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There has been issued 15,164 timber licences covering an 
area of about ten million acres. 
I think it is regrettable that such a large proportion of 
the timber wealth of the Province should have been thus 
alienated. 
Under the present time-limited licence, the licence holder 
is a mere tenant, and by the very nature of his tenure has no 
special interest in conservation ; he only desires to skim off the 
best timber when the opportunity is presented, and then return 
the despoiled remnant to the Government. 
The question of extending the time limit of timber licences 
has been ably discussed before the “Board of Forestry Com- 
missioners. ” It appears to be the consensus of opinion that 
the only rational solution of the situation, “as we find it today,” 
is to make the timber licence perpetual with the necessary 
safeguards in the interest of the country. 
A more stringent supervision over logging methods is 
desirable. 
In the past, the logger has been allowed free latitude to go 
into the forest and act like a bull in a china shop. He has 
frequently picked out a few choice trees in a choice belt of 
timber, and made a sort of bonfire of the whole country around 
him. It is often appalling to see the desolate country the 
logger has left behind him. 
I have not time to fully cover the fire question. I may 
briefly note that fire not only destroys the timber, but in many 
cases ruins and destroys the soil also. This is especially notice- 
able where fire has swept over the more elevated regions, with 
a slight covering of soil. On many hills the forest tree has 
gained a foothold by a slow process of preparation which has 
taken centuries to mature. 
Fire cleans off everything to the bare rOck again, and the 
process has to commence de novo. 
This applies with special force to the conditions on many 
of our uplands, and we have already some of our evergreen 
hills converted into bare',, parched, rocky elevations, desolate 
and forbidding. I have in mind several localities, namely: the 
