Forest Reservations. 367 
replaced by a Clerk, now Director of Forestry, in the 
Crown Lands Department. In 1898 a Superintendent 
of Forestry with a forestry branch was instituted in 
the Dominion Department. By these agencies the 
subject was at least kept in the foreground, and while 
at first hardly more than propagandist literature was 
produced in their annual reports, gradually practical 
work became possible. 
The most important result of this propaganda was 
to commit the governments to see the propriety of 
setting aside permanent forest reserves. 
The first movement in this direction was made in 
1893, and in 1895 the first Dominion reservations were 
made by the Minister of the Interior. These, to be 
sure, were located in the thinly timbered parts of the 
province of Manitoba, the Turtle Mountains and Riding 
Mountain, mainly for the protection of water supply. 
Several other similar reserves were set aside by the 
Minister, but to give more stability to these reserva- 
tions an Act of Parliament was passed in 1906, declaring 
their permanence and placing them under the ad- 
ministration of the Superintendent of Forestry. There 
are so far 21 Dominion Forest Reserves created, com- 
prising an area of over 5,000 square miles. 
Of the provinces, Ontario was the first to recognize 
the principle of reservations in 1893, when a partially 
cut over, partially licensed territory of over one million. 
acres was set aside as the Algonquin National Park in 
the Nippissing District, but the first definite estab- 
lishment of a forest reserve policy dates from the 
Forest Reserve Act, passed in 1898, which authorizes 
the Executive, as in the United States, to withdraw 
