64 FOREST COMMISSIONER'S REPORT. 



by stripping the land of small stuff — robbing the mine, as a 

 coal miner would say — but that fate, let us hope, is never to 

 overtake the Moose river. It could only be at great expense 

 to future supply. 



This shrinkage of the annual cut seems inevital)le, but it 

 will hardly be so disastrous a matter as many now seem 

 inclined to think. Pulp mills, it is likely, will then use the 

 o-reat l)ulk of the spruce, saw mills gradually yielding place 

 to them with little loss of property oi- distress to labor. This 

 is so because a saw mill is a comparatively cheap atiair, while 

 the conversion of a thousand feet of spruce logs into pulp — 

 to say nothing of paper, — costs several times as much as does 

 its manufacture into long lumber. Then, too, it seems highly 

 probable that within twenty years our hard woods will be 

 largely utilized and their manufacture offer full remuneration 

 to capital and labor. If that is the case, the region of Moose- 

 head lake and the Moose river towns along the Canadian 

 Pacific liailway cannot fail to share in the new development. 

 All-round lumbering of that kind might be so managed as to 

 work to the advantage of spruce. 



It will do no harm to repeat some of the things that have 

 been said in general about the Moose river basin. 

 General jhe countrv is in the iirst place comparatively 



Moo.se liver suiooth. There is, therefore, little waste land in 

 ized!'""' the shape of mountain tops, while the standing 

 timber is easily brought to water. There is a further advan- 

 tage, too, in less danger from destructive winds. 



Secondly. While the country is not rough in its major 

 features, in its detail it is almost always uneven. Good 

 drainage is thus provided, and this feature aided by the pres- 

 ence of the softer rocks and of soil which almost always is 

 abundant for spruce and frequently deep and rich enough to 

 produce good farming land, makes the territory as a rule 

 very thrifty. 



Third. In addition to these features the Moose river basin 

 has a oreat advantage, from the point of view of the future 

 production of spruce, in the mixture of its growth. The 



