NEW BRUNSWICK FORESTRY CONVENTION 203. 



McAdam Junction, 

 Feb. 18th, 1907 



MR. W. P. FLEWELLING, 



Deputy Surveyor General, 



DEAR SIR, 



I regret to have to write that my duties at Sackville will prevent me > 

 attending the sessions of the Forestry Convention. I am deeply interested 

 in the subject and am glad to see that such a step is being taken to create 

 public interest in this vital national question, and to perfect and give greater 

 effect to the "Forestry Law," which, beginning in Westmorland has become- 

 provincial. 



One subject, I notice, is not in your list, viz.; the farmers' interest in 

 Forestry. The pioneer settlers in this country who had with immense labor 

 to hew places for themselves out of the forest came to look upon the trees- 

 as their natural enemies, and this seems to have become an inbred instinct 

 in many of their descendents. Trees are destroyed, even where they are- 

 doing no harm and where th,eir destruction yields no profit to the destroyer* 

 It would be a great thing if public sentiment could be so cultivated that every 

 farmer would have his wood lot religiously cared for and protected, and il> 

 the farmers could be made to see the value of wind breaks in adding to the 

 beauty and the profit of their farms. 



The experience of the Northwest has shown that every foot of height 

 in a wind break protects 50 feet of crop. A wind break of trees six feet or 

 ten feet in width more than pays for itself in the following ways : 



It prevents the rough thrashing of the crop by high winds which draws 

 upon the vitality of the plants and therefore results in less crops, it lends to 

 prevent lodging of heavy grain crops, it protects grass roots by keeping a 

 deeper covering of snow on the land and add fertility by the ammonia and 

 carbonic acid (through its solvent power) and nitrates condensed in the 

 snow. It holds the heat of the sun and reduces very greatly the powerful 

 chilling effect produced by the rapid evaporation of moisture in a wind. 

 The warmth over a piece of land between two wind breaks is so much greater 

 during the latter part of the day and is held over the land so much longer 

 during the night that it is equivalent to moving the farm several degrees 



