CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 37 



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THE PRACTICAL SIDE OF THE FORESTRY QUESTION. 



. A. T. DRUMMOND. 



Is fire still to play annual havoc and ruin in the forests of Canada and is 

 the lumberman's axe still to have unrestricted sway in cutting down the 

 pine and spruce timber that remains? Or will our Governments provide for 

 the future as well as the present revenues of the country, and for the future 

 as well as the present domestic consumption and exports of timber, by tak- 

 ing more radical steps to diminish these forest fires, by placing greater 

 responsibility on license holders, settlers, campers and railways, and by 

 making provisions for replacement wherever the forests are cut over or 

 burned? These are the practical questions facing u% at this moment. 



The British press, in reviewing the recently issued report of the Royal 

 Commission on Afforestation in Great Britain, emphasize the fact that with 

 the present continually increasing consumption of timber, the world's supply 

 may not' last beyond thirty years unless immediate steps are taken to replant. 

 As that country's contribution to the future, the proposition is made in this 

 Report, and approved by the press, to spend $10,000,000 annually in acquir- 

 ing and planting 150,000 acres of vacant lands in Great Britain each year, 

 until 9,000,000 acres of forest have been created. 



With its vast original forests, where nature has been so prodigal, what 

 is Canada doing? Until a few years ago, the object of each Province 

 appeared to be to derive the maximum revenue from the Crown Lands with 

 the least possible expenditure, and to leave the forests and the future to take 

 care of themselves. In 1883, an International Forestry Convention was held 

 at Montreal, and public attention drawn in forcible terms to the quickly 

 diminishing supplies of timber; and especially to the ravages of fire. The 

 meetings were effective in so far that the United States Government took the 

 matter up, and, through the efforts of Prof. Fernow and Mr. Gifford Pinchot, 

 an important subdepartment of the Government the Bureau of Forestry 

 has been created ; but Canada for years did nothing. The forests continued 

 to burn unheeded, and the lumbermen on their limits still operated without 

 check on what remained untouched by fire. No efforts at replacement were 

 made. It was considered the part of nature and not of Government to look 

 after that. During the last few years there has been some change for the 

 better, especially in Ontario and Quebec, whose revenue depend in no small 

 degree on the returns from timber In spite, however, of the fire rangers 

 employed, forest fires continue on a great scale, and no definite efforts have 

 been made at replacement,, either in the burned or the cut over areas. We 

 are face to face with the fact that a large item in our provincial revenues, 

 and perhaps the most important natural product in our home consumption 

 and exports, have not so many years of a future ahead of them. What must 

 be done? 



Whilst considerable advances have been made in educating the public 

 into better appreciation of the value of the forest heritage which Canada 

 possesses, the most important step thus far taken by the Provincial Govern- 

 ments has been the apponitment of fire rangers whose chief work is to warn 

 campers, settlers, and others of the Government regulations arid to prevent 

 the spread of fires should they break out. That more than this is needed, the 

 havoc made by fire during the last year alone, is ample evidence. Regula- 



