Canadian Forestry Journal, September, igi6 



73S 



perfected to employ a large number 

 of extra patrolmen if the weather 

 became dangerous. The need for 

 such an increase in force fortunately 

 did not arise and the regular force 

 were able to readily meet all de- 

 mands made on it. 



In 1915 the cost of fire-fighting, 

 with claims, amounted to $19,449; 

 this year it will, from present indi- 

 cations, not exceed $5,000. Last 

 year the cost of patrol for the sea- 



son totalled $157,432; this year it 

 will be covered by $135,000. In 

 1915, the forest protection force, 

 consisting of rangers, forest guards, 

 patrolmen, lookout men, etc., num- 

 bered 254, as against the 1916 force 

 of 210 men. The fires reported in 

 1915 numbered 1,031, but it is not 

 anticipated that when the final re- 

 turns for 1916 are received the num- 

 ber of outbreaks will reach half this 

 number. 



A Northern Ontario Point of View 



Absentee Landlords. 



It seems rather significant that 

 the settler who has the beginning of 

 a nice clearing with house in it, crop 

 growing, and his family living with 

 him, is becoming insistent that 

 some sort of supervision of setting- 

 fires to slash should be made by the 

 government, and that it is the ab- 

 sentee settler who insists on indis- 

 criminate burning of the bush ; the 

 man whose family is safely housed 

 in town, and who does not appear 

 himself on his farm, but only to set 

 some more brush on fire when the 

 season is driest and the wind 

 strongest, the man whose sole pos- 

 sessions on the farm consist of a lit- 

 tle two-by-four log shack, unfur- 

 nished, and like as not half falling 

 to pieces, the man who is holding the 

 land for the unearned increment, 

 and we have rather too many of 

 them around here. We venture to 

 say that if the government would 

 place sane laws regarding fire super- 

 vision and fire ranging on the stat- 

 utes which would make it a criminal 

 oft'ence to set out fires without per- 

 mit, it would not be the bona fide 

 settler, but the land shark who 

 would have to pay the penalty, and 

 it should be heavy enough to deter 

 others. — Cochrane "Clavbelt," Aug. 

 25. 1916. 



vVhat Compensation? 



But why should we be so over- 

 anxious to want this country denud- 

 ed of all bush? Where does the 

 compensation come in of wantonly 

 destroying every stick of timber, 

 even if some of it is only scrub, 

 which nevertheless comes in mighty 

 handy for fence work and even fuel. 

 Wliy not go at once to the prairies, 

 where at least we have the redeem- 

 ing feature of still having some loam 

 and humus to plow under the clay. 

 Perhaps even around here at Coch- 

 rane, where still a lot of green bush 

 is in existence, we do not quite real- 

 ize what it means to have the coun- 

 try totally denuded right down to 

 the bare clay, but one has only to go 

 as far as Matheson to fully under- 

 stand what havoc and what devasta- 

 tion the continued burning over of 

 the land really means. When we see 

 settlers there who actually have to 

 buy fence posts from afar, not to 

 speak of building material general- 

 ally, who have to buy, in some in- 

 stances, even this winter's fuel, who 

 have to start in at once to manure 

 their land if thev want to sret anv 

 crop at all next year, then we won- 

 der, even making all due allowances 

 for that ambiguous ''if," where the 

 added value to the land comes in. — 

 Cochrane "Clavbelt," Aug. 25, 1916. 



