TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 859 



scale. Before a high wind the fire sweeps on with a roaring noise, and at a rate 

 which prevents the birds and beasts from escaping. After a time the burnt 

 district becomes overgrown, first with shrubs and bushes, then with aspens and 

 white birches, among which coniferous trees by-and-by appear ; but finally, at the 

 end of a hundred and fifty years or more, they regain possession of the burnt tract. 

 This process of alternation of crops of timber appears to have been going on for 

 centuries, but in modern times the fires must have been more numerous and frequent 

 than formerly. These fires are undoubtedly due occasionally to lightning, but most 

 of them are traceable to the carelessness of white men and demoralised Indians. 

 In the partially-inhabited regions, most of the forest fires originate by the settlers 

 burning brush and log-heaps in clearing the land. It may be asked if we have no 

 means of stopping this fearful destruction of the timber of the country. Laws on 

 the subject do exist, but no means appear to be provided for enforcing them. The 

 author recommended a reform iu this respect, before it be too late. Crown lands of 

 real value for agriculture should be separated for the purpose of administration from 

 those which are acknowledged to be useful only or principally for their timber, and 

 settlement should be prohibited within the latter. Heretofore, the great considera- 

 tion of Government was the peopling of the country, the timber being looked upon 

 as of secondary importance, and it was willingly sacrificed in the interests of the 

 settler, who came to regard it as his natural enemy. The time has come when we 

 must change all this. In the absence of forest guardians and proper regulations, 

 lumbermen have often to submit to a species of blackmail from discharged employes 

 and pretending settlers in order to keep them off their limits. Indians sometimes 

 burn the forests off each other's hunting-grounds from motives of revenge, but as a 

 rule the fires which they start are from carelessness or indifference. When 

 cautioned in a friendly way, they are willing to exercise greater care, and the 

 beneficial effects of this course are already manifest in the region between Lake 

 Winnipeg and Hudson's Bay where the author had remonstrated with them on the 

 subject. He suggests that the annuities which they receive from Government be 

 withheld as a punishment for burning the woods, or that a bounty be paid each 

 year that no fires 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, and such 

 as those of southern Ontario, which have suffered comparatively little from this 

 cause, but have now been mostly cut down and utilised by the lumbermen. Hard- 

 wood forests are seldom burnt to any great extent, except when the soil is shallow 

 and becomes parched in summer, as, for instance, on the flat limestone rocks of 

 Grand Manitonlin Island and the Indian Peninsula, through much of which fires 

 have run, burning the vegetable mould and killing the roots, thus causing the trees 

 to fall over even before they have decayed. Hence the term ' fire-falls ' applied in 

 such cases. 



In regard to the future supplies of timber which may be available in Canada, 

 the greater part of the white oak and rock elm had been already exported. 

 The cherry, black walnut, red cedar, and hickory had likewise been practically 

 exhausted. Red oak, basswood, white ash, red cedar, hemlock, butternut, hard 

 maple, &c, as well as many inferior woods, were still to be found in sufficient 

 quantity for home consumption. A considerable supply of yellow birch still exists, 

 and in some regions it is yet almost untouched. Until recently there was an indis- 

 tinct popular notion that the white pine, our great timber tree, extended through- 

 out a vast area in the northern parts of the Dominion, from which we might draw 

 a supply for almost all time. The author's map showed, however, that its range 

 was comparatively limited. Although it was found over an extensive area to the 

 north-westward of Lake Superior, it was very sparsely distributed, of smaller size, 

 and poorer quality than further south. Our principal reserves of white pine, as 

 yet almost untouched, are to be found in the region around Lake Tenniscoming, 

 and thence westward to the eastern shores of Lake Superior. This region lies 

 partly to the northward of the height of land. There is also more or less red pine 

 in the district referred to. When the exportable white and red pine shall have 

 become exhausted, as it must before many more years, we have still vast quantities 



