NEW BRUNSWICK FORESTRY CONVENTION 53 



the largest and drains nearly one half of the Province. Next in importance 

 is the Miramichi, its watershed embracing about 5,000 square miles. 



The settled portions of the Province are principally along the river 

 valleys and coast line ; the interior forming one vast timber preserve, and 

 embracing a territory 80 miles wide and 100 miles long without a habitation 

 of any kind save the lumberman or trapper's shanty, and no sound except 

 the ring of the woodsman's axe or the call of the hunter. Here is a domain 

 fairly free from the ravages of fire and timbered with all kinds of valuable 

 lumber. The greater part of this territory is unfit for cultivation, lying on 

 the granite and boulder formation, although the northern section in its 

 approach to the Restigouche River, runs into the Upper Silurian belt, and 

 consequently has good deep soils. Everywhere over this belt b^th black and 

 white spruce abounds, some pine, and vast quantities of the hardwoods that 

 have scarcely been touched, also large quantities of the finest and largest 

 cedar in Eastern Canada. 



Leaving this section of the Province and turning our attention to the 

 country lying southerly and south-westerly of the S. W. Miramichi, and ex- 

 tending to the Bay of Fundy, we find a territory heavily cut, and, in places, 

 badly burned. The Nashwaak River is an exception, where Alexander 

 Oibson, our lumber king, still reigns supreme. 



FOREST FIRES. 



In reading reports from time to time of the timber domain of Canada 

 as well as of the United States, the same story is read and re-read of the de- 

 vastation by forest fires. New Brunswick has not escaped. The great 

 Miramichi fire that swept through this Province in the year 1825 is a matter 

 of history. Scarcely a year elapses without more or less fires, although, of 

 late, we have suffered less perhaps than our neighbors. 



Our Legislature and lumbermen have grappled for years with this great 

 question, and the Government has still under consideration more effectual 

 methods in checking the ravages of forest fires. In the year 1885 the 

 Legislature passed the Act now in force. It contains provisions .prohibiting 

 tire's from being set between 1st May and the 1st December, except in 

 clearing land, obtaining warmth, or necessary industrial purposes, and then 

 precautionary measures to be taken. It is the opinion of many that no fires 

 should be set at all, except under a written permit from the Fire Warden of 

 the District. No fire to be set in the forest without first clearing away a 



