TRANSACTIONS OF SUB-SECTION K. 707 
forest fires are still in dry seasons destroying large areas of mature forest and 
young growth. 
The action as yet taken by the Government to deal with the situation is 
entirely inadequate. The areas and distances are great, the population is 
sparse and scattered, the expense of an adequate system is high. The policy 
which should be followed may be summarised as follows :— 
(1) The fire patrol should be strengthened and made as effective as 
possible. While not, as at present organised, a thorough or adequate system, 
it is the only possible method under present conditions, and has been pro- 
ductive of great good. 
(2) An exploration of the public lands should be made in advance of 
settlement, and lands not fitted for agricultural purposes should be segregated 
and administered for forest purposes. Until forest lands are definitely 
separated from other lands with a clear understanding that they are to be 
administered on a fixed policy of permanent forests, administration must 
be uncertain and ineffective. 
(3) The question is finally one of administration, and to deal with it a 
trained staff must be built up, having knowledge of advanced systems of 
forest administration; having a practical knowledge of the business of 
lumbering; having the faculty of observation trained to see the various 
phases of the forest problem and the conditions which affect it, and having 
practical common sense and business sagacity. 
(4) Careful study of local conditions, forestic, economic, political ; and 
experimental work to determine what methods of reforestation and manage- 
ment will be most successful. 
(5) Education.—First, public education. This is a democratic country, 
and any public action must have public support. Second, special education. 
The training of the administrative staff in the school and in the forest. 
The three divisions of the work are:—(1) Education, (2) Legislation, 
(3) Administration. Of these the means for special education are sufficient. 
The work of public education is being carried on vigorously, but requires 
great extension. Legislation is generally advanced. The carrying out of 
the results of education and legislation is in the hands of the administration, 
which is utterly inadequate and incapable as at present constituted for the 
large task it has before it. A trained staff equal to the situation must be 
developed. This is a work of time, and demands that the beginning tenta- 
tively made should be expanded rapidly. 
Canada has a great extent and wealth of forest, but it is gradually and 
surely being depleted from year to year. Under present conditions she may 
continue for years her position as an exporting country, but fire and the axe 
are reducing her producing capacity steadily, and the foreign and domestic 
demand are as steadily increasing. Reproduction is not offsetting destruc- 
tion—far from it—and the efforts so far made to assist it by artificial means 
are hardly worth mentioning. When the present stand of mature timber is 
gone, Canada cannot remain an exporting country unless some more effective 
steps to protect and reproduce her forests than those now attempted are 
undertaken. 
3. Some Injurious Insects of Canadian Forests and Methods of Control. 
By Professors W. Locnneap and J. M. Swarne. 
In spite of the enormous area of the Canadian forests (estimated at 
1,600,000 square miles, of which at least one-fifth may be assumed to carry 
valuable timber), no Government survey has ever been instituted with the 
definite purpose of determining the amount of damage done by insects and 
fungi. This paper summarised what little is known from the observations of 
individual collectors, foresters, and lumbermen, together with what may 
reasonably be inferred from the admirable work of the Bureau of Entomology 
ZZaA 
