TIMBER OF BRITISH COLUMBIA 



781 



that many of the mines and mining towns have to ship their mining 

 timber and fuel by rail, distances up to 70 miles, and this country a 

 few years ago was heavily forested. 



Of the 40,000 square miles of commercial forest in British Colum- 

 bia, only 50 per cent can be seriously considered as containing accessi- 

 ble loggable timber; the balance being on rocky steep ground, where 

 the cost of logging and the breakage would be so great that it would 

 not tempt a logger to operate for many years to come. 



The virgin growth of timber in British Columbia is steadily de- 

 caying and should be cut and marketed, but the young second growth 

 on which we depend for our future supply of lumber should be jeal- 

 ously preserved. At present we are recklessly cutting it for tie timber, 

 poles, and mining timber, destroying fully 30 per cent of it during the 

 operation. It is common practice to leave 20 to 40 feet of good sound 

 butt logs in the woods, because it is too large to hew into ties. The 

 same condition applies to operations where mining timber is being 

 logged. This should be checked, and without waste of time. De- 

 pletion of our forests in British Columbia within 20 years with a 

 resultant slump in all enterprise that depends wholly or in part on 

 forest products can only be averted if action is taken without further 

 delay. 



The action we would propose is that private timberland owners 

 adopt logging methods that will protect and preserve yoj.mg growth, 

 and leave logged off lands in condition for forest renewal, then the 

 young trees of today will be of merchantable size when needed. This 

 is dependent on keeping fires out of the forests, so that young trees 

 will have an opportunity to grow. 



It has been shown on examination that, unless logging slash is 

 burned over, the reproduction is very poor, the heavy slash shading 

 the young seedlings. It is necessary for a fire to follow logging opera- 

 tions in order to prepare the ground for seeding. This should be 

 undertaken by the Government, which can take every precaution to 

 avoid disastrous fires. 



It takes approximately 80 years to produce trees of commercial 

 size that will make ties and piling for the Coast or saw logs for in- 

 terior mills. Eventually our Coast mills will have to adapt their cut- 

 ting machinery for small logs, for the virgin timber once gone can 

 never be replaced. It takes from 200 to 400 years to produce our 

 large fir timber, and double that to produce our big cedar. The fortu- 



