NEW BRUNSWICK FORESTRY CONVENTION 119 



than any other words in the English language " I see," and very often they 

 don't see. That began, I fancy, in the days spoken of by my friend, Mr, 

 Skinner. I fancy that Adam used those words, " I see " ; but Mr. Skinner 

 has proved that Adam didn't see, and didn't know very much about it any- 

 way, and there have been very many who have followed in the footsteps of 

 Adam with regard to a feeling of assurance on their part that did see when 

 they didn't see. And as I think of the past history of New Brunswick and 

 I need not go cutside of the County of York for illustration when I think 

 of what has occurred, and the waste that has resulted, by the destruction of 

 very valuable property, I begin to realise, and you too will realise it if you 

 think of it, that there have been a great many men who have not seen, and 

 if they only had seen what a difference there might have been ! 



Mr. Skinner has spoken of the results as to the destruction of the 

 forests. Did you ever, canoeing along your river banks, or going up and 

 down the beautiful St. John, view from the decks of a steamer the waste to 

 be seen on the shores and banks of that river ? Did you ever walk through 

 a wide road in any section of the country without observing the waste and 

 the result of ,destructiveness ? Did you ever, in going across the farm lands, 

 look at the fences ? Those of you who are as familiar with the northern sec- 

 tion as I am will recall this fact, that there is not' a county along the shores 

 of the Northumberland Straits but has suffered from waste in the very 

 matter of cedar fences to such an extent that the cedar in them would more 

 than pay and I would say it is not an extravagant statement would more 

 than pay your public debt for the province of New Brunswick if you had all 

 that waste at one spot today, having regard to the market valae of that 

 cedar. 



You can travel through the County of Gloucester from one end to the 

 other and today see the remnants of magnificent cedar fences, and the same 

 is true with respect to the Counties of Northumberland and Restigouche, 

 and you will see in those cedar fences great, immense logs. Look at the 

 value. I am not going to talk shop to you, but I have -realised in the three 

 short years in which I have presided at the head of the Department of Rail- 

 ways and Canals I have realised, because it has been brought under my 

 notice month after month, and week after week, and day after day, that the 

 values of cedar, in fact, of all classes of lumber that are required for material 

 in connection with the Intercolonial Railway, have, in many instances, 

 doubled, and in others certainly there has been a fifty per cent, increase ; 

 and this is not, as. a good many imagine, by the purchase of material withoi 



