CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 109 



the parts of the Province of Quebec which are to-day denuded, know what we heed; 

 those who have had the opportunity of travelling in France, England, Scotland, in the 

 old countries of Europe, and who have admired the enchanting beauty of all these 

 roads bordered with beautiful trees comprehend still better what we need. Now, 

 gentlemen, the children could be taught to plant trees. It would be easy to have 

 a festival every year when all the children should be invited to plant their little 

 trees which should become their property and to which they should give special 

 care and attention. 



We ought also to make a study of our forest territories; first in order to make 

 choice of the farm lands, and afterwards to know which territories should be assigned 

 to forest reserves. **" 



We have immense regions which were cleared of wood by fire many years ago, 

 and there are districts where the denudation is made gradually by the axe of the 

 wood chopper, under the control of the lumberman. 



Then, more sales of limits, to continue the policy adopted in 1907, and to or- 

 ganize the remainder of our forests which are under license in order that they may 

 benefit everybody, and not one alone; to adopt a system of organization for 

 the reserves ; to encourage by bonus and by exemption from taxation the work of 

 reforestation, where the district has been ruined by fire or by drifting sand; to 

 place our forest properties on a business footing; to cause studies of our prin- 

 cipal trees to be made by competent men; to establish the boundaries of each 

 reserve, to calculate their area and to make maps showing what they are from the 

 point of view of topography, soil, and wood contents; to prepare cutting plans 

 suited to local conditions and to the trees which assure the perpetuity of 

 the exploited areas; technical studies of our woods, laboratory tests of their mechani- 

 cal properties, resistance to compression, tension, etc., in order to instruct our 

 engineers and architects, laboratory tests of chemical properties in order to find sub- 

 stitutes for various woods, and especially to aid the industry of the distillation of 

 wood; to have a pulp manufactory for testing our woods and finding substitutes, 

 in order to maintain our influential position when we shall have attained it in these 

 industries. 



Gentlemen, these are"studies which ought to interest not alone the lumberman 

 and the settler, but which ought also to interest the railroad man, because it has been 

 clearly established that a piece of hemlock, for instance, used as a sleeper will not 

 last more than seven or eight years, while it will last from twenty to twenty-three 

 years if it is chemically treated; and that at an expense of one cent per sleeper. 

 The sleeper costs twenty-five cents ; by adding an expense of one cent its value is 

 multiplied three times. 



Gentlemen, these are in a few words the remarks which I had to make. We 

 have a Province rich in valuable minerals, rich in forests, rich in farm lands; it is 

 our duty to pledge ourselves, citizens of this country, to preserve and perpetuate 

 all these riches ; and it is for this reason that I was so proud yesterday to see here 

 the representatives of authority, which, like you, interests itself in the forest ques- 

 tion, and I hope that their example and yours will inspire in our population a love 

 for its native land attachment to the forest and to the soil, which is to preserve 

 to our country the national wealth which will form its great future. 



The PRESIDENT. Mr. Bergevin has made out a very good case for the Fish 

 and Game Society, and in doing so he has also advocated the idea of this Association, 

 and showed that our principles and aims and theirs are identical, that his Society 



