tinually re-acting causes- -all tending to the same general result he will agree that the evil rapidly grows threatening. The author of that most unfairly abused and ridiculed book ever written on this continent, "What I know of Farming," quaintly observes: "It seems to me that destroying a forest because we want timber, is like smothering a hive of bees because we want honey." This expresses precisely what we are doing; and indicates the (certainly unlooked for,) end and sum of the great bulk of our industries. Unconscious of the future in the competitive scramble for present wealth, we are imitating Esau, faint from the field, and selling his birth-right for a mess of pottage. Elsewhere, the same work contains another, and a most significant assertion, to wit: "Vermont sold white pine abundantly to England, through Canada, within my day; she is now supplying her own wants from Canada, at a cost of not less than five times the price she sold for, and she will be paying still higher rates before the close of this century." He concludes a chapter on trees and timber-growing with this excellent piece of advice: "I entreat our farmers-not to preserve every tree, good, bad and indifferent, that they may happen to have growing on their landsbut, outside of the limited districts wherein the primitive forest must still be cut away, in order that land may be obtained for cultivation, to plant and rear at least two better trees for every one they may be impelled to cut down."

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In Nova Scotia, the ship-builders inau gurated the system of wastefulness, and they are now beginning to feel its first effects. In many quarters, the cry that the supply of ship-timber is about exhausted begins to be heard. This, indeed, is far from being true, but since the alarm will undoubtedly lead to an economization, to at least some extent, of the remaining resources, it may be well not to quarrel with it absolutely. When men were few, and trees were so plenty as

to be "in each other's way," an indiscriminate levelling-a free use of fire and axe, were matters of course inseparable from the conditions and therefore justifiable. But those conditions long ago disappeared,—the method, the habit then formed, continues still. Herein lies the evil. It is the same which attends all human progress—that of persisting in a custom or policy belonging to a dead time. There should have been a reform in the methods pursued for obtaining timber a generation ago. It seems incomprehensible that no one could draw the simple inference from the plain fact, which certainly was not unperceived, that the timber was being cut away faster than the natural growth could replace it. As a class, the ship-builders, had they been actuated by the positive intention of leaving for their successors as little material as possible, could scarcely have done more mischief. Yet more incomprehensible is it, that notwithstanding the growing apprehensions of a failure in the supply, no one seems to perceive it yet; but persistently follows the same old system, or rather no-system, which entails so much wastefulness. cious example is followed by the pursuers of other industries, equally without any reference to the inevitable result-everybody "goes into the woods" bent on unlimited slaughter; and the potent axe is becoming now more the weapon of a race bent on retrogression, than the implement of pioneer civilization.

This perni

Surely something can be done to stop this waste and confusion. Just now there is a slackening in the work of destruction; owing chiefly to the sparseness of timber near the ship-building and other industrial centres; and its consequent enhancement of costwhich is also the true cause of the apprehensions previously spoken of—and a term, to which there are now indications of a close, of unusual dullness in maritime matters, on this side of the globe in particular. Whatever be decided upon should be done

The question of questions, however, is that of railways. Perhaps all other agencies combined do not more rapidly dissipate the forest resources of a nation than they do. Until railways were introduced into India, all other demands upon her forests were borne unconsciously. Yet these included at once the domestic supply of her dense population, ship-building upon a large scale and steady, heavy exportation. That was in 1854. Railway extension, held in check by the mutiny, did not begin until 1861; and in '62 we saw the government partially awake to the necessity of establishing a conservation. Prompt measures then would have obviated the necessity of stringent and unpopular enactments in '65, and subsequently; and, it may be, by this time, have removed the difficulty.

In Nova Scotia, where coal is so abundant and accessible, the locomotives still consume much wood. How, then, will it be along the more extended lines of Canadian railway? Judging from the rate of movement of the Intercolonial, it will probably be some time before that, and others projected, reach their maximum of consumption of fuel; but whenever they do, the question of what proportion of it must be of wood, will become vitally important particularly when we keep in mind that the experience of American roads proves that an average of about thirty-five acres of woodland are necessary to supply one mile of railway. Besides, fuel is not the only feature of the question. The mode of supplying the needful timber is, if possible, more absurd and thriftless than in the cases already specified. The people who undertake this work observe but one rule of conduct namely to deliver at as little expense as possible, the beams, sleepers, bridge-stringers, or other material engaged for, in order to clear the widest practicable margin of present profit. Consequently our

tating the timber right and left in the vicinage of the track. There was no more regard to the future, than if there was no future. The proprietors of the intersected lands were lamentably deficient in the intelligence needed for the proper appreciation and care for this species of property. Hitherto it had been looked upon as an encumbrance-no second railway, it was argued, could ever be constructed near that already in hand; consequently the most was to be made of an opportunity never to be repeated. No regular Department of Woods and Forests existing, the timber question was the concern of nobody in particular, and the owners themselves would undoubtedly have looked upon any effort to rescue their own property from their own destroying axes, as an interference of the most unwarrantable kind. Down went the trees, all "along the whole line"-wherever they stood most convenient-wherever they stood in the way of others more particularly wanted-in any and every stage of growth-at seasons when felling is equivalent to extirpation, or otherwise, as occasion might decide, and with no regard whatever to the chances of renewal. It is certainly sufficiently perceptible that if this stolid and unthinking recklessness prevails a few years longer, we shall be unable to build either ships, railroads, or dwellings without deriving every splinter of material from foreign sources. On the other hand, it is equally obvious, that, with the needful care, there will be abundance for all, as long as an abundance will be required.

To attempt to show how forest conservation should be established, would carry this paper far beyond its limits. But it may not be amiss to summarize the principal difficulties with which such legislation must grapple:

1st. The proprietors of the woodlands, (as a class,) have no adequate conception of the prospective value of this species of property: nor the wish to take care of it. 2nd.—

All the broad tracts that have been stripped (referring only to those not intended for tillage, which are the great majority,) are left without any effort to encourage a second growth. 3rd.—There is a general use of insufficiently seasoned materials-especially in house building. In an extreme climate like ours, we may remark, this is a particularly mischievous practice, since such stuff does not last half the time it should, and, therefore calls for correspondingly frequent renewal. Perhaps, the exportation of green, and partly-seasoned timber, and deals might be worth some consideration also; though possibly this objection is in a large measure neutralized by the more careful management and economization of the consumers. 4th. Fires, free axes, and the incursions of our

wasteful devastators upon the public lands, fuel, etc., etc. 5th. Influence of railways. There are also certain reforms in ship-building, which-if carried out would lessen materially the demand of that branch of industry. The class of vessels known as "composite" could be most advantageously substituted for the present wooden product of our ship-yards-in every respect being cheaper, considered with reference to their superior classification, as well as better, and forming the natural and easy stage of transition to the production of iron tonnage. Such a substitution would at once cut down the shipwrights' demand on our rapidly diminishing woodlands, by at least four-sevenths.