Canada of ours. And the object of 

 the association is not only reforestry, but that greater question, perhaps, the taking 

 care of the forests we now have, and assisting nature in her work; allowing the seed- 

 lings to come up and take the place of the older trees, and using every care possible 

 in that respect. 



But then again the greatest danger which appears to our common country is 

 that from fire. It is started in various ways, some of them, it would seem, perhaps, 

 for the time, legitimate, in the matter of clearing .land which cannot be helped. 

 But that could be done at the proper time. But the great danger is from pot-hunters, 

 and persons under the name of settlers, who go in and start fires with the view of 

 making little homes in places where they never should go, thus burning over areas 

 of country which are lost to the people of Canada. 



And another great danger we find is that from railways. It will surprise some 

 here, perhaps, for me to tell them that last year on a certain railway in the Ottawa 

 valley a fire, and a very bad one, started on the line of railway, and that that fire was 

 started, not by lumbermen, not by pot-hunters, not by settlers, but by the railway 

 men themselves. They did this, of course, from their point of view, in a way which 

 was right; that is, to take out the old ties and place them in piles along the lines of 

 railway and, at any time that suits the section master, to burn them. Now, they 

 started fires in this way on the line of railway, and rangers were immediately sent 

 to put out the fire. And while they were engaged on the upper end of the line the 

 section men were starting other fires at the lower end. To my mind this is most 

 tinl. and a great danger to the forests is in that regard. The general manager 

 of the railway knew nothing about that, and the moment it was brought to his notice 

 the company gave it strict attention, and very promptly discontinued the practice. 

 But the very fact that these men had not been warned shows that there was some- 

 thing wrong. Now, the construction of railways, the clearing of land, under-brush- 

 ing, the smudges made by the men during fly-time, and smokers all these are great 

 dangers to our forests, and, indeed, some lumbermen who have bought very largely 



