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trees giving full promise, if spared axe and fire, of becoming trees as sturdy as any the 

 lumberman has carried away, but nevertheless, the impression produced on you by the 

 whole pilgrimage will be that, if no preventive measures be used, the fire which has taken 

 so much already will sooner or later take the rest. When one compares the state of our 

 forests with that of those in some parts of Europe, and thinks of the long avenues of fire- 

 breaks, the forest-rangers on the watch, the careful management, the incessant thinning 

 and replanting, the long succession of goodly trees yearly ready for the axe, and the cer- 

 tainty, with equal care, of such a succession for all time to come, one is apt to think it 

 full time that some such system were introduced here. 



The Possible Profits. 



It is to be remembered that (whether in the case of planting, or that of forest 

 preservation), what is proposed will not be an unremunerative work. Putting alto- 

 gether to one side the vast benefits to be expected in climate and in crop, there are direct 

 returns of no small amount. For instance, most of the European reports give, after 

 all expenses are paid, a large aggregate annual income, as does the East Indian also. 

 Taking the opinions of scientific men, Mr. Galusha's estimate is that ten acres planted in 

 ash and walnut will within twenty -five years produce sixteen thousand dollars in profit 

 over expenses. Other estimates, by men who have practically experimented, give even 

 more, especially in the case of pines. Let us take the figures of the gentleman named. 

 He allows $20 per acre for cultivation. Let us increase it, and say cultivation costs $50, 

 and that five thousand instead of ten acres are tried. The amount spent would be $50,000 

 a year for five years. The return at the end of twenty-five years would be eight millions 

 of dollars. And, all this while, the plantation would be a valuable asset upon which 

 money could, if expedient, be borrowed. And it is to be noticed that more profit may 

 well be expected than has been gained, for the valuable descriptions of wood will grow 

 scarcer and dearer while, during the experiments stated (such of them as were practically 

 carried out), these woods were purchasable at low rates. In fine, it is a work in which 

 great climatic and agricultural advantages are sure to be gained, while, as for the money 

 advantages arising from the sale of timber, the only reason why Canada will not immedi- 

 ately profit as other nations do is that she has yet much timber for use and sale with- 

 out having to grow it. But the time to commence what will be a work of time, is while 

 there is yet no 'actual scarcity of the article to be produced; our existing forests will give 

 us time to grow others ; and above all, there is the necessity for action to preserve from 

 fire and waste those which now stand. The means and system used to jjrocure fresh 

 forests will largely tend to preserve the old in efiiciency. 



I will give here a few additional statements of profits from the Congress Reports : — 



Mr. David Nicol, Cataraqui, Ont., says of the European Larch : — 



" Experienced planters have long ago decided that the larch should be planted 

 entirely by itself, because of its quick growth, it soon outgrows all other trees, and when 

 scattered thinly throughout the forest, the tender top shoots are apt to be damaged by 

 high winds ; they do best when planted thickly, because they shelter one another ; they 

 are often planted as near as three feet, and sometimes as near as two feet, but I would 

 prefer the former distance ; planted at this distance, they rapidly shoot up straight, clean, 



