So-C ailed Settlement in Forest Areas. 107 



negligent action — a danger which is practically non-existent, 

 for proof in such cases is impossible. 



It is a fact which has often been stated, and is now pretty- 

 well accepted by those who have made even a cursory study of 

 the subject, that, for every tree which has been cut down by the 

 lumberman and manufactured into articles of commercial value, 

 at least twenty trees have been destroyed by bush fires — absolute- 

 ly wasted. I speak with confidence on this subject so far as the 

 forests of Eastern Canada are concerned, and I believe that those 

 famihar with conditions in the great forests of the West will 

 agree that the proportion of waste that I have given holds for 

 that portion of the country also. The loss to the country in this 

 way is beyond all calculation. There is no more saddening ex- 

 ample in our country of needless waste than this destruction by 

 fire of immense tracts of timber which, if now standing, would 

 form one of our most valuable assets. 



The public formerly regarded forest fires as natural phen- 

 omena or as visitations of an inscrutable Providence. But, 

 just as it has been learned that epidemics of disease are due to 

 human ignorance or carelessness, and can be prevented, so it is 

 now pretty generally understood that forest fires, as a rule, 

 have their origin, not in natural and ungovernable causes, 

 but in the heedlessness or neghgence of men. And, of all those 

 who are guilty on this count, the worst by far is the man who 

 makes pretence of settling as a farmer on land which should be 

 continued in forest growth. In 1904 I made the formal 

 and dehberate statement to the Quebec Commission 

 on Colonization, that, in my opinion, at least ninety per cent, 

 of the forest destruction in Ontario and Quebec had been due 

 to settlers setting fires for the purpose of clearing the land. 

 I have not changed that opinion nor do I see how one can reach 

 any other conclusion who has had means of estimating what 

 fearful destruction even one careless person can cause. I 

 quoted to the Quebec Commission one case within my own 

 knowledge, the destruction of a large portion of the most valu- 

 able pinery on the River Eagle, a branch of the Gatineau, by 

 a settler clearing land for a potato field. It would be laughable, 

 if it were not so sad, to think that, while the settler raised a crop 

 worth, perhaps, $5.00, the public sufl'ered a loss of at least 

 $1,000,000. This is not an isolated instance, even in the amount 

 of waste, for equally destructive fires, arising from the same 

 cause, are known in many portions of Eastern Canada. 



There is a way to clear land by burning without destroying 

 the country. By setting the fire in proper relation to the dir- 

 ection of the wind, carefully watching the fires set, and taking 

 other simple precautions, fire can be restricted within any de- 

 sired area. The bona fide settler, the man who is really making 



