54 Canadian Forestry Journal. 



fecting the well being of the Dominion should give him a high 

 place in the respect and affection of Canadians, and especially of 

 the members of the Forestry Association. 



The President, in his address, referred to the pleasure it 

 gave him to preside over the deliberations of the Canadian Forestry 

 Association at its first meeting in the Ancient Capital. Here was 

 the nursery of all the developments that have taken place in| every 

 direction throughout the Dominion. Under the French regime 

 the first Crown Timber regulations were promulgated, and some 

 of the problems which confronted the framers of the early laws 

 have come down to the present day. The rights of the settlers 

 and kindred matters are just as live subjects as they were trwo 

 or three hundred years ago. Mr. White sketched the growth of 

 the forestry movement from the Forest Congress, held in Mon- 

 treal in 1882, to the meeting of the American Forestry Associa- 

 tion in Quebec in 1890, and the establishment of the Canadiani 

 Forestry Association in 19CX). He impressed the two great features 

 of present importance in forestry as the provision for a proper 

 fire preventive service and a division between the agricultural 

 lands and those suited only for the growth of timber. 



The first paper submitted was one on " Forest Fires in 

 British Columbia," prepared by Professor R. W. Brock, of 

 Queen's University. Anyone travelling through the Province 

 is at once struck by the beauty and value of the timber and no less 

 by the terrible havoc wrought upon it by forest fires. British 

 Columbia, as a whole, may be said to be forest-clad, but the 

 growth of trees is more luxuriant on the western slopes of the 

 mountain ranges and the interior plateau contains wide stretches 

 of open grass-covered hills and valleys. The higher mountain 

 ranges rise above the tree line, and merchantable timber is con- 

 fined to the valleys and to the mountain sides to a limited height. 

 While British' Columbia has in the aggregate a vast supply of 

 timber, the only timber that has an immediate market value is 

 that which is near transportation. The percentage of this lost 

 by fire must be appallingly large and unless active steps are taken 

 to prevent this destruction, only a relatively small amount of the 

 timber now standing will ever reach the market. So numerous 

 are the fires in a dry season that the whole country side may be 



