Canadian Foresinj JournaL Februarij, 1918 



1531 



The Work of The Association 



A Twelve-month Of Active Propoganda As 

 Discussed In The Directors Report For 1917. 



With the close of 1917, the Cana- 

 dian Forestry Association concludes 

 the eighteenlh year of its history. 

 The concentration of public attention 

 on the prosecution of the War con- 

 tributed beyond doubt to a readier 

 reception of the Forest Conservation 

 gospel while at the same time making 

 the growth of our membership and the 

 collection of revenues none too easy. 

 The factor, however, most worth em- 

 phasizing is that the Canadian people 

 have concerned themselves as never 

 before about the forest resources of 

 their country and the best methods 

 for their perpetuation. This in turn, 

 has stimulated conservation policies 

 as applied by governments and pri- 

 vate corporations and is gradually 

 opening the door for an observance of 

 sylvicultural principles in the hand- 

 ling of timberlands. 



Public Good Will 

 The efficacy of educational work 

 in the advancing of Forestry ideas 

 becomes better exemplified each year. 

 While the science of forest manage- 

 ment is very old and so thoroughly 

 proven in Europe as to have been a 

 national enthusiasm during a century, 

 its elementary principles of fire pre- 

 vention have hardly yet been ac- 

 cepted as a whole in Canada and this 

 is due materially to the tardiness of 

 educational propaganda. Most of 

 the major hindrances of fire protec- 

 tion in the Dominion have their 

 origin in an uniformed public senti- 

 ment. Even with elaborate adminis- 

 trative machinery and complete 

 technical guidance for the prevention 

 of forest fires one of the first con- 

 structive efforts is to secure the good- 

 will and co-operation of the public. 

 Apart from the initial phase of fire 

 protection the main hope of progress 

 in the management of woodlands or 

 timberlands and the improvement of 



forestry practice on public lands, re- 

 quires not only constructive informa- 

 tion but the effort to make it nation- 

 ally popular. 



The Forestry Association utilizes 

 many avenues for educational work, 

 and while obliged to find each year 

 the greater part of the revenues with 

 which it operates, has managed to 

 carry on new work in most of the 

 provinces to advance its membership 

 and record several substantial im- 

 provements in provincial and federal 

 laws and administration for which it 

 has specifically campaigned. 



Working in the West 

 Early in the year the Association 

 increased its activities in Manitoba, 

 Saskatchewan and Alberta with the 

 object of securing comprehensive 

 amendments to the existing "Prairie 

 and Forest Fires" Acts, placing a 

 check upon settlers' clearing fires and 

 rendering it obligatory to take out a 

 permit from a ranger or forest guard- 

 ian before starting such dangerous 

 operations. None of the prairie 

 provinces had hitherto admitted re- 

 sponsibility in curbing settlers' fires 

 despite the annual losses caused to the 

 timber areas and to settlers' property. 

 The absence of any supervision such 

 as is imposed in Quebec, Ontario, 

 Nova Scotia, and British Columbia, 

 created a situation calling impera- 

 tively for a remedy. With the co- 

 operation of the Dominion Forestry 

 Branch draft, revisions of the Arts 

 were presented to the Manitoba and 

 Saskatchewan Governments. These 

 were immediately followed by news- 

 paper campaigns in which we were 

 given splendid support by leading 

 Western editors. Inlluential public 

 bodies such as Boards of Trade, grain 

 growers, lumbermen's associations, 

 etc., supported the Forestry Associa- 



