TWELFTH ORDINARY MEETING. 109 



TWELFTH ORDINARY MEETING. 



The Twelfth Ordinary Meeting of the Session i884-'85, was 

 held on Saturday, January 31st, 1885, the President in the. 

 Chair. 



The minutes of last meeting were read and confirmed. 



W. Boultbee, Esq., C. E., was elected a member of the 

 Institute. 



The following list of donations and exchanges was read : 



1. Report on the Necessity of Preser\ang and Replanting Forests, by R. W. 



Phipps, Esq. 



2. Monthly Health Bulletins of Ontario, for October and November, 1884. 



3. Science, Vol. V., No. 103, January 23rd, 1885. 



4. Report of the Superintendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic 



Survey, for the year ending with June, 1883. 



5. Bulletin of the Essex Institute, Vol. 16, Nos. 7-12, July to December, 



1884. 



6. Papers on Time-Reckoning, and the Selection of a Prime Meridian, by 



Sandford Fleming, C.M.G. 



Mr. R. W. Phipps read a paper on 



FOEESTRY, AND THE NECESSITY FOR ITS PRACTICE 

 IN ONTARIO. 



I must beg the attention of my hearers for a short space to a sub- 

 ject which is not uninteresting, and is very important — the rapid 

 and injurious deforesting of (Ontario and the means whereby it can 

 best be checked. When, not so long since, the white men came first 

 hither, the foxiest wealth of all this region was immense. Could it 

 have stood till now there would have been no difficulty in rapidly 

 selling timber enough to build half-a-dozen Pacific Railways had we 

 so chosen to invest our funds. But the settlers came ; they needed 

 sustenance ; they could not eat the trees ; they could not sell them, 

 and they burned them. But unfortunately, much was uselessly 

 burned. Much land so cleared had far better have remained un 

 cleared imtil to-day. I have seen near Toronto great heaps of clear 

 pine, worth now $40 a thousand, burned to uncover poor land 

 which gave but a crop or two, and ever since but very poor pasture. 

 I have seen out west where gi'eat fields had been in walnut, two or 



