HISTORICAI, REVIEW OF CANADA S TIMBER INDUSTRY 123^ 



set Up a saw-mill which sawed one thousand feet, board measure, a day. 

 Even here, however, the leasing system was the basis. 



The underlying theory that the farmer would soon push back the lum- 

 berman from his present limits into the unexplored hinterland is the pro- 

 bable reason for the indefinite character of these leases in regard to termi- 

 nation. In the first instance they were all yearly leases and to-day the 

 great majority retain this form. In Nova Scotia the small amount of forest 

 land held by the Crown is leased for varying terms from one year up to 

 99 years ; in New Brimswick there is now a fixed term of twenty years 

 with the right to renew for ten or twenty years under certain conditions ; 

 in Quebec, Ontario and the Prairie Provinces the leases are all annual in 

 form. In Quebec, it is stated that where the land is unquestionably non- 

 agricultural the leases have, through custom, become practically per- 

 petual and the government has announced that it will not change the terms 

 oftener than once in ten years. In Ontario, the Crowai has always contend- 

 ed that the leases were for one year only and that while it renews them from 

 year to year on non-agricultural land, it can at any time terminate the lease 

 by giving six months' notice. It has also announced that it will not alter 

 its dues and ground rents oftener than once in ten years. Recent sales in 

 Ontario have been by auction for a rate per thousand feet, board measure, 

 of the standing timber. There are no dues or bonuses and the purchaser 

 is given a limited time in which to take off the timber, after which the land 

 reverts to the Crown. 



British Columbia has recently made an elaborate revision of its system. 

 By this revision most of the leases become perpetual but the government 

 takes power to revise the terms every five years. These dues are fixed on 

 a basal price for lumber at the mill. If at the end of an}^ five year revision 

 period the price shall have risen above this base price then the 'government 

 will take an increased royalty or tax in proportion to the increased price. 



All the governments make provision for fire protection and have called 

 upon the lumbermen to pay an increasingly large proportion of the cost of 

 this protection on lands leased to lumbermen ; the governments, of course 

 paying the whole cost of protection on the areas of forest land where the 

 Crown has not yet parted with the right to cut the timber. 



The policy of forest reserves, that is of land imsuited to agriculture 

 set apart to grow timber for ever, is a recent development in Canada and 

 the method of conducting operations on these reserves is one of the ad- 

 ministrative problems now being worked out in this country. 



Methods of Canadian I^umbering. 



All of Eastern Canada drains into the Atlantic through great lakes and 

 rivers. The great forests were on the banks of these rivers and their tri- 

 butaries. This was also largely true of British Columbia in respect to the 

 Pacific, so that with comparatively small exceptions all of Canada's lum- 

 bering operations have been carried on by water. Under this sAstem the 

 trees are felled in the autunm and winter, drawn by horses to the rivers and 



