22 NEW BRUNSWICK FORESTRY CONVENTION 



either by evaporation into the air, or by the agency of gravitation which will 

 ultimately carry it back again to the sea ; and the forest assists in retarding 

 dissipation in both cases. The shade and consequent lower temperature and 

 absence of strong air currents retard evaporation which is therefore many 

 times less in the forest than in the open field. Again, the absorbing qualities 

 of the forest floor are very much greater than in the open. The soil is loose 

 and is covered with leaves, moss and decaying timber. The roots of the 

 trees serve as pipes to carry the water down deep into the soil. In this way 

 a great natural reservoir is formed whose outlets are the thousands of 

 perennial springs and brooklets that evenly and continuously go to feed the 

 .larger streams and these again the great rivers of the country. Now, con- 

 sider the effect produced if this timber is removed. There is perhaps not 

 much difference in the amount of water precipitated but instead of being 

 absorbed as before, the greater part of it being unobstructed in its course 

 rushes down the mountain side in torrents ; disastrous floods follow, often 

 carrying away bridges and inundating fertile low-lying valleys and carrying 

 away alluvial soil down to the mouths of the streams where it is deposited 

 in great bars, thus impeding navigation and annually entailing large sums of 

 money in removing it. 



This is the result of interference with nature. We have seen the 

 elaborate means she employed in depositing this water at those elevations. 

 She has woven, as we have seen, a network for the conservation and even 

 run-off' of this supply, and all she asks is that w r e do not prejudicially inter- 

 fere with her operations. She does not even go so far as to say. ''Woodman, 

 spare the trees," for all the valuable timber could be removed when it attained 

 a proper age without in the least injuring the forest floors for this purpose. 

 Again, she does not ask you to reserve the fertile valleys but only the rough 

 mountain side where the elevation is frequently too great for the growth of 

 cereals and where the land is better adapted for the production of timber 

 than for any other purpose. 



The people of North America have been exceedingly profligate in this 

 regard and the penalty is being paid every spring, first in the disastrous 

 floods experienced in so many localities, and later on in the season by the 

 drying up of the once never failing springs and perennial streams, and it is 

 time a note of warning was sounded that would arouse our people to a sense 

 of the danger that threatens us in this regard. If anyone should question 

 our reasoning on this point, let him but look at what has actually occurred 

 in older countries where irrational forestry methods were pursued in the 



