HISTORICAL REVIEW OF CANADA S TIMBER INDUSTRY I23I 



ment, and such areas as are now being worked are leased to the lumber- 

 men, the revenue arising from leases and timber dues going to these govern- 

 ments and amounting at the present time (1916) to about S 7,500,000 

 per year. 



The point that is overlooked in the theory that the lumberman is to be 

 regularly pushed back as settlement advances is that all soils are not 

 suited for agriculture. If it had been conceived by the general pubhc in Ca- 

 nada, say in 1840, that there were tracts of land near the first settled parts 

 of all the eastern provinces that would grow fine timber but would never 

 grow profitable grain or root crops, then pro\'ision, probably, would have 

 been made for managing these areas permanently as forests. The law would 

 not have been based on the supposition that timber was but a passing re- 

 source but a classification of soils would have permitted the two industries, 

 farming and lumbering, to be developed side by side to the best advantage 

 of both. 



When the lease was executed, since the timber was the object of the 

 lessee, the ground rent was set at a figure comparatively trifling. There 

 was then a stumpage tax (i) (or dues ) of so much per thousand feet, which 

 was collected annual^ after the timber had been cut and measured. It 

 was later seen, however, that one Umit might be much more advantageous^ 

 situated as to transportation or have a better quality of timber than an- 

 other and that a uniform stumpage tax aloue was unfair. This was got over 

 by auctioning off these leases to the highest bidder. The dues and ground 

 rent being fixed, the government asked for a premium or " bonus " over 

 and above these fixed charges and the lumberman who offered the highest 

 premium got the hmit. Starting at an average of about five dollars per 

 square mile of hmit in the sales of 1849, these premiums rose steadily with 

 the advance in the price of timber until in the Ontario sale of 1903 the average 

 premium over a large number of limits was over $ 4 000 per square mile 

 and the highest premium paid was $ 31,500 per square mile for a limit 

 ten miles in extent. 



Since the underlying idea of the present timber regulations is that the 

 land will eventually be occupied by the farmer, there is generally a pro- 

 vision in the older leases whereby upon notice being given the lumberman 

 must, at the date fixed, abandon part or even all of his limit to allow farmers 

 to settle and begin operations. These farmers can use the timber, or cer- 

 tain parts of it, without paying stumpage dues or rents. The result has 

 been that again and again men who had no intention of farming secured 

 the right to settle on lands for the ostensible object of cultivating them when 

 their real object was to cut the timber and sell it. This class of men is 

 known as the "bogus settler"; and the drawing of a fair line between 

 the lumberman and the real settler on the one hand, and the bogus settler 



(i ) " Stumpage tax " gets its name from the fact that in the early years the collector of tim- 

 ber revenue counted the number of stumps and from this estimated the amount of timber cut 

 aud the amount of the ta.x. In recent years a government measurer or " scaler " mc;isurcs the 

 actual logs as they are cut . 



