Forestry in Ontario. 179 



areas aggregating seven million acres, including both forested 

 and burnt over lands. 



In regard to the term of tenure of lands under license a 

 change was made in 1901, when the renewal of licenses was re- 

 stricted to a period of ten years. It was found however that the 

 necessity on the part of the lumbermen, who had paid a large 

 sum in advance on this timber, of taking his timber off in so short 

 a time caused rather reckless cutting, and the term in the sale 

 held in 1903, was extended to fifteen years. While in the case 

 of agricultural lands destined to be ultimately settled, and from 

 which the pine timber is required to be sold for public revenue, 

 this plan is probably as good as could be devised, it can readily 

 be understood that the practice that will inevitably be followed 

 by the license holder of taking all the timber off this territory 

 that is big enough to cut at the end of the fifteen year period, 

 will not conduce to the largest revenue to the Crown that could 

 be derived. 



The timber lands in Ontario therefore include permanent 

 Forest Reserves, lands under license for an indefinite period, 

 and lands under license for fixed terms. 



The reserves so far created lie at the head waters of streams, 

 and the larger forest area will doubtless include the Laurentian 

 country, separating the clay lands of the north from the settled 

 areas of the south, forming the watershed of the rivers flowing 

 north and south, and will probably eventually include forty 

 or fifty millions of acres. What this immense territory kept 

 permanently under forest and operated in a scientific manner 

 w411 mean in the future of the Province it is hard to estimate. 

 The effect of this large forest on the water supply will be of in- 

 comparable benefit to future generations, and the revenue from 

 it under any proper system of management, will be such that 

 the people of Ontario need have no fea,r of direct taxation 

 until the public expenditures of the Province are enormously 

 in excess of the amount now annually expended. 



In this report Mr. C. W. Nash deals in a suggestive way with 

 the question of municipal forest reserves. In the report of 

 1900-01, an exhaustive statement, compiled from the returns 

 of township assessors, was given from which it appeared that 

 the proportion of woodland to total area in 36 counties was less 

 than twenty per cent. While in many counties the lands are 

 ahnost all suited for agricultural purposes and the wood lot will 

 be about the only form of forest growth, there are large districts 

 in the Province in which a large proportion of the lands are 

 strictly non-agricultural, but where the title to the lands has 

 all but entirely passed from the Crown to private hands. In 

 these districts there are large contiguous areas which are either 

 entirely unfit for the production of any other crop than wood, 



