NEW BRUNSWICK FORESTRY CONVENTION 173 



Of course there were men all over the country who had thought of this sub- 

 ject, but as another illustration as to how little it was known, I happened to 

 be in Germany a year or two ago, and in going through the Black Forest 

 with one of the Over-foresters, I said, ''You should some time or other visit 

 Canada." He said he had already done so, but had seen very little of the 

 forests. He had gone over from Buffalo to Niagara, and thought he would 

 present his card to someone at the Niagara Falls office, and did so and told 

 him that he would like to see some of the forests of Canada. He said this 

 young man looked at him in a very patronizing way and said, "I want you 

 to understand that this is a civilized country, and we have no forests." 



Every country must work out a system for itself. Our system in the 

 West of tree planting which I will not go into now our system of forest 

 guarding there, would be perhaps entirely inapplicable in New Brunswick. 

 When I started the system of forest tree planting we have now, I may say 

 in passing, u Forest Nursery, 320 acres, where we grow the trees for distri- 

 bution on the bare prairies, serving those who have no timber whatever 

 shortly after I had looked over the system adopted in other countries, Europe, 

 India and United States, one of our officials had been over to Belgium. 

 When he came back, I told him I was working out some system. He said, 

 "We will have to do as they do in Belgium, although it will cost a lot of 

 money. I saw them going out planting the trees for the people. It will 

 cost a lot of money, but we will have to do it." I saw the absurdity of it, 

 of course, but I did not say anything then. Shortly after, he called me in, 

 and said, "Did you think over that question ?" I said "What kind of an 

 army are you going to have, to plant trees all the way over those North- 

 western prairies to the Rocky Mountains ?" So we devised a system for the 

 settlers. They enter into an agreement that they will cultivate those trees. 

 Then we visit the ground to see what trees are applicable, what trees suit, 

 the soil, then after they have entered into the agreement, we follow that up 

 by inspection, until the trees are able to take care of themselves. Now, I 

 have not been able to find any system similar, but it is working admirably 

 at the present time. We have sent out nine millions of trees this spring, 

 and we have had an examination made last year of all the trees, and ninety 

 per cent, of the trees set out have gone through the third winter, and are 

 growing well. 



Then, in regard to the forest reserve, we instituted a system of forest 

 surveys. Of course, the country is very large I have gone into that be- 

 forebut the area of timber land owned by the Dominion is much larger 



