58 CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 



country on his beat, he saw smoke arising, and went over to find out where the fire 

 was in ordejAp put it out. And while doing so he thought he would find out how 

 the fire begaW He dug down to where the fire was and found the charred end of 

 a log. He followed that back thirty or forty feet under ground, until he came to 

 the remains of a fire left by a surveyor on the line of survey. The head of that 

 party was evidently a careful man and warned his men to put out their fires when- 

 ever they moved. They probably thought that they had put that particular fire 

 out, but it had got into the log below, and smouldered through thirty or forty 

 feet of the log before it again came to the surface, and if this ranger had not stamped 

 it out it would have undoubtedly caused a serious fire. 



There is another interesting phase of forestry work in the west and that is the 

 tree planting of the prairie district. That work was well established by Mr. Stewart 

 when he was in charge of the Forestry Branch, and was placed under the 

 charge of Mr. Norman M. Ross, a thoroughly capable man. I was more 

 than pleased with the results of this work which I saw in the prairie districts 

 during the past summer, when I made a special examination to find out for myself 

 what was being done. It was exceedingly interesting to me to visit a number of 

 places in the prairie country. All round there was the bare prairie, while in these 

 places where the planting had gone on, there were rows and rows of trees, and inside 

 of them were hedges and gardens equal to anything in this eastern country. I 

 may mention particularly the farm of Mr. Spring Rice, an Englishman in the 

 Saskatchewan District, who has reproduced an old fashioned English garden 

 equal to anything that you would find outside of England itself. 



We have been distributing trees every year for a number of years and have 

 reached an average of about 2,000,000 a year. As we are getting the nursery at 

 Indian Head into shape we hope to increase this output to 3,000,000 or more, and 

 if the demand grows I have no doubt the Government will start another nursery 

 so as to secure a further supply. 



I was very much pleased in listening to Mr. Fisher's speech to hear him declare 

 that the Dominion Government had finally decided to make the eastern slope of 

 the Rocky Mountains a vast Forest Reserve. That is a matter which was brought to 

 the attention of the Government by Mr. Stewart on many occasions, but was never 

 taken up. The district is one of the most important \water-sheds in the whole of 

 Canada. It is important for the supply of lumber for all that western prairie coun- 

 try in Alberta along the foothills and also important as the water-shed from which 

 the streams flow to furnish water for the irrigation lands, which comprise such large 

 tracts in southern Alberta. In this irrigatipn work the Canadian Pacific Railway 

 have taken a very great interest, and is at the present time digging large canals, while 

 other people are also getting a supply of water from these streams, so that this 

 forest reserve will be of the greatest importance as a source of water supply, as well 

 as of lumber. There are also large mining industries there and that reserve will 



