10 NEW BRUNSWICK FORESTRY CONVENTION 



wealth to the Province and of revenue to the Government for many cen- 

 turies, if not for all time. New Brunswick at the present time is the owner 

 of about 10,000 square miles of timber lands and derives from them a large 

 revenue. 



Last year the revenue obtained from this source amounted to about 

 $250,000 in addition to the revenue obtained from Game Licenses, Fishing 

 Licenses and other sources. Not less than 108,635,000 superficial feet of 

 Spruce and Pine and 14,982,000 superficial feet of Fir were cut on Crown 

 Lands in the Province of New Brunswick. There were also large quantities 

 of hemlock, cedar, pulp wood, railway ties and other lumber, the stumpage 

 from all of which collected by the Government amounted to $172,529. The 

 lesson to be derived from a study of the past history of this Province and its 

 lumbering interests is that unless our forests are preserved, the greatest 

 resource we possess will be destroyed. The destruction of our Pine forests 

 by wasteful methods of lumbering and by fires should warn us against allow- 

 ing our forests to be dealt with in a similar fashion. There are many 

 millions of acres of land in this Province which are more valuable for the 

 purpose of producing wood than they would be for any other use to which 

 they could be applied. We have plenty of land both for the farmer and the 

 lumberman, but in locating settlers we ought to be careful not to place them 

 on land which could be more profitably used as a forest. The neglect of this 

 precaution in former years has been the means of placing many settlers on 

 land from which they could not make a living and the result has been that 

 these poor .thin soils which have become exhausted by croping are again 

 growing up as forests. It is a fortunate circumstance that the Spruce tree 

 is a weed in New Brunswick and that any pasture which is neglected for a 

 few years will speedily grow up with trees and return to a wilderness 

 condition. 



By the census of 1901 the total value of our forest products is placec 

 at $2,998,038, whereas in that year we exported $6,706,339 worth of foresi 

 products of which not more than $1,500,000 worth was of foreign growth. 



The census gives the value of the forest products of Nova Scotia at 

 $3,409,528. 



Now, in view of the policy of the Government, as I have said, we had 

 an Act passed last winter, authorizing the holding of this Convention, and 

 in sending out invitations to the different gentlemen, especially those outside 

 of the Province because we did not send invitations to every person inter- 



