Canadian Forestry Convention. 3 



welcome to all classes who are present and who are ready to 

 contribute of their time and of their money to the great object 

 we have in view and which is an object of primary national im- 

 portance. The large attendance which I see before me, I am most 

 gratified to say, exceeds all the expectations that we had and this 

 attendance, large as it is, is a manifest evidence that the Canadian 

 people at last, — at long last realize the great importance of all 

 problems connected with forestry. 



A great deal of harm has already been done, harm, which, 

 I am afraid, in many respects cannot be recalled, but it is not 

 yet too late and the harm which we know has taken place is and 

 ought to be an incentive to us to do our best in the endeavor to 

 check it, and to give more attention to forestry problems. Our 

 ancestors, when they came to this continent, found it an unbroken 

 forest from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi 

 Valley. It was the home of a race of hunters who derived their 

 existence chiefly from the chase and for whom therefore the 

 forest was a natural element. It was the object of our ancestors 

 to turn this land into a fit habitat for a race of agriculturists, 

 for the white man whose civilization is based primarily upon 

 agriculture. They had to clear their homes from the forest with 

 care and tenderness, they looked upon it as an enemy to be got 

 rid of with the axe, with fire, and with every mode of destruction. 

 History tells us and our own experience tells us that they went 

 at it most mercilessly. The forest had no friends whatever, 

 because, to clear off a few acres of land they would set fire to 

 miles upon miles of the noblest trees that ever lifted their lofty 

 heads towards the heavens. This, at one time or other went on 

 in every part of the continent and even at this very day it is 

 going on in some part of the continent. These pioneers of 

 former days, as the pioneers of these modern days, did not 

 realize, did not appreciate that in the economy of nature forests 

 are just as indispensable to the civilization of man as tilled fields. 

 They did not appreciate that even from the point of view of 

 agriculture unless tilled fields are furnished by forests with 

 moisture and rainfall they decrease in their productiveness ac- 

 cordingly, and that the efforts of the agriculturist will suffer in 

 proportion. We have assembled here in order to devise ways 

 and means, if possible, first of all to check this evil and to make 

 every class in the community realize the great importance of 

 maintaining, preserving and protecting our forests. What I 

 would like to call the attention of this Convention to, in the first 

 place, would be the necessity of establishing, if it has not been 

 done, and it has not yet been done, a preserve, a large forest 

 domain. We must know now the experience of those nations 

 to which His Excellency, in his address, has just alluded, 

 teaches us that there are certain portions, certain sections of the 

 earth's surface .which, in the wise economy of nature, must always 



