NEW BRUNSWICK FORESTRY CONVENTION 127 



First of all, I would like to correct a mis-statement in the Forestry 

 Journal, credited to the Hon. Mr. Sweeney, Surveyor - General of New 

 Brunswick, at the Convention in Vancouver, as follows : " Hon. F. J. 

 Sweeney, Surveyor- General of the Province of New Brunswick, said that 

 they provided for re-afforestation on Government preserves, in his Province, 

 by allowing the lumbermen to cut no trees less than 10 in. in diameter, three 

 feet above the ground." I was present at the Convention, and Mr. Sweeney 

 made no such statement. Anyone who knows Mr. Sweeney will recognise at 

 once that that is an error, but I thought it only fair for me, having been 

 present at the Convention, to correct this mis-statement. 



I see I am down on the programme to address you on the subject of 

 " The Lumberman's Interest in the Preservation of the Forests. " In one 

 word, the lumberman's interest in the preservation of the forest is to preserve 

 his own interests. When he preserves the forest he simply preserves his own 

 interests, especially it' the forest is going up in value. 



First of all, I am going over the Public Domain Act, passed at the last 

 session of your Legislature. I see by the opening sentence that the Crown 

 Lands of this Province amount to about 10,000 square miles. While it is a 

 very large area, and is your chief asset, it does not compare with the Prov- 

 ince of Quebec, which has 67,000 square miles of timber lands under li- 

 cense, and besides that we have 100,000 square miles of timber lands belong- 

 ino- to the Crown Lands Department not under license, so that we have in 

 the Province of Quebec a total area of about 167,000 square miles of timber 

 lands. 



I am glad to see by this Act that you are taking steps to classify your 

 lands, and, in fact, to make an inventory of your resources. If a man wants 

 to know how much he is worth, he should make an inventory of what he 

 owns and put a valuation on it ; and I am glad to see yon are acting on those 

 lines. 



I see you are also taking steps to get a report as to the various streams 

 of the Province, and the necessity of, and the facilities for, the storage and 

 impounding of water, &c. I think our friends in the United States have 

 given us a "very strong lesson on that subject. It is only of late years they 

 have found it necessary to construct reservoirs, especially as regards their 

 water power. We in Canada up to the present time have never known 

 what it was to have to create dams for our water powers. In the United 



