CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 65 



the last few years that, they have begun the administrative work which 

 the Dominion Bureau has done from the very beginning. They were 

 therefore able to concentrate their energy and time upon the work of 

 supplying bulletins and gathering statistical information. In addition 

 to that, the forests of the United States are much more accessible, more 

 easily reached and estimated, than those of Canada. When we go into the 

 northern parts of our Dominion the forests are difficult of access. If an 

 attempt were made to do anything in the north country under the adminis- 

 tration of the Dominion it would mean that a man would have to stay in 

 there for two or three years in order to get really definite information. In 

 a season he could not do more than go in and come out again. A considerable 

 number of the States have had Forestry Surveys made and have estimated 

 their timber much more accurately than has generally been done in the 

 Provinces of Canada ; so that the situation in Canada in regard to statistical 

 information and in regard to our forest wealth is and must be much more 

 inexact than it is in the United States. At the same time it is desirable that 

 as definite information as possible should be obtained as speedily as possible. 

 As far as the Dominion Forest Service is concerned, we are beginning 

 to try and get that information. Between Dominion Forest Reserves and the 

 different National Parks, we have under reserve an area of something over 

 ten million acres, and we have started to make a earful estimate of the 

 timber upon them. Already we have covered about one and a half -million 

 acres, and expect to get the work done rapidly from this time on, so that we 

 will have the Reserves mapped, and the position of the timber upon them 

 pretty accurately determined. Regarding the work in Nova Scotia, I think 

 the Dominion Forestry Branch will be very sympathetic towards helping 

 them. I don't know, though, just how far sympathy will go to help them. 

 Whether help goes farther than sympathy does not rest with me to say; but 

 I realize that it is a work of great importance. 



While on my feet, -I might speak of the fire patrol system. There is no 

 question that a fire protection system must lie at the basis of any forest 

 policy. If we cannot get a good measure of protection from forest fires there 

 is very little use making large expenditures or attempting any advanced 

 policy; so that undoubtedly that is the point at which we must make a 

 beginning. At the same time my experience in the administration of the 

 fire-ranging service, and watching the way it works out in the field, leads me 

 to the conclusion that in a very dry year it is just a question whether the 

 fire patrol system is going to be effective. You cannot cover every inch of 

 territory with a fire ranger. He must have a considerable beat to go over, 

 and from what I saw last summer in British Columbia it is quite possible for 

 a fire to start at one end of his beat while he is at the other, and that a fire 

 can be well up the mountain side before he can reach it. In fact that did 

 happen in one or two cases in British Columbia, under the Dominion admin- 

 istration. Unfortunately it got such a start that it got' on Provincial lands 

 and finally wiped out the Town of Fernie. There is a point in what Dr. 



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