THE GENERAL AWAKENING AS TO FORESTRY. 



The Farmer's Advocate pertinently animadverts on the sad 

 system of deforestation in full swing all over Canadaj and, re- 

 calling some of the trite yet unanswerable arguments against such 

 short-sightedness and neglect, suggests as an encouragement to 

 tree culture and wood preservation, the passing of an act, in 

 Ontario, to exempt woodland from taxation. We presume that 

 the preserves of lumber kings or wood producers on a large 

 scale, operating their limits on sane principles, and making abun- 

 dant returns, would not be comprehended in this paternal legis- 

 lation. There might be a difficulty in applying the fostering law 

 with exactitude, but anything which may teach the unthinking 

 the value of the wood area of the farm, to the farm 

 itsef, must prove of incalculable benefit to the country. The state, 

 too, should regulate as it does in older lands, this mania for 

 clearance where clearance is not desirable ; and where, by it, the 

 water sources, health and protection of the community are ser- 

 iously threatent'd. Wherever the lands are still vested in the 

 Crown, it is criminal at this stage, and with the evil results of it 

 plainly before us, to permit of greater denudation than has al- 

 ready taken place. There are certainly strong reasons, from the 

 position of the General Government, for retaining the adminis- 

 tration of the lands in the new provinces of Alberta and Saskat- 

 chewan, but none appeals to us more strongly than that advanced 

 in favor of a retention and extension of the woodlands of the north. 

 Federally, it would have been impossible to have left Prince Ed- 

 ward Island in the sad position she is in to-day for want of forest. 

 The Local Administrations of the past without a formal bureau 

 of a5;Tici-lture, apparently without any knowledge of important 

 conditions of, and requisites to sane hving, with only a d»esire to 

 bridge over the present difficulty by the sacrifice of evervthing 

 witliin r^ach did not hesitate to lend itself here to a svstem of 

 colonization which, as everyone knows, has jeopardized verv large- 

 ly provincial life and prosperity. The Government of the day 

 if ever so well disposed, is practically impotent in the premises. 



