8 CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 



Mr. Gilford Pinchot, the chairman of the United States National Forest 

 Conservation Commission, states that since 1870, forest fires have yearly 

 destroyed, in the United States, not less than 50 million acres of forest. 



i 



He calculates that under right management the American forests will 



yield over four times as much as now, and that waste in the woods and in the 

 mill might be reduced by at least one-third, with a certain increase in both 

 present as well as future profit. 



The teaching of the people how to care for their forests is becoming 

 the first object of the American Government. I hope it will also become 

 the first object of the Canadian people. 



Not only is the scientific management of the forest areas necessary 

 in the interests of navigation, agriculture and life, but the advancing needs 

 of civilization would appear to require a continually increasing amount of 



wood per capita of the population. 



% 



In Germany, where one-quarter of the entire land area is covered with 

 forests yielding a greater amount of material than any other forest, owing 

 to their more scientific management, the demands for imported timber to 

 make up for the deficiency of the home supply are increasing. 



The forest area of the Dominion is said to be 354,000,000 acres. By 

 far the greater part of this is still Crown Land, or, in other words, belongs 

 to the people. 



The question for you to determine appears to me to be this shall 

 this great inheritance of which you are the trustees be handed over to 

 uncontrolled individuals to be misused, without regard to the interests 

 of posterity, or shall it be managed under careful and well-considered regu- 

 lations on lines which will increase the public revenues at the same time 

 that they will ensure a steady advance in capital value? 



I have now much pleasure in declaring this Conference open. (Applause). 



The PRESIDENT : We also have with us His Honour the Lieutenant- 

 Governor of the Province of Ontario, and while his name does not appear 

 on the programme he has kindly consented to say a few words. 



LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR GIBSON'S ADDRESS. 



His Honour, Lieutenant-Governor Gibson, was received with applause, 

 and said : "I certainly shall not delay the Congress by making much of a 

 speech. I probably -would not say a word at all were it not for the fact that 

 for some three years, while a member of the Government of this Province, 



