302 Forestry Quarterly 



85,000 acres in a typical section of old logged-over lands in 

 Ontario, where through lack of any kind of protective measures, 

 fires have been allowed to run practically at will for years. The 

 investigator finds that the number of fires in the area has 

 increased 300 per cent in eight years. The entire cut-over area 

 of pine lands, amounting to 70,000 acres of the 85,000 acres in 

 the tract, has been severely burned at least once since lumbering, 

 and some portions as many as eight times. The result naturally 

 is the practical elimination of the valuable species and in some 

 cases the creation of useless rock barrens bare of all trees. Some 

 12 per cent of the area is in this latter condition. It is inter- 

 esting to recall, as giving point to the author's contentions, that 

 between the first examination in 1912 of a larger area, the 

 Trent Watershed, of which this smaller area forms a part, and 

 the survey made by the author in 1913, some 20 per cent of the 

 larger area was fire swept. If, as there is every reason to think, 

 the area examined by the author is typical of the logged-off 

 lands of the Province, the conditions revealed contain little 

 to encourage any hope of future yields of timber from the 

 second growth forests of Ontario. The total disregard, or 

 rather the blank ignorance, of responsible officials who should 

 be fully seized of the conditions existing on the cut-over forest 

 lands of the Province, constitutes a most serious situation in a 

 province so largely composed of lands fit only for timber 

 production. 



The second report by Dr. Howe concerns the national repro- 

 duction of Douglas fir in British Columbia. The author con- 

 cludes that adequate natural reproduction can be assured by 

 regulated broadcast burning of logging slash. 



Part VI is by Mr. J. H. White. It is a general survey of 

 the status of "Forestry on Dominion Lands in the Four Western 

 Provinces." The forest conditions in the various provinces are 

 discussed, together with the fire protection, methods of adminis- 

 tering timberlands and disposing of timber. In doing this, the 

 author has necessarily explained the origin and relationship of 

 the three forest administering agencies of the Department of 

 the Interior, a relationship which is — perhaps, with reason — 

 often a source of confusion to those not familiar with the 

 situation. 



