tire and cattle could not destroy, seemed to dry, perish and fall of pure desiccation. In 

 fiye years the green bit of fresh forest was a desolation of dry and rattling stalks, fit for 

 nothing but the axe, and scarcely for that. Bat (and here was our lack of knowledge) had 

 fire and cattle been excluded, the green bush had, with care, been green to-day. 



Throughout Ontario clearing has been largely similar. It has been pursued without 

 plan or system, utterly oblivious of the great and vital principle that, in this country, as 

 in all others, there were certain portions which should be left as forest, because the 

 ground would be valuable for that purpose, and scarcely for any other; and certain por- 

 tions which should also be so left, as elevated above the rest, they form the natural 

 conductors to attract rain, store-houses to preserve it, and slopes down which, in driest 

 weather, the refreshing streams still carry the reserved moisture from the wooded hill top, 

 to the arid and parching soil ab a distance, but bslow. Then, as for reserves on each 

 farm of timber and fire-wood ; let us consider how these have been provided for : — 



On each one, two, or three hundred acre lot as it happened, the original proprietor 

 left generally " some bush," here, there, or anywhere in that part where it would least 

 interfere with the cultivation of his cleared land. 



Well, fire would run in some of these reserved portions and it would blow down, 

 fill with weeds, become an eyesore and be cleared oflfand "cropped." 



Or, the farm would be divided and sold ; the bush lot buyer would have too much 

 bush, and would clear most of it, so that now the two or three hundred acres would have 

 but ten or twenty acres of forest. 



Or, the whole would be cleared ; the cultivators saying to one another, " Oh, there's 

 lots of bush down on the sandy flats that never will be cleared (and here comes in the 

 saving clause) in our time ; we can always get wood hauled to our own doors in winter 

 at one or one and a half dollars a cord. Let us clear ofi" all the plaguy trees and crop 

 the land!" 



Or, a demand for cordwood for railroad or other purposes would spring up, and the 

 farmer would be induced to sell his bush to the choppers. Notice how this would affect 

 the one who had cleared. He had said, " So-and-so has hundreds of acres of wood ; 

 he can always sell to me." Others say so of others ; but the demand carries off the very 

 woods they had been depending on. Then they must cut down the small groves they 

 had been intending to keep " no matter what happens ;" or they go to others and say, 

 " Well, wood's very scarce round here ; I don't want a twenty miles' hauling job ; tell you 

 what, if you'll let me have some out of your ten acre block, I'll give you a dollar and a 

 half a cord and cut for myself. There ! " The offer seems large to one who has been 

 used to pay for having the wood destroyed, and he takes it. Others offer more, and 

 the ten acre lot goes, and is in grass. 



Then the masses of woods, bounding his vision on every side, here a solid wall 

 borderin" his farm, there a strip along the horizon, were at first apt to deceive the settler 

 into a belief of the continuance of the forest. I mentioned one a few lines back as saying, 

 "There will always be wood on the sandy flats." I will give here a little bit of experience 

 showing how such expectations have been dissipated. 



Alonf the low shores of a great lake stretched a forest, wherein stood cedar trees, 

 good enough and many enough for Solomon's Temple, if he had been contented with 



