114 



and we must remember that he speaks of the whole of Canada, Upper as well as Lower. 

 He says : 



" Our forests : — Our public forests are worked by the lumbermen under a license 

 system, entailing ground rent and stumpage dues. • 



"They contain a great variety of timber, but I will principally call your attention 

 to the pine and spruce, as they form nearly all our exports to Europe, and are really the 

 produce of our forests ; while the hardwood we export, especially the fine oak, nearly all 

 comes, at present, from the Lake regions of the United States, as we have very little of 

 our own left. 



" For some time past, the idea has been gaining ground among men who take an 

 interest in the future of the country, that our great pine and spruce forests are getting 

 rapidly exhausted, and that, before long, a trade which enables us to export annually 

 over twenty millions of dollars' worth of timber (nearly twenty-seven millions in 1874, 

 twenty-five millions in 1875, and twenty millions three hundred thousand in 1876), will 

 shrink down to wofuUy reduced proportions. 



" Thinking men have begun to sound the note of alarm ; we owe it to them, but 

 especially to ourselves, as a nation, to try and find out how far their previsions are likely 

 to prove true. 



" Apart from our timber lands, a large portion of our territory consists of fertile 

 prairies, with rare clumps of fine trees ; of swamps without valuable timber, and of 

 barren regions of rocky soil, with only a dwarf stunted vegetation. In those parts of 

 Canada where the soil and other circumstances are known to be generally favourable to 

 the growth of pine and spruce, and where a pretty accurate idea can be formed of the 

 quality of timber already taken off by the lumberman, who can say, without continually 

 renewed investigations, how much is getting swept away every year by our great enemy, 

 the fire fiend 1 



" Lot us now try and make an inventory of the timber resources of the Dominion, 

 beginning in the west. On the Pacific shores of the Dominion, in British Columbia, the 

 bountiful gifts of Providence are still stored up for us, and the forests have scarcely been 

 attacked by the lumberman. How long those treasures will last us, and what advan- 

 tages we shall derive from them, depends, in a great measure, upon ourselves. 



" Let us now turn eastward, and see if we can learn there, any lesson that will help 

 us to manage our forests of the west. 



" From the E,ocky Mountains to the Province of Ontario there are scattered here 

 and there, certain tracts of well-timbered land, but they are the exception. That timber 

 will be required for the local wants of the people who are now only beginning to settle 

 our fertile prairies, and it will never, I think, contribute to swell the bulk of our timber 

 exports. 



"The great forest of Canada, par excellence, is spread over that vast territory watered 

 by the Ottawa, the St. Maurice, the Saguenay, and their tributaries, over one hundred 

 thousand square miles in extent. Before drawing your attention more particularly to it, 

 I will mention our remaining timber limits, that cannot compare with it either for 

 size or resources. They are found in the Georgian Bay country ; the Muskoka and 

 Nipissing regions ; the eastern townships of Quebec and south shore of the St. Law- 

 rence to the Gulf; the region on the north shore of the St. Lawrence, from 

 the Saguenay down to the Bersimis, and, perhaps, still lower down, as far as Mingan ; 

 and the country watered by the St. John, the Miramichi, the Restigouche, and their 

 tributaries. Those limits, in many places, are scattered and isolated ; they have, with 

 few exceptions (such as the Bersimis at the east, and some newly discovered pine tracts 

 at the west, on Lake Superior), been worked for a long time, and cannot be expected to. 

 supply, much longer, any considerable quantity of first quality pine, but they still contain 

 an immense quantity of spruce, principally in the east, sufficient for a great many years' 

 supply, if carefully worked and protected. The spruce, unlike the pine, reproduces itself 

 with wonderful ease, and a good spruce country, carefully worked, where you leave 

 untouched all the trees under a certain size, say twelve or thirteen inches at the foot, can 

 be worked and worked again after a few years' rest, I might say almost for ever. 



