J08 CA\ADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



hands of strong financial interests which can afford to await the cleaning out of the 

 supplies which remain in less far sighted hands. The ' unearned increment,' as Henry 

 George would call it. will yield a bountiful harvest for those who have been wise enough 

 to provide themselves with large supplies. In Canada we must thank our fathers for 

 the wisdom shown in keeping this most valuable natural asset for the whole people. 

 It is our duty to conserve it by wise utilization and transmit it unimpaired to the 

 generations who follow us. 



CANADIAN FOREST RESOURCES. 



The forest resources of Canada are very great. Just how great no one at present 

 can know, for vast areas known to be forested are as yet quite unexplored. It would, 

 of course, be a fatal error to assume that they are inexhaustible. Twenty years ago 

 the white pine in Michigan was regarded as inexhaustible. To-day six million acres 

 which thirty years ago carried the finest white pine forest in the world have been aban- 

 doned by their owners for taxes and lie almost wholly waste, a man-made desert, the 

 combined result of a reckless use of the axe and a still more reckless use of fire. While 

 it is very improbable that any considerable body of men hold that the forests of Canada 

 are inexhaustible, I believe that not a few over-estimate the national forest wealth. 

 True, we have some hundreds of millions of acres of forest lands. Lands which on ac- 

 count of their non-agricultural character must, or at least should, always remain undei 

 forest cover. Such an area is almost beyond human comprehension. So, too, I fear is 

 the destruction of the forest by fire in this northern vastness. I have read with some 

 care the stories told by explorers, surveyors and trappers and all tell a tale of forest 

 destruction by fire during the last twenty or thirty years, which, if the total could be 

 brought together, would stagger belief. I have myself made a somewhat extended trip 

 beyond the height of land in northern Ontario, and during the three weeks' travel I 

 did not see a square mile of forest which did not show traces of having suffered by one 

 or more fires during the last 150 years. A section of Banksian pine, cut near Matta- 

 gami, on the western border of the Temagami forest reserve, showed positive evidence 

 of having suffered from severe fire four times within the last 66 years, at intervals of 

 9, 13 and 42 years respectively. The lesson from what we do know regarding the oc- 

 currence of fire in the far north is a double one, viz., that we must at the earliest possi- 

 ble moment reach the Indians in that country and do whatever may be done to educate 

 them to use greater care in the use of fire, and that in the meantime we must not bank 

 on forest resources proportionate to forest area until we know more about this portion 

 of our asset by examination at first hand. 



Should, however, the injury and destruction of the northern forests be quite as 

 great as I fear, we have still without the shadow of a doubt an asset in our woodlands 

 which if conserved by wise use will make Canada one of the richest of the nations. 

 In considering the future of our forests it is of the utmost importance to note that 

 we have for our nearest and most accessible neighbour a nation which now consumes 

 more than half the sawn lumber produced in the world. This nation is also growing 

 several times more rapidly than any other civilized country. It has before it still greater 

 possibilities of wealth and growth in population. The Mississippi valley is undoubt- 

 edly the richest valley in the world and will by the time another crop of trees is grown 

 contain fully 100,000,000 population. The forests of the United States are being de- 

 cimated more rapidly than was ever before witnessed in the history of the world. 

 Ihe most optimistic predictions state that the present supplies can scarcely meet the 

 present demand for more than sixty years. Bui the consumption of wood increased 

 ten fold during the last sixty years. What must be the situation if it should increase 

 five, three or even two fold during the next sixty years ? Beyond a doubt a revolution 

 with regard to our conventional ideas of the value of stumpage lies before us. It has 

 indeed already begun and events are moving swiftly. 



But while we in Canada should take a careful survey of the broader field of the 

 world's markets that we may intelligently hold or dispose of our surplus stocks, the 



