38 CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 



tions, on their face, seem stringent, but thfe penalty is a trifling fine, proof 

 is difficult, no convictions take place, and the result is that the regulations 

 are practically ignored. What is wanted is not a fine, which, were it col- 

 lected, would be a trumpery return to the province where carelessness 

 resulted in a million dollar fire, but imprisonment for two years. Proof 

 would still be difficult, but the moral effect of such a penalty would be very 

 marked around every camp fire, in every settler's clearing and with every 

 man who handled the lighted match in the dry woods of summer and 

 autumn. The damage done by these forest fires is not to be measured merely 

 by the millions of feet of merchantable timber which have "gone up in 

 smoke," but even more by the vast quantity consumed of growing seedlings, 

 saplings and young trees, not yet merchantable, but which will become so, 

 year by year, during the next fifty or sixty years. 



The time has come when each of the larger provinces of Ontario and 

 Quebec should have a Bureau of Forestry formed in part on the lines of the 

 Bureau at Washington. The time has also come when the trained forester 

 or forest warden as, in the extensive districts of the Crown Lands, he might 

 be called, should be employed. The duties of these forest wardens should be 

 enlarged to include supervision of the methods of cutting by lumbermen, 

 with a view to preventing exhaustion of the timber limits ; a system of replant- 

 ing on the already burned and cut over areas; and the protection of the fish 

 and game within the forest areas. They should be permanent employees, 

 whose duties would extend over the winter as well as the summer and be 

 entirely in the service of the Government under the Bureau of Forestry. The 

 vast extent of the Crown lands under forest in the Provinces of Ontario and 

 Quebec, and the great possibilities of development in future years if merely 

 measured by the rich returns of the past, are sufficient warrant for each of 

 these provinces undertaking the responsibility of this new Government 

 Department. 



The licenses granted by the Government to cut timber on the Crown 

 Lands, should contain some new provisions to ensure continuity in the 

 returns ; both of revenue to the Government and of timber to the lumberman 

 from off these Crown Lands, and to prevent fires. For the purpose of natural 

 replanting by seed, a certain number of mature pine and spruce trees should 

 be left on each square mile. The selection of those could be made by the 

 forest warden. The license holder should also plant each year in suitable 

 localities, and for a time protect, several seedling pines and spruces for each 

 tree of these species which he cuts down. These two provisions would aid 

 in securing a continuous growth of these trees in the future. Further, the 

 licensee should, at the close of each winter, burn all the boughs, leaves 

 and other debris which have resulted from the cutting down and trimming 

 of coniferous trees on his limits. This debris always furnishes a fuel like 

 kindling wood to the forest fire in the dry season of the late summer months. 



There should not be any difficulty on the part of the railways and owners of 

 mills in the wooded districts, complying with regulations requiring them to 

 be directly responsible for the guarding against fire of certain defined areas 

 within reasonable distance on either side of their tracks and of their mills. 

 The mill owner, under any circumstances, should in his own interest have 

 watchmen by night as well as by day, whilst the railway company has its 

 three section men on each six miles of track, passing and repassing daily, 

 and whose duties could be readily enlarged by giving them the direct respon- 

 sibility of extinguishing fires within the prescribed distance. 



Lightning is sometimes put forward as a frequent cause of forest fires, 

 but as atmospheric storms are almost invariably accompanied by rain, which 



