12 NEW BRUNSWICK FORESTRY CONVENTION 



years, the farmers, the dairymen, the fruit-growers and other great interests 

 have seen the great importance there is in the interchange of ideas, and in 

 meeting together to receive advice, riot only from those practically engaged 

 in the business, but from those who have made a study from theoretical and 

 scientific standpoints, up to the present time in this Province it has not been 

 the case in regard to the greatest industry of all,- the lumbering industry. 

 In panada, however, for a number of years past, we have had a Dominion 

 Forestry Association, an association which has met annually in some of the 

 Upper Provinces, and associated with which have been gentlemen from all 

 the Provinces of Canada ; and the publication of the proceedings of that 

 association, circulated throughout the country, has had a beneficial efi'ect in 

 stirring up the people of Canada to do all they can to preserve the forests 

 of the country, and has done much towards advancing the lumber industry 

 of Canada, and in this Province, as well, has had a beneficial effect. It is 

 perhaps natural that the lumbermen in this Province, and those interested 

 in this great industry have not taken steps earlier to form themselves into 

 an association. In the earlier history of this Province the forests were a 

 source of danger ; the settlers regarded the forests as their enemies. They 

 saw nothing poetical in ''the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the 

 hemlocks," because they had to get a living from the country, and to get 

 that, they had ruthlessly, with the axe and the tire, to destroy the forests 

 with which the country was covered. And they did not realize that the time 

 would ever come when they would feel the need of taking steps to preserve 

 the Forests which at that time they were doing their utmost to cause to dis- 

 appear from the face of the country. However, time went by, and, as 

 pointed out by the Premier, the Pine Forests which were the pride of this 

 country, have practically disappeared, and in going through the Province> 

 we find here and there some lofty old rampike lifting its stately head towards 

 the skies, standing a silent witness to the former grandeur of the Forest, 

 and of the fires that have spread over the country from time to time, and 

 which have caused more destruction to our lumber industry than has ever 

 been done by the axe of the woodsman. Today we have our Spruce Forests 

 as a source of wealth, and so valuable has that source become, and so great 

 is the demand for lumber, that even those trees of the forest w r hich only a 

 few years ago were regarded as of comparatively little value, such as the Fir, 

 are today becoming a source of profit to the country. 



The early settlers did not think the necessity existed of preserving the 

 Forest, but as we go on from time to time, we find that today, in the minds 

 of thoughtful men everywhere, there is no problem regarded as of greater 



