Canadian Forestry Convention. 1 5 



prosperity and well-being of the American continent north of 

 the Mexican border than in that of any other area on the face of 

 the earth. (Applause.) 



Timber and water in the east, water and timber in 

 the west, are the great products of this great beneficent cloak 

 of forest which has been spread over so much of our land on both 

 sides of the line. We are apt to consider it as simply a truism, 

 when we say that forestry is important. Well, so it may be, 

 but it is one of those truisms that must be made widely known. 

 But, unless we can specify what forestry will do for us in Canada 

 and in the United States, we may very well consider that we have 

 failed in the presentation of our case. I like to think of the forest 

 as giving us not merely protection for our water supply, not 

 merely the guarantee of the productiveness of our soils, not 

 merely the assurance of continuity of desirable local climatic 

 conditions, but also as doing what it actually does — supplying 

 us from day to day with material which is, perhaps, on the 

 whole, the most important material for the building up of our 

 civihzation. We call this an age of steel, and so it is; but it is 

 not the less an age of wood (applause). And one of the things 

 with which we are face to face all over this North American 

 Continent is the coming scarcity, in no long time, of this chief 

 ingredient in construction, the pinch of the lack of which is going 

 to be felt widely and keenly when it comes. And we must 

 remember that when this want does come, it will not be a question 

 merely of reopening the source of supply as we re-opened the 

 mines when we were threatened with a coal famine a few years 

 ago; — (applause) — It will be a question of feeling that want 

 for years, fifty years being the shortest possible time within 

 which the material can be grown. This is a matter in which 

 foresight is the primal duty. Signs are not lacking all over this 

 continent that the approaching timber famine is not very far 

 away. I am informed that the prices of pine in Ontario have 

 doubled within the past ten years; and similar facts might be 

 cited from the pine and other timber producing areas of the 

 continent. 



Now, let us pass briefly in review some of the ways in which 

 the forest contributes to the national well-being. You all know 

 these things, nevertheless it will do no harm for us to keep them 

 in mind, as I think we should do throughout this Convention. 

 Though it is true that, in the eastern part of Canada and the United 

 States in the past, the farmer was obliged to clear away the forest 

 before it was possible for him to build his house or support his 

 family, it is also true that that time has almost wholly past. We 

 have now reached the point where the forest, instead of being the 

 enemy of the farmer in the east, is his most potent friend. And, 

 so far as the west is concerned we have reached the point where 



