CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 149 



suffering from the wastefully improvident manner in which our forests were 

 being destroyed, and his gifted pen was continually employed in protest- 

 ing against the shameful sacrifice. 



As early as 1877, as a member of the Dominion Board of Agriculture, 

 he brought this matter prominently under public notice, in one of the most 

 valuable reports that has ever been issued from a Canadian press; a report 

 so replete with useful information relating to our forests that if it had at 

 the time been made a text book in all our schools, it would have enlightened 

 the rising generation to a knowledge of the seriousness of the situation, and 

 saved the country the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of our 

 finest timber, which has been foolishly and needlessly sacrificed. He was 

 among the first to participate in efforts made in this country towards forest 

 conservation, and his active interest in the cause had much to do with bring- 

 ing this important question into public recognition. All who attended our 

 first meeting of the American Forestry Congress (now Association) in Mont- 

 real in August, 1882, will remember the prominent part taken by him in 

 the deliberations of this Congress. His valuable services were recognized 

 by his election to the office of First Vice-President of the American Forestry 

 Congress, an office that he held for many years. He was a life member of 

 both Congress and Association, and when in the following month, September 

 20th, 1882, our first Canadian Forestry Association, that of the Province 

 of Quebec, was formed, he was elected its First President, which office he 

 held until the objects of the Association were recognized by the Provincial 

 Government in setting aside large areas of timber lands, the enactment of 

 laws for the greater protection of the forest from fire, and the establishment 

 of an annual Arbor Day, in the observance of which he always took the 

 keenest interest. He felt an honourable pride in knowing that through his 

 advocacy and influence in Parliament, the Province of Quebec has the credit 

 of being among the first of Governments to inaugurate an annual Arbor Day. 



He was also the First President of our Canadian Forestry Association, 

 organized in Ottawa, March 8th, 1900, which office he held for three years, 

 when he was elected Honorary President. Having been appointed Lieuten- 

 ant-Governor of British Columbia, it was necessary for him to remove there, 

 but his interest in forestry never flagged and his efforts to preserve the forests 

 of British Columbia for the benefit of Canadian industry are well known. 

 So that whether as Premier of Quebec or Governor of British Columbia, 

 from the Atlantic to the Pacific, his name will ever be held in fond remem- 

 brance and esteem, and especially so by al] friends of the forests. And 

 when at last, full of years and full of honours, he laid aside his life work, 

 he could feel conscious that he left the world much the better for his labours 

 in it. 



Sad as the parting is to us, it is some consolation to know that though 

 "We ne'er shall look upon his like again;" the good seed so lavishly sown 

 by him is now being nourished and cared for by his son, Edmund Joly de 

 Lotbiniere, our worthy Past President, who has taken up the mantle laid 

 down by his father and is continuing his beneficent work. 



And here permit me to add, that a more valuable object lesson can 

 hardly be found in relation to the preservation of the forest from fire than 

 that given by Sir Henri in the care of the valuable de Lotbiniere forests, 

 where can be seen for ten miles on each side of the railway track, the only 

 matured forest growth of timber that has not been seriously damaged by fire 

 from North Sydney on the Atlantic to Vancouver on the Pacific, a distance 

 of nearly 4,000 miles ! 



