A Glance a.t Forest Conditions in New Brunswick. 25 



The above are a few of the many instances which might be 

 adduced to show that man has exhibited a woeful lack of intelli- 

 gence and judgment in destroying the woods which were so abun- 

 dant when the country was discovered. In a comparatively few 

 years he has wasted with a lavish prodigality Nature's slow 

 production of hundreds of years. If great forests of useful and 

 beautiful trees had been rare in this country they would have 

 been husbanded with a care and forethought commensurate 

 with their value; but because thev have been so abundant and 

 easy to convert into money, they have been destroyed with such 

 an ignorance of Nature's processes, and with such a disregard of 

 the rights of future generations, that the results are lamentable, 

 and little short of calamitous. Forests that should have been 

 kept intact by a wise system of cutting out the larger growths and 

 allowing the smaller ones to mature, have been depleted of every- 

 thing that would do for timber, while the refuse, strewn every- 

 where, has fed the fires and doomed many a fine forest region to 

 destruction. 



There are a few forests left intact in the depths of the New 

 Brunswick wilderness where lumbermen have not yet penetrated 

 and which are yet unmarked by the dismal tokens of the fire 

 scourge. A few of these it has been my good fortune to visit — 

 near the headwaters of the numerous branches of the Tobique . 

 What a delight it was to wander through these great natural 

 parks, chiefly of hard or mixed woods, through which one might 

 drive a team, and to look upon the perfectly rounded boles of 

 birches, spruces, elms, beeches, and occasional pines, their tops 

 reaching to the height of from seventy to one hundred feet. 



Mingled with my feeling of admiration was one of regret 

 that in this beautiful province of New Brunswick, once so nobly 

 endowed in its luxuriance of forest wealth, which might have in- 

 creased under wise management with successive generations, 

 trees had been destroyed where they should have been cultivated, 

 Our forefathers in the settlement of the country did much for 

 which it is presumed we are sufficiently grateful ; but would that 

 they had left undone some things which were done! Forest de- 

 struction, however, was a part of the first settlers' work, and a 

 necessary beginning to civilization. 



But among the early settlers there were many who spared 

 some of the forest trees and found comfort in their beauty and 

 shade. They did not begrudge a few feet of soil to the rightful 

 owners, nor treat the trees as enemies or encumbrances, to be 

 rooted out and destroyed. Many of the noble elms that adorn 

 the broad intervals of the St. John, Kennebecasis, and other 

 rivers, show the wisdom and sense of beauty that distinguished 

 the early settlers oi these regions. The magnificent grove of red 

 and white pines, on the grounds of Judge Wilkinson, on the south 



