Forestry in Canada. 



95 



it is only on the railway or on the map, 

 may hazard a guess and establish a 

 reputation as an expert by spea'xing 

 learnedly and definitely of that ot v. hich 

 he knows little or nothing. As a dis- 

 tinguished gentleman, sometime de- 

 ceased, used to remark, "The public 

 like to be fooled," and they illustrate 

 it by willingly accepting the statements 

 in regard to the forest resources of 

 Canada of any person who claims or 

 does not claim to be an expert instead 

 of demanding that the Government 

 should do the only right and natural 

 and effective thing, and that is to go 

 and get the information where it is to 

 be found, that is, not in the office or on 

 the street, but in the forest, and to get 

 it by a method intelligent, effective and 

 comprehensive enough to be adequate 

 to the position and dimensions of the 

 great Dominion of which we are all so 

 proud and know so little. 



An adequate forest policy would de- 

 mand the spending of more money. 

 From all sides we hear expressions of 

 admiration of the work done by the 

 Federal Forest Service of the United 

 States and they are fully deserved. 

 But it must not be overlooked that that 

 service has a permanent staff of over 

 two thousand, temporary assistants 

 numbering eight hundred, and an an- 

 nual appropriation of over four million 

 dollars, and the United States is not 

 greater in extent than the Dominion. 

 Besides this there are numerous state 

 forest services assisting the work and 

 increasing the total of forest service 

 expenditure. If the Canadian people 

 wish a service equal in all respects to 

 that in the United States they can have 

 it by pa^-ing the price, and I feel sure 

 that Canadians, whether in the forest 

 service or any other service of the 

 Government, are capable of carrying 

 out a public policy as broadly, as com- 

 prehensively and as intelligently as any 

 other nation on the face of the earth. 



European experience is to the effect 

 that a thorough management of forests, 

 even at an increased expense, gives the 

 best net results. The forests of Saxony, 

 which have been under scientific forest 



management for a century have a net 

 expenditure of S2.30 per acre and a net 

 revenue of S4.37 per acre. At fir.st the 

 expenditure per acre was eighty cents 

 and the net revenue ninety-five cents. 

 Later the figures were Si . 1 5 expenditure 

 and $2.39 net revenue, and now the 

 figures first quoted have been reached. 

 With increase of population, with 

 greatly enlarging necessities, with ex- 

 panding industries, with increasing 

 complexity of life, the time arrives in 

 the history of every nation when hap- 

 hazard methods of administration will 

 no longer suffice, when wasteful and 

 destructive dealing with the great re- 

 sources of the country must end, and 

 when, if that country is to retain its 

 place among prosperous nations and 

 maintain its population in comfort and 

 happiness, scientific and economical 

 methods of dealing with the resources of 

 the country must be adopted, intelli- 

 gence and skill must work together to 

 prepare them best for the needs of man 

 and bring them most conveniently to 

 his hand, and the public service must be 

 not only honest and loyal but far- 

 sighted and progressive. Canada has 

 reached the place where her own neces- 

 sities and her position as one of the 

 possible great factors in the future 

 history of the world make it imperati^•e 

 that, learning from past civilizations 

 and the history of other nations, she 

 should ensure that prodigality and 

 wastefulness such as have stopped the 

 progress and crippled the strength of 

 other countries, and in the path of 

 which, in so far as her forest resources 

 are concerned, the Dominion has fol- 

 lowed far and long, should not be a 

 reproach of future generations against 

 her. but that gathering wisdom from 

 out the storied past, used within the 

 present and transfused through future 

 time by power of thought, she may 

 have a history greater and grander in 

 the future, worthy of the great inherit- 

 ance with which she has been endowed 

 by a bovmteous Providence, worthy of 

 the race from which she has sprung, and 

 worthy of the great destiny which lies 

 in her hands to accomplish. 



