Sixth Annual Meeting of the Canadian Forestry Association 55 



buried under a dense pall of smoke. In a dry season like last 

 year the fire is apt to consume everything. Last summer Pro- 

 fessor Brock climbed up a hillside through fine green timber and 

 about a week later came down the same place wading knee-deep 

 in ashes. Not a vestige of anything combustible in the soil had 

 been left, the hillside was as bare as the bottom of an alkali pond. 

 Lightning, camp fires, smudges, sparks from locomotives, fires 

 started for clearing land, cause forest fires, and some are set 

 deliberately to clear the land for prospecting. At present one of 

 the most serious handicaps in combatting the fires is lack of or- 

 ganization. It seems to be nobody's business to put out fires. 

 The cost of protective measures should not be excessive nor 

 should it be any barrier where so much is at stake. 



JMr. Jas. Leamy, Dominion Crown Timber Agent at New 

 Westminster, described the fire ranging system in operation in 

 the Railway Belt in British Columbia under Dominion juris- 

 diction, which has resulted in the saving of a great deal of valu- 

 able timber. Even during the dry season of last year the loss 

 was comparatively small. This was accomplished by the work of 

 only eight rangers over an area five hundred miles in length and 

 forty miles wide. There is need for a larger number of rangers 

 to adequately supervise this large tract. Hon. Hewitt Bostock, 

 R. Jardine, of the British Columbia Mills Timber & Trading Co'y., 

 and F. W. Jones, of the Columbia River Lumber Co'y., spoke in 

 the highest terms of the work accomplished under Mr. Leamy, 

 and expressed their readiness, as holders of timber lands in the 

 Railway Belt, to pay their share of an increased expenditure for 

 a protective service. 



Dr. C. A. Schenck, of Biltmore, North Carolina, urged the 

 necessity for basing, forestry on business principles, and expressed 

 his pleasure at seeing that in Canada the movement 

 was backed by the business men. He was glad to see that they 

 realized the importance and value of the question. Dr. Schenck 

 also impressed the desirability of delimiting the forest and agricul- 

 tural lands and the reservation of forest land by the Government. 



The paper on " Forest Insects." presented by Revd. Thos. 

 W. Fyles, of Levis, on Thursday afternoon, was exceedingly in- 



