584 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



pected. Indeed, "a. smaller revenue from stumpage is looked upon 

 acceptably by the department, it being the opinion for many years that 

 we were exceeding the annual growth in many localities, and hereto- 

 fore too large a percentage of undersized logs has been cut. Indeed, it 

 is becoming a serious question as to whether the government would not 

 be justified in prohibiting certain areas from being cut at all where it is 

 shown by the forest engineers the merchantable-sized logs have all 

 been removed." It should, however, be stated that $30,000 of the ap- 

 propriation of $100,000 is derived from taxes received from wild lands 

 by special levy on private owners toward fire protection, and another 

 $30,000 from the fire tax of one-half cent levied on licensed crown 

 lands. 



Among the improvements in the timber-land administration, partly 

 an outgrowth of the forestry development, may be mentioned reorgani- 

 zation of the scaling, change of the diameter limit at certain heights to 

 a stump diameter of 12 inches for spruce and 9 inches for fir, and a 

 method of checking the fake settler in cutting pulpwood. The organi- 

 zation of an efficient fire-protection service is foreshadowed. 



The progress of the forest survey is fully reported on 83 pages by the 

 present director, Mr. G. H. Prince, his predecessor, Mr. P. Z. Caver- 

 hill, who organized the service, having gone to British Columbia. 



So far a little over 16 per cent of the crown lands (1,245,000 acres) 

 have been surveyed, at a cost of somewhat over $27 per square mile. 

 The method described in detail is the usual strip survey, with base lines 

 2.5 miles apart and cruise lines 25 chains apart, calipering or estimating 

 33 feet on each side. 



The only unusual addition is an attempt at soil classification by occa- 

 sional spading, the idea being that upon such rather wholesale survey 

 the agricultural possibilities may be determined — a somewhat doubtful 

 proceeding. It will, however, serve the purpose of a, first, more or less 

 wholesale classification and will make a more intensive examination 

 and segregation easier. 



The ambitious attempt to determine the rate of wood production for 

 the whole province in order to gauge the cut accordingly was not con- 

 tinued for lack of competent technical assistance. 



A discussion on the spruce-bud worm and the white-pine blister rust 

 and the detail description of certain areas covered by the survey com- 

 pletes the very creditable report. 



B. E. F. 



