CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 41 



that this was all nonsense and they were entirely wrong. The subject has 

 been discussed a good deal during the past year, especially in the last seven 

 or eight months, and I think I can say this, having followed the discussions 

 which have taken place with some degree of closeness, there is absolutely 

 nothing at all in the attacks which have been made by the enemies of For- 

 estry. It has been shown in some important cases that the destruction of 

 the forests has not affected the rainfall. There are, no doubt, places 

 where forests do not affect the rainfall, the rainfall being governed in these 

 particular localities by other circumstances. But to say that the climate is 

 . not affected by the forests, is to say there is no difference between the cli- 

 mate upon a plain and the climate in a forest; and all of us know differ- 

 ently. To say that the stream flow is not affected by the destruction of the 

 forest cover is to say what is contrary to the experience of any man 

 who has lived outdoors to any extent and used his eyes. Certainly no one 

 in New Brunswick would be likely to be deceived upon that point. But 

 when experts differ it is generally the desire to get a concrete case for the 

 purpose of proving the point at issue. I am not familiar enough with New 

 Brunswick to cite a' case, but in Ontario at the present time we have an 

 object lesson which bears out every contention that foresters have made in 

 regard to the influence of the forests upon the fertility of the soil and upon 

 the flow of the streams. The Grand River, in the western portion of the 

 Province of Ontario, drains one of the best portions of the Province, in 

 which there are many large and populous towns. At the present time the 

 forests in that drainage area have been almost completely destroyed, and 

 the people who live in these towns along the river are holding meetings 

 and endeavoring to devise some means for the purpose of overcoming the 

 effects which have resulted from the destruction of the forests. I have here 

 in my hand the report of a topographical engineer, who has examined the 

 drainage area of the Grand River, in which he says with clearness and de- 

 tail with which I need not trouble you, that the results of deforestation in 

 that valley brought about all the effects which foresters declare come from 

 that cause. We have here an object lesson of that which foresters have 

 been saying for the last ten years. So we do not desire to go by theory; 

 we have the fact unfortunately before us. It is so in the case of several 

 rivers of Ontario that I know of, and true at least of one river in the 

 Province of Quebec. So that the evils of deforestation are not coming in 

 the next generation or the generation after, but they have come so far as 

 many portions of Canada are concerned. 



I want to say a word or two in regard to the general question of tim- 

 ber supply. I made a statement the other evening at a meeting at which I 

 think my friend, the Chairman, was present that, according to the best cal- 

 culations that could be made (and in the case of the United States they are 

 fairly accurate) the United States has at the present time a total timber 

 supply .of about twenty-two hundred billion feet. That is a very large 

 amount, but the consumption of the United States is pretty accurately 

 known, and it amounts to one hundred billion feet per year. The annual 

 growth is estimated at about thirty billions, so that the difference would be 

 seventy billion feet per year of net consumption. There is, therefore, in 

 the United States at the present time, about thirty years' supply of timber. 

 At the present time there is a population of ninety milions. Their statistics 



