Ontario Co-operative Work in Forestry 



Paper read hy Mr. E. J. Zavit', Provincial Forester, at the Erperimental Union, On- 

 tario Agricultural College, Guelph, Out., Jan. 14, 1914. 



This last season the Forestry Department 

 •listributed some 200,000 forest tree seeil- 

 lings and transplants to private owners 

 throughout the Province. These plants went 

 into twenty-nine counties. The distribution 

 of trees for this last season has been, as far 

 as numbers are concerned, smaller than that 

 of previous years. This is partly accounted 

 for by the evident lack of labour throughout 

 the Province. A number of applicants were 

 unable to handle the work and notified us 

 that they were afraid that they would not 

 be able to carry out the experiment owing to 

 lack of labour. 



At the present time we have experimental 

 plantations in practically every county in the 

 Province. These plantations vary in size 

 from one-eighth of an acre to 10 acres, ami 

 in a few cases even larger. 



During the first five years of the life of 

 the plantation, it does not make very much 

 of a show, as the plants are very small when 

 sent out from our nurseries. As the plan- 

 tation gets up to the sixth year, it begins 

 to draw attention, and I anticipate that the 

 influence of these experimental plantations 

 throughout older Ontario, will have a strong 

 educational value. 



The bulk of our plantations are made upon 

 soils more or less unfit for agriculture. The 

 plantations are made on steep hillsides, sand 

 formations and upon blow sands, which in- 

 terfere often \\-ith township roads. This last 

 form of planting on sand which is drifting 

 across county or township roads is an inter- 

 esting feature of our work. 



There are a great number of places in 

 the Province where light sand ridges inter- 

 cept the highway. In many cases where this 

 sand has started to shift it is interfering 

 with the condition of the roads. Scotch pine 

 and jack pine thrive in the very poorest 

 sand, and it is a comparatively simple mat- 

 ter to form plantations upon these light 

 soils. 



In our circular we have advocated the 

 planting of waste portions of woodlots and 

 the introiluction of evergreens into the com- 

 position of the woodlot, but this form of 

 planting seems to have appealed to very 

 few. 



The improvement in the condition of the 

 Ontario woodlot is a most difficult problem. 

 When we realize the difficulty in interesting 

 the land owner in improving methods relat- 

 ing to annual crops from which he derives 

 his livelihood, it can be readily understood 



Hon. W. H. Hearst, Minister of Lands, 

 Forests and Mines for Ontario. 



that in the <-ase of the woodlot, whii h only 

 gives small returns, with the long time ele- 

 ment a factor, it will be difficult to 

 secure radical improvements. Here and 

 there we find men ])repared to protect their 

 woodlands and improve them for the good 

 of the future. 



There is probably little change during the 

 last five years in the percentage of woorllots 

 in the Province, but there is certainly a 

 gradual change for the worse in the quality 

 of the woodlot. The better classes of trees 

 are gradually being taken out and little at- 

 tention is lieing paid to the future results 

 of the cutting. 



AVe are receiving splendid assistance from 

 a nundier of the district representatives of 

 the Ontario Department of Agriculture 

 throughout the Province, anil in counties 

 where these men are taking some interest 

 in this matter there is a noticeable increase 

 in the number of plantations asked for. I 



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