Canadian Forestry Convention. 9 



and for its remarkable beauty. In the east we have Quebec 

 and the Maritime Provinces with their magnificent coast lines, 

 their forests, their agriculture and their mineral wealth. Thence 

 there extends inland through Quebec and through the sister 

 Province of Ontario the greatest inland waterway in the world 

 connecting the ocean with the broad prairies of the west. Great 

 rivers reach down from the forests of the north. On the west- 

 em coast we have another great maritime province abounding 

 in forest and mineral wealth. 



Of all our wonderful natural resources none are more im- 

 portant than the forests. Their conservation is undoubtedly 

 more vital to our future than is generally realized. "How 

 foolish," says a great authority, "how foolish does man appear 

 in destroying the mountain forests for thereby he deprives 

 himself of wood, water and soil at the same time." 



We are apt to regard our forests as limitless and our forest 

 wealth as unbounded; but public attention has already been 

 directed to certain dangers and to some of the more threatening 

 elements of destruction and waste. Something has been done to 

 check forest fires yet what devastation they have wrought. 

 Practical men tell us that twenty times as much has been sacri- 

 ficed to flame as to the lumberman's axe. An illustration 

 mentioned at the last session of the Canadian Forestry Asso- 

 ciation may be given. A settler in the Province of Quebec in 

 order to clear the ground for a five bushel crop of potatoes 

 started a fire that destroyed three hundred million feet of pine 

 which to-day would be worth $3,500,000. Measures have been 

 taken in many of the Provinces to prevent such destruction, 

 but those who speak with knowledge declare that much yet 

 remains to be done. Many of us although not actually concerned 

 in forestry or in the lumbering industry have had occasion to 

 tramp perhaps for half a day or more through forests ravaged 

 by fire. There one can see the very abomination of desolation 

 spoken of in Scripture. Then follows erosion of the soil conse- 

 quent on the destruction of tree and plant life and this in turn 

 works similar havoc. The waterways cease to be highways., 

 Rivers cease to be channels of commerce and become raging 

 instruments of destruction. 



The importance of the subject has been most forcibly 

 expressed by Dr. Fernow, director of the New York State College 

 of Forestry, and an eminent authority on the economics of 

 forestry. He says: — 



"While we are debating over the best methods of disposing 

 "of our wealth, we gradually lose our very capital without even 

 "realizing the fact. Whether we have a high tariff or no tariff, 

 " an incometax or head tax, direct or indirecttaxation, bimetallism 

 "or a single standard, are matters which concern, to be sure, the 



