CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 117 



ture. Take for example the whole Parry Sound and Muskoka districts. With 

 the exception of a few areas in some scattered townships, that land is such 

 that no human being can make a living on it. Some of the townships were 

 settled up, almost every lot ; n each township being taken, and now you find 

 only three or four settlers in some of them. The result was that the men who 

 went in there struggled on for years to make a living, burned up a great deal 

 of the timber, and eventually had to get out of the country because they could 

 not live. Of course there are some localities up there where that does not 

 apply, but that has been the history in the bulk of the country in the Parry 

 Sound and Muskoka districts. We feel now that the Government should not 

 repeat this mistake in the districts they still have to open up. We think it 

 would be advisable for them to have all their lands, which are at present 

 open for location, carefully examined, and if it is found, upon examination, 

 that at least fifty per cent, of the total area of a township is not fit for agri- 

 cultural purposes, that township should be reserved for timber. It is well 

 known that the preservation of standing timber is worth a good deal more to 

 the country than the crops that can be obtained from the land for many 

 years; and it is a question in my mind whether, in some lands which are 

 good agricultural lands, it would not be better to save the timber rather than 

 open up the land for agriculture; but I think the fitness of the land for 

 agriculture will settle it. I understand there is to be a resolution presented 

 to the meeting in regard to this very question, asking the Government not to 

 open up lands for settlement which are worth more for timber. I think they 

 might go even further, and withdraw lands which are now open for settle- 

 ment, where it can be shown upon examination, and where we know from 

 past experience, that the land is poor for agriculture, and that men are not 

 able to make a living, and where they only locate these lands for the sake 

 of what they may make out of the timber. All those lands should be with- 

 drawn from the location, and kept for timber purposes. I notice that in one 

 of the papers read here a recommendation was made that a commission should 

 be appointed to look into this question. I would like to see the Dominion 

 Government and the local Governments of the different Provinces appoint a 

 commission whose duty it would be to take up the whole question of Forestry 

 in all its branches. (Applause.) I think if this were done it would strengthen 

 the hands of the various Governments and that they could then have some 

 intelligent opinion and advice with regard to the best policy to follow. I 

 don't thing that a Parliamentary Committee, such as they are talking about 

 appointing in Ottawa this year, would really fill the bill. I was very glad 

 to hear from Mr. Aubrey White a statement regarding the amount of timber 

 we have standing up in the northern country at the present time. It is a 

 rather higher estimate than I would have put on it, but of course no private 

 individual, unless he has been over the land himself, can really form any cor- 

 rest estimate of what timber we have there. The Government have their 

 rangers through all parts of the country, and I have no doubt that the estimate 

 given by Mr. White is as close to the mark as it is possible to get. His state- 



