282 REPORT OF THE No. 3 



(3) To provide for the removal of trees which, may be planted on the 

 public highway contrary to the provisions of any such by-law. R.S.O., 

 1887, c. 201, s. 10. 



9. The Ontario Tree Planting Act and the Act passed in the 53rd year 

 of Her Majesty's reign, chaptered 60, are repealed. 



Forest Ee serves. 



The undue extent to which deforestation has been carried in the 

 frontier counties of Ontario, and the prospect of the extension of similar 

 conditions to the Northern regions, renders the problem of forest preser- 

 vation one of increasing urgency. The idea that a considerable proportion 

 of the land, including especially the non-arable tracts, should be maintained 

 in perpetual forest, yielding its periodical harvest of timber as an essential 

 economic factor of national prosperity, had its advocates from time to time 

 among our public men. But the liability of the woods to destruction by 

 fire with the advance of settlement, and the general though unfounded 

 belief that only one crop of pine could be secured from the lands, for some 

 time strongly militated against any comprehensive action in the direction 

 of forest preservation. The scientific aspects of the question, however, were 

 beginning to be studied and understood by a few people, and appreciating 

 the growing importance of the subject and the need of popular education as 

 to the value of maintaining a due proportion of woodland, the Ontario 

 Government in 1883 appointed Robert W. Phipps to the position of Clerk of 

 Forestry. 



Bureau of Forestry. 



As originally laid down, and for some years afterwards, the work was 

 almost purely of an educational character, the publications issued being 

 principally intended to rectify conditions in the cleared and cultivated por- 

 tions of the province, where the remaining portions of the original forest 

 are in private hands, and to show the need and desirability of replanting. 

 At the same time the larger aspect of the question was not overlooked. 



The office was at first attached to the Department of Agriculture, but 

 after Mr. Phipps' death, and on the appointment of the present incumbent, 

 a change was made in 1895 bv which its scope was considerably extended. 

 It was transferred from the Department of Agriculture to that of Crown 

 Lands, and connected more directly with the work of administration. The 

 Bureau of Forestry, as thus reconstituted, in place of devoting its main 

 efforts to the dissemination of information among farmers and the forma- 

 tion of public opinion with respect to reforestation on private lands, has 

 been entrusted with the preliminary investigations in connection with the 

 forestry policy now undertaken in the management of considerable tracts 

 of the Crown domain. 



Algonquin National Parh. 



The first step in the direction of a policy of establishing permanent 

 timber reservations was taken by the Ontario Government in 1893, in the 

 setting apart of the Algonquin National Park. The first suggestion of the 

 project was offered by Alexander Kirkwood of the Crown Lands Depart- 

 ment, who, in a memo dated December 21st, 1885, addressed to the Hon. 

 T. B. Pardee, Commissioner of Crown Lands, strongly urged the setting 

 aside of such a reservation embracing the head waters of the Muskoka, 

 Madawaska, Petewawa, and other streams. The matter was considered and 



