82 CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 



Public ownership, public administration and utilization of our natural resources, 

 is now in the air and (while there is something to be said in its favour) it is being 

 carried to such absurd extremes by the popular agitator as to become a fad. Fancy 

 the foreman of a lumber camp or river drive being selected by a political caucus 

 and as a reward for heroic work in a political campaign! 



Between the extremes of individual ownership in fee simple of timber land and 

 that of the Government retaining and cutting the timber themselves, as is done 

 in some of the German States, it seems to me that our license system is a happy 

 medium. The Government retaining the ownership of the land and only granting 

 the utilization of the forest product as it sees fit, and on the other avoiding the de- 

 tails of cutting and marketing it. 



As I have said at the outset, a time of great scarcity of timber awaits us in the 

 near future, and recognising this fact the ground rent charged should be placed 

 at a very low figure, so as to permit the holder to retain his timber as long as 

 possible. Any country having a supply of timber to-day and which endeavours 

 to husband its resources for the future, will be found, when the time of scarcity 

 arrives, not only to have acted with prudent foresight, greatly in its own interest 

 but also to have at the same time acted the part of a world's benefactor. 



There is a story of an old miner who having prospected through all the western 

 states, always moving west as civilization approached him, at last finds himself at 

 Nome in Alaska, with the Pacific Ocean in sight. Even here his old enemy over- 

 takes him and with the force of habit he exclaims that this country too has become 

 too civilized for him and that he will have to go farther west. 



The sound of the lumberman's axe, first heard in this country on the banks of 

 the St. Lawrence, was soon carried up the Ottawa; then across to the regions sur- 

 rounding lakes Huron and Superior, then to the shores of Lake Winnipeg and beyond 

 even to the Rocky Mountains, till it is now resounding through the great timber 

 fields of British Columbia, where the Occident and the Orient meet, and are both 

 holding out their hands for the products of these forests. 



We, like the miner, fail to realize that we have reached our last west; that 

 nature, so prolific to this country is this respect, has no more virgin fields to offer, 

 and that the only means by which a supply can be maintained to meet the enorm- 

 ous demands of future years, is by husbanding the resources of the territory which 

 we are now exploiting. 



It is to awaken the people who own these forests to a knowledge of the danger 

 that threatens them, and to demand the most enlightened policy in order to con- 

 serve and perpetuate them for the future, that the Canadian Forestry Association 

 was formed, and is working; and in its mission it asks, and thinks it deserves, the 

 co-operation and assistance of every citizen of Canada. 



The PRESIDENT. It is very pleasing to know that the conclusions reached 

 by Professor Filibert Roth, last evening at his lecture, and those of Mr. Stewart 

 in his paper, are the same. That is that where the timber is divided into small 

 lots and left to the mercy of the settlers, it means the speedy and utter destruction 

 of the timber, and only emphasizes the necessity of the State or Province keeping 

 an adequate timber reserve if future generations are to benefit by the numerous 

 uses of our wood. 



I will now ask Mr. R. R. Bradley, Forester to theMiramichi Lumber Company, 

 Miramichi, N. B., to read his paper on "Practical Forestry in Eastern Canada." 



