CANADA AS A FIELD FOR INTELLIGENT FORESTRY. 



E. Stewart, Dominion Superintendent of Forestry. 



The production and proper utilization of the unoccupied 

 forests of Canada is a matter that demands the serious consider- 

 ation of the Canadian people. Very few countries possess so 

 large an area of forest lands as Canada, and while a part of 

 this is fit for and will be brought under cultivation for the 

 growth of agricultural products in the future, a large proportion 

 is unfit for this purpose, and can be more profitably left for the 

 production of timber and to protect the game, which is also an 

 important product of our northern regions. 



Before, however, dealing with these unoccupied forests of 

 the north, let us consider for a moment the uncleared lands of 

 the older provinces granted by the Crown for agricultural pur- 

 poses, and also those under license as timber limits. 



According to the census of 1901, 34% of the total area of the 

 farms of the five eastern provinces is still in forest. If this quan- 

 tity of woodland were uniformly distributed throughout all parts 

 of these provinces, the most exacting economic forestal demands 

 would be met, but this is very far from being the case. In the 

 older settlements in most cases very little woodland is left, the 

 high average percentage being made up by the newer districts,. 

 but here too the axe and the forest fires are busy in bringing about 

 similar conditions to those now prevailing in the old frontier 

 countries, in some of which the countr}^ is almost denuded, and 

 resembles in bleakness our western plains. It is a well under- 

 stood fact that a certain proportion of the area of any district 

 should be left in forest. This may vary from, say, 10% to 30%. 

 There are some districts in the older provinces where there is not 

 5% left, and the result is to be seen in the disastrous spring floods 

 followed later on in the season by droughts, where in former 

 years, before the country was cleared up, neither the one nor the 

 other was ever experienced. This state of affairs is becoming so 

 common in many parts that it is high time that the municipalities 

 should take action to encourage the farmers to leave a portion of 

 their farms in forest by reducing or freeing such wooded areas 

 from taxation or by other means to this end. But the farmer 

 himself will not only be doing good to the community at large, 

 but also best serving his own interests by allowing a certain por- 

 tion of his farm to remain in forest as a wood-lot. Space will 

 not permit me to deal with the farmer's wood-lot further than 

 to say that there are very few farms which have not a certain 

 percentage of land that is better adapted, and can be more pro- 



