MY STORY 



No magazine, no matter how modest it may be or how lit- 

 tle it may pay for its articles, likes to reprint the articles of 

 another. It always seems humiliating to the editor. But 

 every once in a while there is something that simply must be 

 copied. The following article printed by the Canadian For- 

 estry Association is one of them. It is so eminently truthful 

 and so convincing in the plain statement of that truth that it 

 should be reprinted and reprinted till everyone connected in 

 any way with the making of a new country even if he is only 

 an onlooker has read it. 



With this explanation we offer no apologies for placing this 

 article on the front page. 



I'M an Alberta farmer. Fifteen years ago, I owned a 

 place in Peel County, Ontario. In the spring of 

 1916 I started West. 



Queer chances interfere with plans sometimes and I 

 never reached beyond Matheson, a brisk little town on 

 the Temiskaming and Northern Railway. I left the 

 train for a day; I didn't get aboard again for six 

 months. The country looked too good to miss. Splen- 

 did rich soil, good roads, a first-class railway, and 

 ready markets. Being a new country, most of the clear- 

 ings were marked off by thick patches of spruce bush. 



When midsummer came, the smoke of bust fires was 

 everywhere. Hot mornings gave way to hotter after- 

 noons and still the fires raged. Sometimes a settler 

 would pile his debris against the standing timber on 

 the edge of his clearing and then set fire. Another 

 might attempt a windrow, out of reach of the spruce 

 bush, but with no one watching it the first night breeze 

 sent the flames racing across the peaty topsoil and into 

 the forest. On my brother's farm, we tried to burn 

 during the hottest days and burn safe, too. But you 



