5g CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 



very little do the books of the United States provide it. I have not got the informa- 

 tion yet, and I have made quite a search. You must have scientific training and have 

 men who will make it a business to get this information. One man gets up and tells 

 you this afternoon that you gather your seed in March, another tells us that it is not 

 Well, now, we want this information just right. The woods are decreasing in 

 quantity.' Here and there you find an odd kind of creature who saves his wood. He 

 does not know how to do it, but he keeps his cattle and fire out and then trees grow 

 inside the limits of the woods and so the woods are preserved. But we are only fooling 

 with the question. The Government of Ontario must tackle this question in a 

 business-like way, provide men who will make a study of it, and gather the knowledge 

 in our country, in Germany, and in other countries. They know what to do and we 

 do not know what to do. I speak in a general kind of a way. There seems to be an 

 odd man here and there who does know. If he does he has not written a great many 

 books and has not delivered a great many lectures. (Applause) 



FATHER BURKE. So that we may have something before the chair for discussion, 

 I would like to move the following resolution : 



Resolved, That the action of the General and Provincial Governments be heartily 

 commended for extending the respective foret reserves of the country, and further 



Resolved, That this Association urge upon such Governments the advisability of 

 the country's interest of still further extending this policy of reserves. 



Mr. BERTRAM seconded. 



Mr. CHOWN. I should like to say a word on that, Mr. Chairman. It seems to me 

 that our Forestry Association has been moulding Government policy, especially in 

 Ontario. It seems to me that in a report of our Forestry Association we should have 

 taken more notice of the very important steps that have been taken by the Minister 

 of Crown Lands and his assistants, with not only reservation but what, to my mind, is 

 perhaps more important. The system of reservation has been accepted for some time, 

 and the Government has gone and wisely extended it and accepted the principle that 

 where land is not fit for agriculture that land should be set aside for forest reservation. 

 I would like to say a word upon a further step. The Government has gone further. 

 So far this reservation has been a reservoir of water from which nothing has been 

 drawn, and we should highly commend them. They say the trees in reserve after a 

 time reach maturity, stagnate and decay, and there is damage from windfalls, &c. 

 The Government has stated in the House that they are going to provide in Ontario a 

 system by which the timber is to be cut in such a way that there will be continued 

 re-forestation, while the country will receive the income which will result from this 

 method of disposition. It seems to me, therefore, that we should mark this in some 

 fitting way. There is another matter. The Commissioner of Crown Lands has stated, 

 and it seems to me he is altogether too modest, I am not of his stripe of politics and 

 am therefore not taffying him, that he has undertaken to provide a system of forestry 

 for waste lands. I come from a portion of the country which unfortunately is cursed 

 from these waste lands. I have driven eleven miles in the northern part of Frontenac 

 _ without passing an occupied house. Tnese reservations are not only to be left there 

 but a system of re-forestry will be worked out. The waste lands will not be permitted 



