48 C AX ADI AX FORESTRY ASSOCIATIOX 



yourselves you work also for others. The people have need of those who control 

 finance, of those who have money for investment. You who are the men of 

 wealth and of finance, if you know what is necessary to be done in order that this 

 country may become more and more flourishing, all those who may be called the 

 workmen and who have not the means which you have at your disposal, will profit 

 by your knowledge and by the outlay which you make for the purpose of making 

 this country more and more prosperous. 



Now, gentlemen, I congratulate you on the work which you have accomplished 

 and I trust that you will be entirely successful in the great things which you under- 

 take, and that you will bring them to a happy termination. I hope that all 

 these sessions which you hold, in order to instruct yourselves, will be a complete 

 success and that all the country will profit by the efforts which you are making to 

 render Canada prosperous. 



Mr. ELLWOOD WILSON, Grand Mere, Que. All this seems to be from the 

 standpoint of the people who cut the wood. I understood that the Commission 

 had not made surveys of the different parts of the Province in order to get the 

 knowledge necessary for a broad general view, but dealt with the details of the 

 work. I would like to draw your attention to a few of the points which strike a 

 man who does the practical work. 



I can only speak with regard to the section of country north of the St. Lawrence 

 and between Montreal and Quebec, but I can certainly say that with regard to 

 this section the idea that our resources are inexhaustible is erroneous. Any one 

 seeing the burned areas stretching north of the St. Maurice and the Mattewan, 

 and the destruction wrought by the carelessness of the river drivers in the past, 

 and the settlers of the present, must be careful how he uses the word inexhaustible. 

 The timber is chiefly spruce, pine, balsam and to some extent larch. Under present 

 conditions the lumbermen are rapidly turning this whole territory into a balsam 

 forest. The pine and the best of the spruce are being ruthlessly taken out, thus 

 giving ideal conditions for the reproduction of the balsam, so that in the near 

 future, unless a change comes over the scene, our forests in this section will be 

 composed entirely of balsam, which we shall have to depend upon for our pulp wood. 

 The reproduction of this wood, however, is the best I have ever seen. It is very 

 widely distributed and reproduces itself very rapidly. In some cases the tops 

 of the mountains have been burned off, and erosion has commenced. We all know 

 what this will mean for the diminution of the water supply in our streams, in fact 

 as a result we are already troubled with too high water in spring and too little in 

 the summer, causing a serious condition which will have to be met very soon. 



The Honourable Mr. Fisher said this morning that the forester was the best 

 friend of the lumberman. I would like to say that any sort of encouragement from 

 the lumberman would be of great assistance to the foresters. The lumberman only 



