FORESTRY IN ONTARIO. 



The report of the Director of Forestry for Ontario for 1903, 

 which was delayed on account of the fire haxing destroyed the 

 printing office in which it was being set up, has recently been 

 published. It contains a resum^ of the situation in regard' to the 

 tenure of the timber lands of the Province. 



The chief way in which timber lands are held by lumber- 

 men in Ontario is by annual license, renewable from year to 

 year. The lumbermen are allowed to remove the timber, pay- 

 ing dues therefor when cut. In the agricultural districts the 

 lumberman has been the precursor of the settler, affording him 

 employment in the winter and a market for the produce raised 

 on his holding in the summer. As settlement advanced the land 

 was turned over to the individual settlers in small holdings. 

 As settlement progressed north, a portion of the country was 

 reached, the lands in which were found to be little suited to farm- 

 ing, although a great many settlers, misled by the high prices 

 received for produce during lumbering operations, were allowed 

 to settle on these lands, finding when too late that the time had 

 been wasted, and that the land was ill-suited for their purposes. 

 Other areas under license were composed of land that was clearly 

 unfit for farming, and on such territory the licenses have been 

 renewed from year to vear. 



Although it is probable that the Crown possessed and still 

 possesses the legal right to refuse to renew these licenses at any 

 time, certainly at a period when it might reasonably be supposed 

 that the original timber taken into account when the limit was 

 first put under license had been cut off, yet the practice of re- 

 newing the license yearly, which had been in vogue for so many 

 years, led to frequent transfers of these limits from one holder 

 to another, and the cancellation or failure to renew the hcense 

 would mean that the last purchaser of this limit would naturally 

 be out of pocket on his investment. Hence the difficulty of 

 cancelling these licenses except at a stated time, a long period 

 in the future. 



In 1896 a Forest Commission was appointed and in its re- 

 port recommended the establishment of Forest Reserv^es, and 

 in accordance with this recommendation, the Forest Reserves 

 Act was passed, which authorizes the Lieutenant-Governor in 

 Council to set aside from time to time such areas of land as 

 are unsuited for agricultural settlement, to be kept perpetually 

 in Forest Reserves. Under this Act there have been set apart 



