34 THE CANADIAN FORESTER'S 



in the North "West, what will it be when the present 

 population has increased a hundred fold? It may be 

 said with truth that, if things go on as at present, in 

 twenty years from to-day there will not be enough wood 

 found there to make a match-box. Their population is 

 increasing in an inconceivable ratio, and the demand 

 for firewood and timber increases proportionally. In 

 this lies the danger, and a pressing one it is, of not being 

 able to preserve the equilibrium which should exist 

 between the expenditure of wood, on the one side, and 

 the capacity of production of the Canadian forests, on the 

 other. It is, therefore, a m,atter of the highest importance, 

 that the planting of- the proper districts of the North 

 West should be set about at once and on a large scale. 



The second reason why planting trees should be prac- 

 tised is furnished by the counsels of science. Meteorolo- 

 gists, whose occupation it is to determine the origin of 

 tempests, and to give an account of their causes and 

 effects, have shown that wood-denuded countries are,, 

 exposed to terrible tornadoes at certain seasons, followed 

 by hot, drying winds most injurious to vegetation. As 

 regards the tornadoes, these are due to the freedom with 

 which the wind sweeps over vasts tracts of land where, 

 for hundreds of miles, not a single obstacle is presented 

 to its course. It is for this reason, that a wind, of no 

 very great initial pace, finds means to develop into a 

 terrific storm, if it finds nothing to impede its progress 

 and its swiftness. On the other hand, the aTisence of 

 trees causes the soil, which is always exposed to the 

 ardent rays of the sun, to lose the moisture which the 

 A'^iolent storms of which I have just spoken have com. 

 municated to it ; and it necessarily follows, that the land is 

 exposed to the extremes of drought and wet, than which 

 there are no two things more injurious to vegetation. 



