1884.] FORESTRY IN EUROPE AND ABIERICA. 91 



The forest wealth of the United States, it is estimated, repre- 

 sents 700,000,000 of dollars per year ; but such are the domestic 

 demands for forest products that the Union is now, and for some 

 years past has been, drawing largely on the Dominion of Canada, 

 and no expectation can be reasonably entertained that she will ever 

 again be a large exporter to Europe. 



CANADIAN SUPPLIES. 



The area of the timber lands of the Dominion is roughly 

 estimated at 280,000 square miles. It cannot be said that the 

 valuable forest areas of Canada have as yet been defined by survey 

 M'ith sufBcient accuracy. It is stated that the true forest areas 

 would scarcely cover a tenth part of the surfaces. The great 

 Saskatchewan Valley, equal to thirteen States of the size of IS'ew 

 York, is returned as chiefly prairie, and practically treeless. Oak 

 crosses the border from ^Michigan and Ohio. It is asserted that 

 in the provinces of Ontario, Qiieljec, New Brunswick, and Xova 

 Scotia, the pine and spruce, the great materials of foreign export, 

 and under contribution for more than a century, will be entirely 

 cut witliin a few years. Little and others assign for their duration 

 a limit of seven years. The wooded lands are still counted at 

 millions of acres, but both in the States and Canada unknown 

 quantities of mere coi:)pice and scrub exist, the timber of which 

 would not pay its own transport to the most Tnoderate distances : 

 while millions of acres still counted as forest are in the state of 

 charred remnants of forests burned over for miles upon miles, ami 

 the timber of which has been totally destroyed. 



The singularly able analysis of the returns as to colonial timber, 

 by Mr. Julian C. Eogers, laid before I'arlianient in 1878, furnishes 

 valuable data as to the state of the timber supplies of the Dominion 

 up to that date. In the five years 1872 to 1876 inclusive, the 

 exports of timber and wood show a total of £24,633,226, while the 

 next chief export, that of corn and grain, gives a total value for the 

 same period of but £16,536,983. In the province of Nova Scotia, 

 the approximate amount of timlier- producing land in 1875 was 

 estimated at 9,000,000 acres, but the amount was known to be 

 rapidly diminishing, owing to wasteful consumption and to forest 

 fires. No steps were taken as to i-eplanting or prevention of waste. 

 The area cleared each year was computed at 200,000,000 superficial 

 feet, of which the timber of about three-fourths was annually ex- 

 ported. Ontario appears to be the only province over which the 

 Dominion Government exercises a central control. It was 

 estimated to contain 30,000 square miles of forest lands ; but the 



