206 TIMBERS AND THEIE USES 



The causes of the increasing scarcity of Pine 

 in the eastern provinces are not far to seek. 

 In addition to the export trade and the require- 

 ments of the home market, the inflammable 

 nature of the Pine, as well as Spruce, renders 

 it liable to enormous conflagrations in the 

 summer season. The carelessness of settlers in 

 clearing the land, and of hunters, trappers and 

 anglers in making camp fires, has brought about 

 the destruction of many hundreds of square 

 miles of forest, and competent observers have 

 expressed the opinion that immensely larger 

 quantities of valuable timber have been destroyed 

 in this way than by the inroads of the lumber- 

 men. Most of the provinces have, it is true, 

 adopted fire-protection laws with stringent pro- 

 visions, which have had the result of making 

 settlers and lumbermen more careful in the use 

 of fire, but conflagrations still break out in hot 

 and dry weather, and when once they spread 

 in Pine country it is very difficult to check or 

 extinguish them. 



" To sum up the present position, it may be 

 said that Eastern Canada in the maintenance 

 of the export trade, is drawing heavily on the 

 capital of the forests, and that the destructive 

 forces at work are vastly greater than the pro- 

 duction. In a country where the production 

 of timber and the by-products of the forests is 



