162 



Canadian Forestry Journal. 



ject for many years. Mr. Pearce in con- 

 clusion holds that the matter of creat- 

 ing public interest in forest conserva- 

 tion is the great one before the Canadian 

 Forestry Association and the one to 



which it should energetically address 

 itself. He commends in particular the 

 arousing of attention by sending fre- 

 quent bulletins on forestry subjects to 

 the newspapers of the country. 



Patriotism in Forestry. 



Dr. B. E. Fernow, Dean of the 

 Faculty of Forestry of the University 

 of Toronto, lectured before the Can- 

 adian Club of the town of Berlin, Ont., 

 on October 22nd last on the subject of 

 Forestry in Canada. There was a large 

 and interested audience, presided over 

 by the President of the Club, Dr. Hons- 

 berger. The speaker of the evening 

 was introduced by an old friend, Mr. 

 W. H. Breithaupt, C.E., who spoke of 

 the need of reforestation to check the 

 devastation wrought by floods on the 

 Grand River. On the conclusion of 

 the lecture a hearty vote of thanks was 

 tendered to the speaker on motion of 

 Mr. George Pattinson, M.P.P., for South 

 Waterloo. 



Dr. Fernow, speaking from a patriotic 

 standpoint, showed that the three fac- 

 tors in the progress of a nation were 

 men, natural resources and accumulated 

 wealth or capital. Of these the most 

 important was the first. Nations with 

 great resources had sunk to decay be- 

 cause of lack of character, while others 

 in lands poorly endowed by nature had 

 become great by energy and foresight. 

 Forestry was essentially a patriotic 

 subject as it meant the leaving of natural 

 resources in the best condition for 

 future generations. The forest, because 

 it produced an absolute necessity, 

 wood, and because of its power of re- 

 production and its eflfect on climatic 

 and water conditions, was the greatest 

 single resource of any country. 



Two-thirds of the area of the eastern 

 provinces was fit only to grow timber, 

 and half of this would become unre- 

 deemable desert if allowed to be bvirned 

 over and exposed to the sun, rain and 

 wind. Of Ontario not inore than one- 

 third would ever be used for agriculture 

 and the remaining two-thirds was in the 

 rocky thin soil of the Laurentian plateau 

 where the danger of its becoming a 

 desert was imminent. Even of south- 

 western Ontario two-fifths was unfit 



for agriculture and should grow the 

 fuel and some of the timber required, 

 besides maintaining the stream flow 

 and preserving favorable climatic con- 

 ditions. Yet, important and vital as 

 the maintenance of these conditions 

 were, the Governments were doing al- 

 most nothing to guard the future. 



What, asked the speaker, was wrong 

 in the administration of Canadian wood- 

 lands? This question must be answered 

 even if it suggested criticism of the 

 present administration. But in fact it 

 did not involve such criticisin, only an 

 apology; for the present administra- 

 tion had merely inherited the system of 

 management under which it worked, 

 and it was only natural that it should 

 follow the line of least resistance and 

 prefer, as long as it could be avoided, 

 not to make radical changes, which in 

 the end would be absolutely necessary. 



It inust be recognized that in matters 

 of administration what was wrong to- 

 day might have been right before; the 

 system which was quite right at one 

 time, answering the surrounding con- 

 ditions, became wrong gradually as the 

 conditions gradually changed; and be- 

 fore a change in the system would be 

 attempted it must have become quite 

 convincingly wrong. The timber license 

 system of Ontario, under which the 

 Crown retained ownership of the land 

 and growing timber and sold only the 

 inature timber fit for harvest, was a 

 most ingenious device, which in the 

 early pioneering stages could hardly 

 have been improved upon, except for the 

 abuses which had grown up around it but 

 were not a necessary part of the system. 

 Apparently inexhaustible forest areas 

 needed to be made useful and a revenue 

 derived therefrom, and to do so, capital 

 needed to be attracted. Yet the land 

 itself, at least as far as it was available 

 for farming purposes, needed to be re- 

 served for settlement. As long as mere 

 exploitationTof the surplus of virgin 



