gg CANADIAN FOEEST&Y ASSOCIATION. 



REFORESTATION IN ONTARIO. 



E. J. ZAVITZ, B.A., M.S.F., PROFESSOR OF FORESTRY, ONTARIO 

 AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



The southern portion of Ontario, or that part which lies south of the 

 Laurtentian formation, has been largely cleared for agricultural purposes. 

 In this settled portion of the Province there is probably less than 10 per 

 cent, of woodland which is worthy of the name, while many townships con- 

 tain less than 5 per cent. There has developed, owing to the almost total 

 disappearance of the forest in this older part of Ontario, considerable de- 

 mand for Governmental attention to the question of forestry. It was in 

 answer to this demand that in 1904 a modest beginning was made by the 

 Provincial Government in creating a Forestry Department at the Ontario 

 Agricultural College, in Guelph. I wish to point out that this department 

 has only been concerned with the problems in Southern Ontario, and has 

 been in no way connected with the administration of our forest lands in the 

 North. 



The work undertaken by this department was at first two-fold, namely: 

 Academic work which aimed to give the agricultural student a knowledge 

 of handling his own problems in tree planting and care of woodlands also 

 the production of nursery material for planting in the wood lot and for re- 

 foresting waste portions of the farm. Forest nurseries were established at 

 Guleph to produce young forest trees suitable for replanting work. A 

 system of distribution of this material, to applicants throughout the Prov- 

 ince, was introduced. This system aimed to interest landowners having 

 land unsuited for agriculture to reforest and also to restock depleted wood- 

 lots. It was desired to get planting of this nature started throughout older 

 Ontario in representative places, so that in time these plantations would 

 have an educational value in regard to the reclamation of waste land. The 

 distribution of planting material has developed slowly, but the demand for 

 plants has come as rapidly as our nursery output would guarantee. During 

 1909, about 380,000 plants were sent out and our entire distribution to 

 date totals a little over a million plants. A large proportion of the planta- 

 tions, while of small area, have been made upon rough soils and under con- 

 ditions which would be applicable to forest planting on a larger scale. The 

 results thus far obtained are very satisfactory, many of the plantations con- 

 taining as high as 90 per cent, of the trees living. 



Situated in the southern and cleared portions of Ontario, there exists 

 large areas of unproductive, sand formations, which were originally cov- 

 ered with forests. These non-agricultural, sand formations vary in size 

 from 5,000 acres up to 50,000 acres in extent, and there is probably a total 

 area of about 200 square miles. While a large percentage of these sand 

 lands have second growth, there will be at least 40 per cent, which will 

 require artificial restocking if they are to be made productive. The estab- 

 lishment of Forest Stations or Reserves on these large waste areas through- 

 out the Province, is the most practical solution of the forest problem for 

 southern Ontario. These lands, if reclaimed and placed under forest man- 

 agement, would be the best possible argument to small land owners to im- 



