104 CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 



forest areas, demonstrates to us that it is of the greatest importance for us to protect 

 our forest wealth and even to increase it by new plantations. 



Wood is useful to man, and he uses it constantly from his cradle to his grave. 

 We ought to make daily exertions to preserve this national wealth, to bequeath 

 it to our children, not only wholly preserved, but even increased in quantity and 

 quality. 



This Association, composed of citizens who sincerely love their country, 

 deserves encouragement, and we should listen respectfully to its deliberations, and 

 take part with it, not alone for the good of the community at large, but for the 

 good of those governing who need to be enlightened by technically educated men, 

 who especially interest themselves in this question. 



Resolutions passed by this Association have already attracted the attention 

 of the Governments and of all the citizens of this country; important results are 

 making themselves felt every day. 



The protection of our forests is also the protection of our game, of our fauna 

 and even the preservation of our fish, because the devastation of the forest will 

 lead inevitably to the drying up of our rivers and of our water courses, and in con- 

 sequence to the diminution of our game and of our fish. Hence there is a triple 

 point of view from which it is desirable to make efforts to assure the protection of 

 the forest. 



Our neighbours of the United States are alarmed at the almost total devastation 

 of their forests, and competent economists predict, at the present rate of consump- 

 tion, the exhaustion of their forest domains within twenty-five or thirty years. 



Our country, which is considered the richest in the world in forests and in the 

 most varied and most useful woods, owes it to itself to preserve this wealth, upon 

 which depends in great part our future, and more especially that of the numerous 

 families who make their living in forest industry and commerce. 



Gentlemen, let me cite you one statistical fact. No less than 78,000 workers 

 derive their living from our forests; all men of experience, skilled labourers em- 

 ployed in our shanties and in our milling and pulp industries. We may calculate 

 a minimum of five as the family of each of these workmen. Thus it appears that 

 nearly 400,000 of our population are dependent upon the forest industry. 



The important speeches and reports which have been made by the delegates 

 to this Convention are sufficient to prevent me from entering into the details of the 

 question from an economic point of view. I may be permitted, however, to say a 

 word on that which concerns the Province of Quebec. It is admitted that this 

 Province possesses practically the greatest forest domains of America, with the 

 exception, perhaps, of British Columbia; but the forests of British Columbia, being 

 situated less advantageously than those of the Province of Quebec, we may say 

 that we possess the greatest forest wealth. 



The laws which have been passed during the last few years have been really 

 efficient and have produced excellent results from the point of view of the preser- 

 vation of our forests, and they tend to lead in a satisfactory way to a good under- 

 standing between the settlers and the lumbermen. Unfortunately, this eternal 

 question, the difficulty of establishing the lumberman in the forest in order to 

 cut the wood there, and the settler who goes there to make a home and who seeks 

 to draw as much benefit as possible from the piece of land which has been conceded 

 to him by the Government or the Colonization Societies, always exists. It has 

 been suggested during the course of this meeting, by Mr. Stewart and by Mr. Piche", 

 the forestry expert of the Province of Quebec, who has given us this morning an 

 elaborate and convincing paper, that forest reserves should be established under 



