FOREST commissioner's RErORT. 139 



Along travelled roads and close about places of resort of 

 course the gashed-up country and the debris left by a logging 

 operation are not ornamental. At such points however pro- 

 tection could be secured without great cost or sacrifice. 



This White mountain problem, I may be pardoned for 

 saying, was in its time made too much of. It is a good thing 

 that it has been dropped. Doubtless the country owes much 

 to those who carried on the agitation. That agitation, how- 

 ever, was doomed from the start to bear no direct fruit, 

 because those who carried it on failed for one thino; to get at 

 the lumberman's point of view, for another to master in detail 

 the real facts of the problem with which they attempted to 

 deal. 



It was shown some distance back that two-thirds vaiu'(^of^°** 

 or three-quarters of the original stand of spruce is *^'"^^^ *''®^^- 

 in the shape of full grown trees which it is right should be 

 cut. Their growth pays the owner of the land little or noth- 

 ing. The interest of the community runs to the same effect. 

 The other third or quarter only is the subject of debate and 

 inquiry. If the greater part of this be cut in addition to the 

 mature timber, the effect is to almost blot out the spruce 

 growth u})on the land for many years, and also generally, oy 

 leavmg other species in special prominence on the ground, to 

 give them o:reat advantages in recoverino^ it. The si^ruce growth 

 for a period of years is blotted out, while the prominence of 

 spruce on the land is damaged for all time. This effect the 

 lumberman greatly enhances l)y adding, say, a third to his 

 cut of timber. 



But though these trees may add that pro}K)rtion to the 

 amount of the cut, they do not similarly increase its value. 

 The small trees which make up that last third cost more to 

 handle because of their small size, and they are not worth so 

 much in the market. Saw mills are still predominant on all 

 our livers, and their demand for logs of good size keeps up 

 a difference in the price of large and small timber. Just 

 what this amounts to no one can absolutely say. It seems to 



