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CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 77 
Mr. Wairaker thought it a capital thing that they should have heard an 
expert on his own particular subject. For himself, he was met with certain 
difficulties. It seemed to him that some folk wanted to make our country a 
purely agricultural one. They must allow us other industries. We had got 
to recollect one thing. England is a very small land and it became a question 
whether such an insignificant bit could supply all its own needs. If timber 
is wanted—and it is now—he very much doubted whether we could produce 
ali we wanted. We ought to increase our products; but in the case of some 
of our timber supplies we cannot, because they do not grow in this country. 
He agreed with the speaker heartily that care should be taken to treat our 
trees properly. With reference to an Arbor Day, if he had to plant a tree it 
must be in his garden. He did not want a tree in his garden; he should cut 
one down if it were there, unless it were an apple-tree or something of that 
sort. He thought we should increase our supply of fruit in this country. This 
Arbor Day seemed to him a little bit of a festival as much as anything else, and 
he, did not see why we should have any more Bank Holidays. Undoubtedly 
Government should in many instances give a lead, but that Government should 
take over everything, or heavily subsidise everything, seemed a mistake. He 
hoped people would be a little more careful.about how they called upon us 
to take up one particular thing and about calling in the Government to help. 
The PResIDENT sympathised with Mr. Whitaker’s remarks very strongly. 
Had planting a tree anything to do with the good of the country except 
sentimentally? The difficulty really came in our suburbs and towns. We had 
ot a large population in our suburbs. Where were we to plant? That was 
the big difficulty he had been trying to solve for a long time. What we wanted 
to do was far more to bring pressure to bear upon people to do something 
practical in the way of High Forest cultivation. Alluding to the devastation 
of which Mr. Hopkinson had spoken, and to there being no provision as far as 
he could see for replanting, the President said that, if there was not good 
reason for it in such cases as this, they might bring such influence as their 
Societies had to bear, they could get all their members to write to their members 
of Parliament and make themselves generally unpleasant on the matter. He 
took it that in Mr. Duchesne’s opinion the preservation and collection of seeds 
was a task on which they might be engaged. If he could give them some 
practical instructions or suggestions that they might bring before the members 
of their societies, he would be glad. Insect pests and fungi had been mentioned. 
Perhaps if some of their members turned more detailed attention to those 
practical points, they would be doing a service. 
Mr. Bryan observed that Arbor Day was a practical thing in the United 
States, and pointed out that it enabled teachers to get the children to help 
in it and to be receiving instruction by means of it. He thought Mr. Duchesne 
would have added to the value of his paper if he had included the subject 
of wood-pulp. As to Government assistance, one should differentiate. He 
thought this particular matter was a subject on which the Government must 
come in. If one did not get a reasonable return for forty or fifty years, it 
was absolutely necessary. There could be no reasonable objection to the 
Government making a reasonable bargain by lending a certain amount of money 
on reasonable interest. On the subject of wood-pulp he said that Canada not 
only exports to the Mother Country a considerable amount of timber and wood- 
pulp, but to the United States. He was told that the timber from one acre 
of ground every day was made into wood-pulp for the use of one of the New 
York papers. There was no question about it that this was one of the most 
important subjects, and that the Government had been criminally negligent up 
to the present time. 
The Secretary (the Selborne Society) supported Mr. Hopkinson. Because 
there were one or two difficulties mentioned by Mr. Whitaker, he did not see 
that that was any reason why we should not have an Arbor Day in this country. 
It would be a very complimentary thing to the United States on Independence 
Day to do their best to start an Arbor Day. It would give them an opportunity 
also to send a message of a practical character. If Mr. Whitaker wanted an 
apple-tree, let him plant an apple-tree on Arbor Day. The resolution only 
pledged them to the best of their ability. Perhaps the best thing would be to 
1918. G 
