The water cycle 
     
     disrupted. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The crops 
     
     are affected. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Forest fires. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Lost timber and 
     
     fuel resources. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The solution: 
     
     a commission. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Preservation and 
     
     reafforesta tion. 
     
    
   
   
    
     without question. The government whose function ought to be to safeguard the 
     
     resources of the country failed to perform, in this regard, its duty. Three generations 
     
     have seen a magnificently wooded island converted into an almost bare plain — 
     
     without protection and often parched for want of water. We have just passed 
     
     through a season of extreme drought and convinced ourselves of the serious situation 
     
     that confronts us. The connection between forest and water supply all are now ready 
     
     to admit. Streams never before dry — the perennial streams of our youth — stript of 
     
     the luxuriant trees that grew along their banks were this year early waterless; others, 
     
     not previously so copious, because of the woods conserved at their sources and the 
     
     stand of trees on their banks blessed the localities through which they flowed with 
     
     an abundant supply of sweet waters. Then we had an opportunity to watch in this 
     
     drought the effect of the forests on the crops. Where clumps and groves and 
     
     windbreaks of trees stood, near by the growing crops, our experience was decidedly 
     
     in favour of this condition as compared with those on fields of equal fertility not so 
     
     situated. Moisture is everything to vegetable growth, and the forest is the constant 
     
     moisture distributor of nature. 
     
    
   
   
    
     To add to our difficulties forest fires, the baneful attendant of dry seasons, were 
     
     aflame wherever any body of trees remained; and, as a consequence, much of the 
     
     woods left in sections was overrun and to—day there is more firewood being hauled 
     
     to market than for many years aback. Our scant forest areas are therefore, still 
     
     further curtailed. Last year a Forest Fires Act was passed by the legislature. If it 
     
     meant anything, it meant the safe-guarding of our remnant of woods. 
     
    
   
   
    
     In sacrificing our splendid forests after the manner described all now recognize that 
     
     we have eliminated from the list of our provincial resources a great element of wealth 
     
     and comfort. We might certainly be still supplying ourselves with firewood, and all 
     
     the timber and lumber required, as well as putting on the market many of the 
     
     products of wood, without impairing, nay, improving immensely, our agricultural 
     
     possibilities. We are obliged to import to—day all our lumber. The government by a 
     
     proper system of reserve might be adding to its depleted treasury in a substantial 
     
     way, too, if it had understood the value of the forests in time. We have now too 
     
     many badly tilled fields and too few wooded ones. in bringing this sad change about 
     
     we have doubtless deprived ourselves of many comforts, adversely affected the 
     
     sanitary, climatic and aesthetic conditions of life amongst us, and greatly reduced the 
     
     agricultural capabilities of the country. Over whole sections of the province the wild 
     
     winds of the gulf sweep, unopposed by any forest barrier, entailing much hardship in 
     
     the cold, and drying out the crops in the warm season. The settlers shortsightedness 
     
     and the State’s neglect have brought all this trouble upon us. 
     
    
   
   
    
     But it were indeed futile to direct attention to this crisis in our provincial life if there 
     
     were no way of remedying it effectually. Our plan of campaign is this: we will 
     
     ask the government to name a commission of patriotic men . This commission will 
     
     visit the 16,000 acres of provincial lands, and wherever suitable erect them into 
     
     reserves, where they will either grow up naturally in trees, as the land does quickly 
     
     here, or be afforested — sown out to seed. We will be able without much cost to get 
     
     caretakers for those reserves, and in fifteen or twenty years they will be bringing in 
     
     a considerable revenue. We also propose to encourage private individuals in the 
     
     preservation and extension of their present wood plots and in the reafforestation of 
     
     the denuded places on their holdings — places which were never intended by nature 
     
     for the cultivation of crops; in the setting out of plantations for economic purposes; 
     
     in protecting stream-heads with forest growth and in the placing of windbreaks and 
     
     shade trees generally about the steadings. 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
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