1912 AND FISHERIES COMMISSION. 137 



existence of forests about their headwaters; that the rainfall and 

 climate are both materially affected by the removal of the forests; and 

 that, as agriculture depends on the water supply, and agricultural 

 exploitation of the land is the backbone of national prosperity, the con- 

 servation of the forests is of the most vital importance to the popula- 

 tion at large. The rapid developments also in the utilization of water- 

 powers and the certainty that as fuel becomes scarcer waterpower will 

 have to take its place for many purposes have undoubtedly very 

 materially added to the importance of the forests which are, as it were, 

 the custodians of the springs from Avhich these waterpowers draw their 

 sources. 



While the wise general policy of the present administration of the 

 Province in regard to the forests indicates clearly that these matters 

 have received and are still receiving the careful and weighty considera- 

 tion they deserve, it is none the less doubtful whether the general public 

 has as yet become alive to their vast significance, both in the present 

 and in regard to the near and distant future. It would seem, indeed, 

 that the efforts of the Canadian Commission of Conservation and 

 Canadian Forestry Association to tin's end might well be augmented 

 by the publication and distribution of literature and general dissemi- 

 nation of knowledge on this subject broadcast throughout the Province 

 at provincial expense, for so long as the general public remains ignorant 

 of the vast values at stake, so long will it remain doubtful whether a 

 suflficiency of funds will ever be provided to safeguard and ensure the 

 perpetuation of the forests, whereas, when once the public had become 

 fully seized of the economic functions of the forests in addition to their 

 actual intrinsic value, it cannot be doubted that public demand would 

 ensure the provision of ample funds for their proper conservation, 

 exploitation and general management. 



Forestry is an art of the highest order, and in view of the causes 

 before mentioned, an art that is becoming j^early of greater importance. 

 The fundamental basis of its teaching is that the forests, if properly 

 administered, are not a fleeting but a permanent asset to the nation, 

 and that to regard or treat them as anything else than permanent is the 

 rankest of folly. Naturally, on a continent so abundantly furnished 

 with magnificent forests as America, it took a considerable number of 

 years for these basic truths to be preceived and acknowledged even by 

 the administrations, but the laws of nature operate the same the world 

 over, and that which wanton and extravagant wastefulness had taught 

 the older nations of Europe years before came at last to be impressed on 

 thinking people in America also. Fortunately the havoc wrought by 

 improper methods of cutting and of administration of the timber 

 resources has not as yet affected the vast bulk of the provincial timber 

 areas. Of the 140,000,000 of acres comprising the total area of the 

 Province there is still unsurveyed approximately 94,000,000 acres, and 

 while 24,000,000 acres have been alienated by sales, locations, etc., there 



