NEW BRUNSWICK FORESTRY CONVENTION 



past. Take a large portion of Europe bordering on the Mediterranean in 

 Spain, Italy and Greece, as well as large tracts in Northern Africa and in 

 Asia Minor, where in the middle ages were to be found fruitful valleys and 

 the homes of a prosperous rural population, but which today is almost a 

 desert, where the inhabitants are reduced to beggary by the drying up of 

 the country consequent on the denudation of the forest on the mountain 

 sides. 



But we need not go so far afield, for we have examples in these older 

 provinces of the Dominion where inundations occur almost every spring from 

 streams which in former years, before the country was denuded of its timber, 

 no inconvenience in this respect was ever experienced. 



There is not a province of this Dominion that is not interested in this 

 question. Starting farthest west : What would be the condition of British 

 Columbia if the mountain sides Avere denuded of the timber that is now 

 growing there. What of Alberta and Saskatchewan, if that great reservoir 

 along the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains were destroyed, as it would 

 be if the timber were destroyed along the eastern foot hills of that great 

 mountain range. 



The husbandman of those plains fears the summer drought far more 

 than he does the summer frost. The precipitation is very light; in some 

 places insufficient for plant growth and large irrigation works are in progress 

 of erection, Avhich will be useless unless the reservoir is kept intact. Destroy 

 the forest covering along the upper Bow and those irrigation canals and 

 ditches will be raging torrents for a few weeks and without water when it is 

 required. A large section of Manitoba is also dependent on the forest 

 reserve in the Riding Mountains for an adequate water supply. Ontario and 

 Quebec and your own province all require to conserve their water supply, 

 not perhaps so much for agriculture, for they have a greater rainfall, but in 

 order to preserve an even flow in their rivers and streams, thereby retaining 

 their value for water power and other purposes. 



Many of you will be able to recall to memory the forestry conditions in 

 these older provinces as they existed in your youth. Fields surrounding the 

 farm house and the outbuildings, with the woods hard by in the rear. You 

 will recall the paths through those woods and the perennial streams flowing 

 through them. You can almost hear across the interval of years the thi 

 of insect life and the bird songs of the forest. How changed today ! 

 -country is now cleared up and is, in too many cases, as bare of trees as our 



