FOREST PLANTING IN CANADA 133 



chiefly evergreens, such as white pine and Scotch pine. This planting 

 has been chiefly on waste tracts of soil, such as sand formations. The 

 plantations are usually from one to several acres in size, although, 

 at the forest station in Norfolk coimty, large areas are planted, and, 

 in two or three cases such as the Guelph City watershed, there are 

 about sixty acres planted. The plantations are located in forty-two 

 counties, but the greater portion of the planting has been done in 

 Southwestern Ontario. 



The Forest Station in Norfolk county, where the nurseries are 

 located, was started in 1909. This station now contains 1,500 acres, 

 and should be still further increased. The land at this Station contains 

 second-growth pine, scrub oak lands, abandoned fields, and blow sand 

 formations, thus affording a variety of conditions with which to deal 

 in an experimental way. At the Station there are now about 100 acres 

 of experimental plantations, and the nurseries contain one and a haK 

 million plants in seed beds and nursery lines, for future planting. 

 The work at this Station contributes an element in the forestry instruc- 

 tion given the students of the Faculty of Forestry, University of To- 

 ronto. 



The policy can not be too strongly urged of preventing, so far as 

 possible, the settlement of waste lands. Settlement has, imfortunately, 

 already taken place on considerable areas of such lands in Southern 

 Ontario, and the evil effects are only too plainly apparent in the in- 

 creasing poverty and degeneracy of the population. The Province, 

 as a whole, can not afford to perpetuate such a condition, and such 

 areas should be withdrawn from settlement, established settlers should 

 be transferred, and the lands should be permanently devoted to forestry 

 purposes. Recurrent fires have so completely destroyed seed trees of 

 valuable species over large areas of these lands that planting will be 

 necessary in order to re-establish the forest. It is truly said by the 

 Provincial Forester, Mr. E. J. Zavitz, that the only solution of this 

 waste land problem is in the adoption of a policy, which shall have as 

 its aim the gradual segregation of these areas, to be permanently 

 managed as forest lands by some Government agency. The principal 

 responsibility most naturally falls upon the Provincial Government, 

 though under some circumstances, the co-operation of the Dominion 

 Government might be justified. 



Similarly, the problem can no doubt be solved in part by the 

 adoption of a progressive policy by the municipalities. Provision for 

 this procedure was made through the enactment of "The Counties 

 Reforestation Act" passed by the Provincial Parliament, March 24th, 

 1911, (Chapter 74 of ist, George V., 1911). This legislation was passed 



