FOREST INVESTIGATIONS IN CANADA 



PROPOSAL FOR A NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR 



TECHNICAL INVESTIGATIONS^ 



By W. N. Millar^ 



In attempting to outline the scheme whereby the Dominion 

 Forestry Branch plans to undertake the investigation of the 

 forestry problems of Canada and to co-ordinate the technical 

 work of all Canadian forest organizations, it is first desirable to 

 consider briefly and in a broad way the present status of the 

 forestry profession in Canada. 



It would seem that in order to make myself perfectly under- 

 stood in what I intend to say with regard to foresters and for- 

 estry, it might be well for me to begin by offering a definition 

 of both terms. I would define a forester as a man skilled in the 

 practice of forestry. Such a definition leaves entirely out of con- 

 sideration the question of how such skill is secured, and avoids 

 completely the subject of forest school preparation, which is 

 only one means by which skill in forestry may be acquired. Of 

 course, as in everything else, the final value of a forester's skill 

 depends almost wholly on his own energy, character and ability, 

 in other words, on his value as a man, and in not a few cases the 

 forester who has acquired his training outside of a forest school 

 is the more successful, not at all because of the method of acquir- 

 ing skill in forestry, but simply because of superior ability and 

 force of character to start with. 



This definition does not, however, settle many controversies, 

 because it leaves the term "forestry" itself undefined. Forestry' 

 I would define as the art of producing and marketing wood crops 

 on a sustained yield basis. Forestry, it seems to me, is primarily 

 distinguished by the conception of the forest as a crop to be 

 periodically harvested, and not as a mine to be worked out and 

 abandoned. The practice of forestry may then be either extensive 

 or intensive. The more extensive the practice the less of the 

 close detail of forest management is involved, the further away 

 is the forester from the forest itself, and the less, under a given 



1 Address delivered before the British Columbia Section, Canadian Society 

 of Forest Engineers, 1915. 



2 Assistant Professor of Forestry, Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto, 

 Toronto, Canada. 



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