454 
Canadian Agriculture. 
A Parliamentary Blue-book * contains the most recent official 
information on the forests of the several Provinces of the Do- 
minion. In Prince Edward Island there are now no forests of 
any extent, they having all disappeared under the axes of the 
settler and the lumberman. In Nova Scotia, all or nearly all 
the timber lands will have been cut over for the first time by or 
perhaps before the year 1890. By careful husbanding, a second 
cut nearly equal to the first can in many localities be obtained 
after fifteen or twenty years, so that, if it were not for the forest 
fires, those lands which are Avell looked after would never 
become denuded of their timber. As it is, the supply of pine 
and spruce is rapidly approaching exhaustion, and the lumber- 
ing trade is on the decline. Large areas once covered with a 
stately growth of pine, spruce, and other trees, have been ren- 
dered almost barren by fires. No discretion is exercised, nor is 
any protection extended to the forests in Nova Scotia ; every 
man may cut as he pleases. 
The Province of Ontario contains 18,000 square miles of 
land, known as timber limits, that is, land on which lumber- 
men have purchased the right to cut lumber for a certain period, 
renewable yearly, and on which lumber, when cut, they also pay 
certain dues to Government in proportion to its amount. No 
data exist upon which to base an estimate as to how long it will 
take, at the present rate of consumption, to exhaust the timber 
of these lands. The Government lands, on which no licence to 
cut has yet been granted, are believed to contain about 20,000 
square miles of forest, possessing much valuable and merchant- 
able timber. Mr. P. White, M.P. for Renfrew, Ontario, esti- 
mates the value of the timber annually destroyed by forest 
fires in the Ottawa District at four million pounds sterling. 
Mr. Stewart Thayne, of Ottawa, a recognised authority on 
forestry, submitted to the Select Committee on Agriculture the 
following suggestions as to the duty of the Canadian Govern- 
ment : — 
" The principal point upon which they miglit take action wonld be this : 
they should separate the lands which are known to be unprofitable for agri- 
cultui'c, and devote them exclusively to I'orestry purposes, or to the production 
of timber. We liave lands of that character here. Up the Ottawa, for instance, 
settlers have been induced to go in and settle on the jiine lands. There, after 
one or two cn>])s, it will take more than the original value of the lands to 
make them produce again. After three or four crops, at the outside, the thin 
covering of the soil over the sand becomes utterly exhausted. 'J'hese ])ine 
lands, and all the lands only fitted for the cultivation of pine and s])ruce, 
should be set apart for the cultivation of those trees. There are millions 
* 'Reports on tlio Forests of Canadn. M'ith Precis by Dr. Lyons, M.P., of 
certain jiapcrs submitted llicrewith.' Loudon: I'riuted by Ejro and ypollis- 
woodo, 1885. 
