CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 61 



THIRD SESSION. 



Friday, March 10, 1905. 



The meeting was caller to order at 10.30, the president, Mr. Aubrey White, in the 

 chair. He said: 



Unfortunately Dr. Longley has not been able to be with us, but he has very kindly 

 sent us his paper on ' Forestry in Nova Scotia.' I would ask the secretary to read 

 Dr. Longley's paper. 







The secretary, Mr. R. H. Campbell, then read the following paper: 

 FORESTRY IN NOVA SCOTIA. 



HON. J. W. LONGI.EY. 



Attorney General and Commissioner of Crown Lands. 



The quantity of land available for lumbering purposes in Nova Scotia has never 

 been, and is not now, large. The province itself is small and a considerable portion of 

 it has been cultivated and improved. In years gone by the government was in the habit 

 of granting outright to lumbermen land for lumbering purposes at 40c. an acre and 

 the grant was absolute and conveyed the fee simple of the land to the grantee. The 

 larger number of the large lumbering concerns of Nova Scotia, such as Davisons, 

 Alfred Dickie, Nova Scotia Lumbering -Company, the Margaret's Bay Company, Pickles 

 & Mills, Clarke Brothers, Benjamin and others are all carrying on their enterprises 

 for the most part with land on which they are paying nothing, it having been obtained 

 by absolute grant from the government at 40c. per acre. This system of granting in 

 fee simple was terminated in 1889 and it was provided that each lot of timber land 

 should be leased for twenty years instead of granted outright and the price was made 

 40c. per acre in the case of land on which the timber to be cut should not be less than 

 10 inches in diameter and a lease to meet the case of pulp wood in which timber could 

 be cut at 6 inches diameter was to pay 50c. per acre. During the last session, 1904, 

 the price for these leases was just doubled 80c. per acre for the timber lease and $1 

 per acre for the pulp lease. 



The timber lands of Nova Scotia which are good, are very good, and the existence 

 of numerous streams, lakes, &c., facilitates the manufacture of lumber and it has been 

 shown by actual experience that the growth of timber will equal the amount cut by 

 the lumbermen each year, provided that lumbering is carried on on a sound and econom- 

 ical basis. Large lumbermen in Nova Scotia cut only the larger trees in any one 

 locality during the lumbering season, and then pass on to another, adopting the same 

 principle, and the growth is such that in ten or twelve years another cut is available 

 the growth, under fair conditions, keeping pace with the cut. 



The difficulty, however, has been that occasionally a great fire would sweep over 

 the lumbering districts and destroy millions of dollars' worth of trees and very often 

 leave the land in such condition that a fresh growth was either slow or impossible. 



The problem, therefore, of preserving the lumbering industry in Nova Scotia is 

 the prevention of fires. An Act to prevent forest fires has been on the statute book 

 since 1883, but it has accomplished nothing because no machinery was provided for 

 putting it into effective operation. Last year the government introduced and carried 



