xii REPORT OF THE No. 3 



the berths surveyed at the earliest possible moment, so that the timber could be 

 advertised for sale and cut this winter, before becoming a total loss. The sale of 

 the damaged timber, having regard to all the circumstances, was fairly satisfac- 

 tory. The plain duty was to realize what we could for the Province, and this was 

 promptly done. Some of the timber licensees had timber damaged on their own 

 limits, which we were pressing them to cut, and consequently we had not the sharp 

 competition for this damaged timber, that we otherwise would have had. We are 

 expecting that the bulk of the seriously damaged timber will be cut this winter, and 

 a further proportion next year, and that the actual waste may be kept considerably 

 below 50,000,000 feet board measure. 



Railways. 



We have had large staffs of rangers along the Temiskaming and Northern 

 Ontario, the Transcontinental, the Canadian Northern, and the Canadian Pacific. 

 There is a very large number of men engaged in railway construction, througl; 

 the northern part of the Province, from the boundary of Quebec to that of 

 Manitoba, — a distance of nearly a thousand miles. A large percentage of this 

 labor is foreign, with no knowledge of the laws or ways of this country, — not 

 speaking English, — with no care or thought about the danger of using fire during 

 the dry season, and yet constantly using it for a variety of purposes, — cooking, 

 smudges, smoking and in other ways. The only hope of preventing this line of 

 railway construction becoming a belt of fire, was by placing fire rangers along it, 

 who constantly brought before the people employed the necessity for caution in 

 the uBe of fire and extinguishing it when it had served its immediate purpose. 

 The penalty of the law for neglect of care was also kept before these people, and the 

 railway engineers, contractors and foremen, and all who were in authority were 

 urged to keep before the labor element the danger from forest fires, and what they 

 should do to prevent them. The presence of these fire rangers patrolling the line 

 every day, kept thedr duty ever present to the railway authorities, and had an 

 otherwise good effect upon the labor employed. If there had been no rangers there, 

 fire would have been constantly, freely and dangerously used, and the forest along- 

 side that road for a thousand miles would have become a waste. 



There is a splendid spruce forest all along this line, capable of producing 

 great traffic for the railway, inducing the erection of pulp and paper mills, and 

 affording employment to thousands of people, who will, in the near future, find 

 happy and prosperous homes in that great clay belt. It will require great effort 

 and considerable expense to protect this timber, but it will well re-pay all the 

 money spent for this purpose, if the timber is preserved. 



The railways have been blamed as a prolific cause of forest fires. That rail- 

 way construction causes forest destruction needs no argument, for the evidence in 

 the back parts of the Province to those travelling through it, is plain to the eye. 

 The authorities of all the great railways have assured the Department, time and 

 again, that they are making every effort to prevent fires along their lines, and there 

 is no doubt that this is true, as their property and public life are endangered by 

 the occurrence of forest fires along lines of railway. The tremendous interest that 

 has, for the past few years, been taken in the protection of the forest from destruc- 

 tion by fire, has no doubt spurred them on to every effort to prevent fires along their 

 lines, and we may hope for more care, and a better state of affairs in the future.^ 



The Conservation Commission of the Dominion is taking the matter up with 

 a view to obtaining stringent legislation, to compel railways to exercise greater care, 



