CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 33 



In this country we have given little or no attention to it, and while we could be grow- 

 ing our own seed, we have to import foreign seed because we can get it cheaper. Last 

 week I learned that very little of the seed in this country had been saved last year, 

 and the only seed that could be obtained was seed from Germany. Why cannot we in 

 this country, with our vast forests, save the seeds of our own trees as cheaply and to 

 better advantage than having to import German seed ? What we should do is to train 

 our young men and there are hundreds of young men in this country who are 

 anxious for this work. We have some of them here and they have either to go to 

 (Id-many for it, or to some American institution where forestry is being taught. We 

 want more liberal support for forest education in Ontario. Then we will have the 

 men to give us definite information as to what the forest requires. What we should 

 do is strengthen the hands of our legislators in a more liberal support of forestry 

 education. 



Mr. ANSON GROH Mr. Chairman, with regard to sustaining the Government in 

 the work undertaken in promoting .the planting of trees, I will make these remarks. 

 For the last two or three years, locally and on institute work, I have been requested 

 to do a little talking along the farmers' wood lot line, and I find there is no question 

 we can bring up that will arouse so much enthusiasm as that idea. It is only neces- 

 sary to point to what they can accomplish. Right in my own section we have some 

 fine cases of pine following pine. My own father-in-law has pointed to his pinery 

 and told me that those trees had all grown up since he was a little boy, and that he 

 had been accustomed to follow the cows through those very fields when it was a small 

 brush. In that way we estimate that the trees are eighty years old. We examined 

 those trees last week and found some of them three feet in diameter. The old gentle- 

 man had been raised on a farm north of us, and he said he remembered well a forest 

 fire which occurred when he was a boy four years old. In great excitement his parents 

 gathered all the water tubs on the roof to be ready for emergencies, the sky darkened 

 with the smoke and soon everything was down and the ground quite clear. I said, 

 ' You do not mean to say that those big pine trees have grown since that time ? ' 

 ' Every one of them,' he said. I have cut trees over 28 inches in diameter from the 

 scene of that burn. In fact I have counted the rings and find his words are true, that 

 the pine dates from about the beginning of the century. There is, therefore, no diffi- 

 culty along the line of pine following pine. As soon as the enthusism and interest 

 of the people is raised, I believe the Government will be supported in anything judi- 

 cious that is done, and we trust it will do nothing else, as we have every reason to 

 believe. But education is required. An old gentleman over 70 years old showed me 

 some ridges he intended to re-forest. Even the old men are interested, but the young 

 men are particularly so. In regard to the matter of seeds, would say that I have -been 

 hunting seeds myself but cannot get them. I do not think pine produces seed evd-y 

 year but about every three years, so that we shall have to seek them when they are to 

 be found. 



Mr. CANN. I must be one of the old men that this gentleman referred to, and 

 was born in the forest of Ontario seventy years ago. You were kind enough to say thi> 

 morning, sir, that the audience, as well as the members of your Association, would be 

 allowed to speak. I wish to take advantage of that privilege, although not n'memli T 

 of your Association. 



3 



