which must be faced by the executives of companies using trees as raw material. The situation can not be side-stepped. If timberland owners will not solve the problem they can rest assured that the Government will settle it for them and that is never a profitable way out.

START PLANTATIONS NOW

We started our plantations on a small scale and a few years after we made the first one, our President happened to notice it and asked what it was. On being told, he said: "Why didn't you start that ten years ago?" Now that is precisely the attitude you will all come to, sooner or later: you will be asking yourselves why you did not begin to plant years ago, and you will wish that you had.

There is just one more point that I want to mention in this connection and that is that it does not seem best from our experience and that of others to underplant in growing timber or scrub, or to plant any old kind of stock on any and every kind of land.

We have decided, in order to make our plantations of the greatest possible value, and to get just as much as possible off each acre, that it will be good policy and good economics to do the thing thoroughly, just as a successful farmer operates. We are going to clear the land we have to reforest and plant with the very best stock which has reached such a size that it will be able to take hold and grow from the start.

We hope that by getting the very best stock and putting every tree on an acre that the land will carry, and looking after the plantations, we shall be able to build up a forest reserve which, inside of twenty-five years, when we hope to make our first thinnings, will be almost invaluable. Our proximity to the mill will make the drive costs very low or make possible the installation of a narrow gauge railway which will take the trees direct from the stump to the mill, doing away with the log pile.

When we are ready to run our mill on the cut from this new growth I do not think there will be any paper concern in the country that can compete with us, because we will have cheap raw material right at hand and will be prepared to handle it economically, and we can leave those who are content to let the second growth come on hap-hazard, simply tied to the post.

Gentlemen, I thank you. (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: I am sure we are all very much interested in Mr. Wilson's statements as to Canadian conditions. I think we

must all of us agree with him in some of the views he has expressed as to reforestation. Of course, though, his view of it entirely disregards the communal interest in the subject, and that does not agree with the view which we have of it in this country at the present time. The communal interest is so important that the community has got, to-day, a duty to perform, as well as the private interests have, and that is to join with the private interests in discharging the common duty in the matter of reforestation.

I might state that our board of directors considered the subject from an investment standpoint, as pointed out by Mr. Wilson, most carefully, and we could not justify the investment of the money of our stockholders in reforestation when it promised nothing but a loss. We did not feel that we had authority to make an investment of this character.

UNCERTAINTIES OF INVESTMENT

Of course, if you could look forward to a time when there would be no supply of wood available for your paper mill; and if you could be certain at that time that some other substitute for making pulp would not be developed, so that it would be certain that you would have to rely actually on spruce wood for making pulp; or if you could be certain your water power would not be worth more money for the development of hydraulic power for electrical purposes,-as the Laurentide Paper Company has done,-than for making paper; and if you could be certain that $175 or $200 an acre that you would get off your reforested areas would not be an excessive valuation for your raw stock at that time,-if you could be certain of all that, why then of course you might make something; but we couldn't see it that way. (Laughter.)

However, the subject is a mighty interesting one and one that we can't get too much information on. It is going to take a long time to harmonize all our diverse views on the subject, and that is the pity of it: there is such a long delay in going forward with this very important public policy. I hope that our discussions here today will be fruitful to us in New York State.

MR. WILSON: I didn't want to go into the question of the communal interest, because that is so absolutely self-evident that there is no getting away from it. But there is only one way to go into that which is positive and sure to produce the desired results, and that is to start a campaign of education. All our fire protection and all our work of every character in regard to these mat

ters has had to be preceded by an educational campaign. There is no money spent to better advantage than that spent in trying to educate the people, and really, when intelligently gone at, it is not nearly such a bad job and such a bugbear as one might think.

FRUITS OF EDUCATION

We took an ignorant class of people in Quebec-probably the most ignorant on the continent of North America north of Mexicoand showed them inside of two years that it was to their interest to prevent forest fires. We went right out among them-got people who could speak French and started them traveling around from house and house, and they met these people right by their own firesides and explained the situation to them and what it was proposed to do, and in two years they were our very best friends and ready and willing and eager to help us and co-operate with us.

The small farmer is the man we rely on to help us in all our work. We got a perfect system of stopping clearing fires, when everybody said it was not possible to do it. We found it was no trouble at all, when once the matter had been gone at in an intelligent way and the people were educated in regard to it.

It is simply a matter of education-and it is not as difficult to accomplish as you might think. With intelligent propaganda along modern lines you ought to be able to educate the people of New York State to get rid of the "cemetery" and a lot of other things. which you are having trouble with.

MR. W. L. SYKES: I would like to ask Mr. Wilson one question: Do you operate with logging railroads up there at all?

MR. SYKES: You don't have locomotive fires in the woods, or anything like that?

MR. WILSON: They have some steam tractors, but that is in the winter time.

MR. SYKES: I mean during the season when you could start a fire, where they burn wood or coal or any kind of fuel that would be likely to cause fires.

MR. WILSON: Well, of course, we have railroads—
MR. SYKES: Public service railroads?

MR. WILSON: Yes.

MR. SYKES: What do they burn?

MR. WILSON: They burn coal.

MR. SYKES: Do they set the woods afire?

MR. WILSON: Yes, they did.

MR. SYKES: Well, do they now?

MR. WILSON: Not now, because we have an efficient system of patrol now. The Canadian Covernment has taken care of that, and where a railroad runs through dangerous sections they have to have a frequent patrol over those sections, and that requirement is rigidly enforced, and those patrols discover and put out any fires that may be started, before they have done any material damage. The railroad patrols attend to that.

MR. SYKES: You don't have as many fires now as you did when they didn't patrol those sections and take care of them?

MR. WILSON: No.

THE PRESIDENT: Would anyone else like to say anything further on the subject?

(No response.)

THE PRESIDENT: The next number on our program is a paper by Professor Chandler, but that will be presented at the banquet this evening, as our time is getting late and there will not be time. for it at the afternoon session. We have promised the hotel people that they could have this room at 5 o'clock, in order to prepare for the banquet, and it is now considerably past 5.

So we will now listen to the report of the Nominating Committee and then adjourn until 7 this evening, at which hour our banquet is to be held. I will ask Mr. Cutting, the chairman of the Committee on Nominations, to make the report of that committee.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON

NOMINATIONS

MR. FRANK A. CUTTING: The following are the nominations proposed by the committee:

For President-George N. Ostrander.

For Vice-President-Frank P. Wilder.
For Treasurer-W. Clyde Sykes.

For Forester and Secretary of the Association-Pro-
fessor A. B. Recknagel.

For Directors-Frank L. Moore, Chairman; G. H. P. Gould, Rufus L. Sisson, Ferris J. Meigs, Frank A. Cutting and W. C. Hull.

It is deemed best to leave off the Executive Committee, because the Board of Directors have now assumed the duties that were formerly belonging to the Executive Committee. Therefore that is left off.

It is deemed wise to have our Secretary and Forester a member ex officio of all committees.

For the Legislative Committee-Virgil K. Kellogg, Chair-
man; G. H. P. Gould, E. J. Jones, Edward N. Smith
and Clarence L. Fisher.

For the Transportation Committee-A. H. Campbell,
Chairman; John D. White and J. L. Jacobs.

For the Forestry Committee-A. B. Recknagel, Chair-
man; W. L. Sykes, Thomas Wilber, Charles H. Sisson,
F. A. Gaylord and F. A. Empsall.

For the Financial Committee-G. H. P. Gould, Chairman;
Mark S. Wilder and T. A. Sullivan.

For the Committee to Forestry Association in Conference
with Other Associations-Ferris J. Meigs, Chairman;
Frank L. Moore and Robert W. Higbie.

For the industrial Committee-Frank A. Cutting, Chair-
man; Charles H. Sisson, Harry P. Gould and F. A.
Empsall.

I move that the gentlemen named be elected.

WORK OF THE COMMITTEES

MR. F. A. GAYLORD: Mr. President, in the past these committees have not amounted to much. We have had an annual report from the Chairman, and oftentimes it has been instructive, but