The Canadian Forestry Association. 3 



"The great standby for coniferous timber will be Canada, 

 if the Government does not lose time in introducing a rational 

 management of her forests." 



What is the actual forest situation in Canada to-day? Ori- 

 ginally covered by an immense forest, stretching from the At- 

 lantic to the Pacific, unbroken save where the prairie fire and the 

 buffalo had won for themselves a place on the plains of the West, 

 the axe and fire and the advance of settlement have so changed 

 the face of nature that the hardwood forests have practically 

 disappeared, and with the exception of birch and, to a less ex- 

 tent, maple, Canada is dependent almost wholly on outside 

 sources for her hardwood supply. Those who have had oppor- 

 tunity of obsen/ation state that not more than one-third of her 

 coniferous forests are mature timber, the remainder being brul^ 

 or small trees. In many districts fire has dotie its work by itself 

 or as an accessory to the axe, with such destructive effect that 

 large tracts, once forest- clad, are now bared to the rock or sand 

 foundation upon which so much of the coniferous forest stands, 

 and left useless and unproductive, efforts to convert them to agri- 

 cultural purposes having proved utterly futile. 



Flowirg from the great forest-clad hills and mountains of 

 the Dominion are numerous perennial streams which in their 

 descent form water-powers of immense possibilities and value, 

 and furnish supplies of moisture to the plains beneath, plains 

 which, in some cases, in order to their successful cultivation, re- 

 quire a substantial addition to the scanty rainfall which they 

 receive. The possibilities of electrical development and other 

 uses of the energy furnished by these streams open immeasur- 

 able limits to Canada's industrial future. And the even flow, 

 and in some situations, the very existence of sixch watercourses 

 depends on the preservation of the forests at their sources. In 

 Southern France, at the beginning of the last century, the slopes 

 of the Pyrenees, the Cevennes, the Alps, were deforested and left 

 bare to the action of the elements. The results were the trans- 

 formation of even-flowing streams into rushing torrents, the ero- 

 sion of the slopes into gullies and ridges, destructive land-slides, 

 and the deposit of silt on the plains beneath to such an extent 

 that some 8,000,000 acres of once fertile soil in twenty depart- 

 ments were involved in the disastrous consequences of forest 

 destruction on 1,000,000 acres of mountain slopes. France has 

 already s|)ent $20,000,000 to help repair this condition and re- 

 place the forests, and it is estimated that more than $30,000,000 

 will have to be expended before the area which the State pos- 

 sesses, only some 800,000 acres, will be restored. Canada has 

 no speciaf dispensation from Providence, and a similar trans- 

 gression of the laws of nature will inevitably bring the same re- 

 sults. Is there not, therefore, reason that this question should 



