1338 Canadian Forestry Journal, October, 1917 



fident state of mind readily assenting to incalculable losses from forest fires 

 and to the damaging of other public resources regardless of the almost ce .ain 

 protests of the generations to follow. 



THE STATE AND THE NATURAL RESOURCES 



Canada fortunately has progressed beyond the doctrine of "look ' ac-iOr- 

 yourself." At no time has the consciousness of a duty owed by the individual 

 to the state, of the obligation of a Government to prepare for the future, been 

 so deeply impressed as during this period of Canada's history. Public 

 conviction and administrative policies are recognizing with startling frank- 

 ness the duty of the State in managing not only armies of men, but the 

 resources of the countiy on the most scientific far-sighted plan. 



The care of forests in every province of Canada is the direct and un- 

 disputed responsibility of Governments. In New Brunswick, where pro- 

 vincial ownership of the forests has effect, the Government is to the fullest 

 degree the trustee and steward of the 7,500,000 acres of Crown Lands, largely 

 forest covered. While the province has undoubtedly followed the neglectful 

 trend of almost all other parts of North America during the past fifty years, 

 the ruin of so much of the forest inheritance by fire is attributable in the main 

 not so much to the various political administrations, as to a lack of public 

 knowledge and concern. 



In whatever way wc dispose of responsibility, the penalty must be faced. 

 It is not in the desire of any good citizen to pass along old-fashioned mistakes 

 unremedied. The Director of the Forest Survey of Niew Brunswick estimates 

 that lack of adequate forest fire protection has, during the past forty years, 

 resulted in the destruction of standing timber which, had it been manu- 

 factured instead of burned, would have represented a sale value of no less a 

 sum than $80,000,000. In other words, the price of neglect is now being paid 

 in a hampered industrial development, reduction of employment, capital 

 turned elsewhere and the public's share of timber revenues cut down. 



NEW BRUNSWICK'S GREAT FOUNDATION 



It would appear, therefore, that forest conservation is emphatically 

 public business. While it is true that a larger proportion of New Brunswick's 

 Crown Lands, than of other provinces except Nova Scotia, has been granted 

 outright, nevertheless there remains under the Crown, 7,500,000 acres (mostly 

 under license) averaging as good timber contents as are to be found in the 

 province. This area, about the size of Belgium, represents, with farm land, 

 the chief natural endowment of the province. It represents the future source 

 of raw materials not only for the hundreds of wood-using industries in exis- 

 tence today (needing two hundred million feet of raw material a year for the 

 Alaritime Provinces alone,) but is the main hope of attracting scores of new 

 wood-using factories, increasing employment, developing farms, towns, and 

 cities and providing new revenues for the public treasury without resort to 

 direct taxation. 



No longer is the forest to be indentified with the "wilderness." It has 

 come to be regarded in all progressive lands as one of the most vital and 

 valuable portions of the people's estate. No longer does the farmer look upon 

 tree-covered areas as necessarily impeding the progress of agriculture. He 

 knows, sometimes by hard personal experience, that by far the greater part 

 of New Brunswick is limited by nature to the growing of trees. Soil, climate, 

 and topograhpic conditions together render more than two-thirds of all 

 Canada unable to produce field crops. In Quebec, for example, out of a total 

 area of 210 milhon acres, less than 9 millions are under farm cultivation. The 

 balance is either permanent barrens or must for the greater part be retained 

 for all time under timber. Undeveloped agricultural areas, like the Clay 

 Belt, constitute the exceptions, but such areas comprise but an exceedingly 

 small proportion of the unalienated Crown lands. Similarly, Ontario will 



