The Forests of C nada. 11 



their limits. Indians sometimes burn the forests off each 

 other's hunting-grounds from motives of revenge, but as a 

 rule the tires which they start are from carelessness or indif- 

 ference. When cautitjned in a friendly way, they are willing 

 to exei-cise greater care, and the beneticial ett'eets of this 

 course are already manifest in the ie<>:ion between Lake 

 Winnipeg and Iluds >n Bay, where the auth )r had icnion- 

 strated with them on the subject. lie suggests that the 

 annuities which they receive from Government be withheld 

 as a punishment for burning the woods, or that a bounty bo 

 [taid each year that no tires occur. In this way the Indian 

 chiefs and headmen may be made the most efficient and 

 earnest forest guardians we could possibly have. 



Fires are not so liable to run in forests of full-grown white 

 and red pines, such as those of southern Ontario, which 

 have suffered comj^aratively little from this cause, but have 

 now been mostly cut down and utilized by the lumbermen. 

 Hardwood forests are seldom bui'nt to any great extent, 

 excel, t where the soil is shallow and becomes parched in 

 summer, as, for instance, on the flat limestone rocks of Grand 

 Manitoulin Island and the Indian peninsula of Lake Huron, 

 through much of which fii-es have run, burning the vegetable 

 mould and killin<>: the roots, thus cansini'- the ti'ees to fall 

 over even before they have decayed. Hence the term "tire- 

 falls " applied in such cases. 



If we had educated and intelligent conservators of forests 

 in Canada, appointed by the Government, their duties, in 

 addition to preventing the destruction of the timber by fire 

 and otherwise, might be directed to promoting the growth 

 of existing timber, encouraging transplanting, the intro- 

 duction of foreign trees which might grow in this country, 

 the dissemination of information on practical forestry, etc., 

 investigating the causes of diseases among trees, directing 

 the attention of foreign purchaseis to our woo<ls and 

 pointing out to our lumbermen possible new markets for 

 timber products and tor varieties of woods not now utilized. 

 That disease does sometimes cause great havoc among our 

 forests is illustrated by the recent fact that the spruces in 

 New Brunswick, the principal timber tree of that province, 



