NORTH AMER ICA.N FORESTS.
Kcnth American Forests and Forestry. By Ernest Branclren. (G. P. Putnam's Sons. 7s. 6d.)—Mr. Bruncken is an Ainericsn and writes of the forestry of the States, but every word of his destitiption of North American forests applies to Canadian forests. The most important point which foresters have to con- sider is one indirectly connected with the science,—i.e., the pre- vention of fires and thieving. In Eastern Canada Government exercises a strict control, but in the North-West the State and the community are plundered. In the North-West, where timber once destroyed can never be replaced, the settler steals timber from "school" sections and unoccupied land, and the settler from Eastern Canada is very prone to this. Lumbermen cut timber below the statute limit ; we know one who this very year is probably cutting spruce for fence-posts in the foothills of the Rockies. We must remember that officials in the West have not the moral courage they have in a long-settled country, and game-laws, close times, and fire regulations only provide well-paid sinecures to men who have local influence. The settler has much to contend with, and the belief that forest land not actually occupied is his to use and waste is firmly implanted in his mind. Nor can there be any doubt that be is the main agent in the starting of forest fires, as the settler on the prairies is the chief agent in the starting of prairie fires. The British Columbia settler has to burn his clearing, a disastrous fire results often, and an impoverishment of the soil always. As for the prairie settler, he rides to the nearest J.P. to lay information against himself; the Justice, frequently a friend or relative, im- poses a nominal fine of $10 for an act of gross carelessness which burns homesteadinge and the hay which is to feed thousands of cattle. Until public opinion supports officialdom the evil is ineradicable. Mr. Bruncken avoids technical details, but his account of the natural changes in a forest is most interesting.
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