358 Canadian m Record of Science. 



dence at first glance of the disappearance of the pine. 

 The hardwoods with which the pine is interspersed are 

 usually left standing to a considerable extent, and so are 

 the smaller pine, so that even a well cut country will still 

 look splendidly wooded. No doubt the time will come 

 when it will be carefully re-cropped. But the commer- 

 cial value is largely gone, and with it the natural desir- 

 ability, for the cutting of the pine greatly lessens the 

 value of the woods as vast- reservoirs, holding the snows 

 in spring and the rains of summer, so as to feed steadily 

 the innumerable streams of the water sheds. Conse- 

 quently, spring floods and summer droughts for the cleared 

 lands in the valleys follow close on the lumberman's axe. 

 A certain amount of attention has been aroused by the 

 rapid retirement of the pine. Bad as the axe is, fire is 

 worse. The Ontario Government has recently attempted 

 to enforce strict precautions against fire, and it has also 

 appropriated as a provincial park an enormous reserve 

 near Lake Nipissing, thirteen hundred square miles, of 

 which nine hundred are pine timber, situated on one of 

 the chief natural watersheds of the province. But a great 

 deal more than this is necessary if the Canadian pine 

 forests are not soon to disappear like the tracts of Maine. 

 We cannot urge too strongly on the government to set 

 apart all lands not suitable for making a decent home for 

 the settler. Much of the land that they are tempted to 

 go on is not worth the trouble of clearing ; it is only the 

 presence of the lumberman, in many cases, that enables 

 him to exist. The question of revenue is of importance, 

 as well as other considerations in not destroying the 

 forests and the country of its principal source of wealth. 



The product of the forest is disposed of about as 

 follows : 



Exported sawn lumber and timber $24,000,000 



260 million feet b. m. sawlogs 208,000 



Railroad ties, pulpwood, bark 27,000,000 



