510 Forestry Quarterly 



of course, a consequent enlarged burden of taxation on a limited 

 population. This continuous forest production means sustained 

 annual yield, secured by proper forest management, successful 

 or unsuccessful according to the relationship maintained between 

 demand and productive capacity on the one hand and actual pro- 

 duction on the other, and none but foresters, trained and skilled 

 in the practice of forestry, can possibly introduce and maintain 

 such a forest policy. 



Annual Destruction and Reproduction 



At the present time undoubtedly our forests are producing a 

 large surplus over demand, but for how long can we assume the 

 continuance of this condition? Furthermore, what is the rate 

 of destruction of merchantable-sized material in our forests and 

 what is the rate of replacement? More important still, what 

 destruction is taking place in our unmerchantable forests and 

 reproduction? Studies of past destruction in quite recent times 

 have yielded some startling results. The Forestry Branch has 

 now covered some 100,000 square miles with reconnaissance sur- 

 veys and found less than 10 per cent bearing timber over 50 

 years of age. In Ontario so little attention is paid to maintaining 

 a record of fire damage that a single fire covering quite 150,000 

 acres, and destroying well over 80 million feet of White pine 

 timber, was not even mentioned in the annual report of the Forest 

 Department. Canada spends annually at least $1,300,000 for 

 forest protection alone, and yet there is not a single forester or 

 forest officer in Canada who can give even an intelligent expres- 

 sion of opinion on the results being secured for this vast expendi- 

 ture. About all that we know is that the money is spent, and if 

 it is a wet season we congratulate ourselves that there have been 

 few disastrous fires, while if it is a dry season we spend a little 

 more money and tell how much worse things would be were it 

 not for the presence of the fire rangers in the woods. When we 

 consider that if the United States spent as much per capita as 

 we do in Canada for forest protection, their annual fire bill 

 would be about $20,000,000, instead of being more nearly 

 $2,500,000, or only about double our own, we can begin to realize 

 the enormous comparative drain that fire protection makes on the 

 resources of the people of the two countries. Furthermore, the 



