184 Canadian Forestry Journal. 



Sir Henri Joly de Lotbiniere — that grand old man who may 

 easily be granted the father of Canadian Forestry — a gentleman 

 whom we are all proud to honour with our love and esteem. His 

 work in the cause of forestry is of such a nature that it stands as 

 an example to every person who professes an interest in the 

 subject. Not content with spreading the propaganda by voice 

 and pen, Sir Henri, with his own hands, made plantations of 

 forest trees in Quebec and British Columbia and watched and 

 tended their growth from the seed, thus securing practical in- 

 formation of great value, which he takes the greatest pleasure in 

 sharing with all those who seek to profit from the results of his 

 experience. Sir Henri will never need a monument if his dream 

 of Canadian Forestry be half fulfilled, for what could be more 

 noble tributes to his memory and his life work than the afforested 

 prairies of Canada and the reforested timber lands of the older 

 provinces — actualities which are made possible through the 

 efforts of the Association which he founded. British 

 Columbia is so very much a "wooded country" — so lavishly 

 endowed with timber — that its people are hard to move to a 

 sense of the importance of forest preservation — indeed the best 

 years of the lives of many of the old timers were spent in destroy- 

 ing the big trees and thick underbrush which covered the soil 

 now given to the production of bread, beef, and fruit, and it was 

 a hard task for any man to convince those pioneers, or their 

 descendants, that a day would ever dawn when the forests of 

 British Columbia might be depleted — as well attempt one hun- 

 dred years ago to arouse enthusiasm in forest preservation in the 

 breasts of the men who were chopping out homes in the woods 

 of Upper and Lower Canada, or the pioneers of Nova Scotia 

 and New Brunswick. Sir Henri, however, after much effort, 

 enlisted the interest of a number of gentlemen who formed the 

 British Columl>ia branch of the Canadian Forestry Association, 

 and who worked faithfully under his leadership to advance the 

 objects of the Association, 



The progress of the movement inaugurated by Sir Henri has 

 been naturally slow, for one of the greatest stumbling blocks to 

 the settlement of our public lands is the problem of clearing them 

 of timber, cheaply and effectively. The cost of clearing land 

 deters many a settlerfrom staking a pre-emption, for labour is high 

 and but few individuals are willing to undertake the work single 

 handed. Speaking in round numbers the land area of British 

 Columbia is 250,000,000 square acres, of which about 182,000,000 

 are forest and woodland, a large portion of which is classed as 

 timber land. So dense are our forests and so big our trees that 

 20,000 to 50,000 feet, board measure, to the acre is no uncommon 

 yield, but reducing an average of these figures to a reasonable 

 amount we have in store a stupendous total of available timber. 



