54 CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 



water, and if the rangers were equipped in this way, many bad fires might be easily 

 prevented. So far as the Indians are concerned, some of them are very careful about 

 fires, while others are notorious even among their own people for their carelessness. 

 Therefore I think if we were to turn our ingenuity to putting out incipient fires, it 

 would be productive of great good. 



But there is no remedy to prevent the starting of fires, especially from light- 

 ning. In fact the nature of some of the trees, the jack pine particularly, show 

 that they have acquired certain habits during their long history from encountering 

 perpetual fires. We know, for example, that the cones of the jack pine remain 

 closed as long as the tree is alive, and do not seem to be capable of scattering like 

 the seeds of other coniferous trees. But the moment the cones are scorched by 

 fire, they open and the seeds are blown in every direction by the wind. It seems 

 to me that this -is a habit acquired through ages of suffering from fires caused by 

 lightning, and it is very interesting too indeed. Perhaps the other trees of the 

 same genus partake slightly of the same character, and need some scorching to 



scatter the seeds. ^ 



* 



The greater part of the northern forest represented on the map here, has 

 been burnt over. I do not know of any place where we can say for certain that the 

 original forest stands. At the Forestry Convention at Ottawa I showed a map 

 colored from my own travels, partly, and partly information I have gained from 

 other sources. The actual areas in burnt wood were divided into four classes 

 newly scorched areas up to ten, then ten to forty, forty to seventy, and seventy 

 to one hundred, and this seems to take in the whole country. Anywhere where 

 the original forest existed, that is to say. So far as the age of trees is concerned, 

 white spruce will grow to 120 years up, black spruce to 150 years or more, but 

 it is very seldom that we will find trees as old as that, and we do not know but that 

 they might grow much longer if they were left alone, but the whole country has been 

 so subject to fire, that I think there is little doubt about that. 



The PRESIDENT. Will you tell us from your experience the greatest age 

 of the pine forests you have seen? 



Dr. BELL. I have not had much experience, but we do not often find the 

 white pine more than 300 years old; the red pine perhaps not quite so old, and the 

 jack pine still younger. This is a coarse wood and I do not think that it attains 

 any great age. 



-" Mr. G. Y. CHOWN. Mr. Chairman, there is one point inMr. Ross's address that 

 I would like to mention. In summing up he spoke of a number of things the Dom- 

 inion Forest Service had done, and the importance of their work. He, however, 

 did not touch upon one point that has been before us a number of times, and that 

 is the regulating of the cutting by lumbermen, and the best method of the distri- 



