PRACTICAL FORESTRY IN NEW BRUNSWICK. 



By Prof. R. B. Miller. 



Every lumberman with whom we have conversed on the subject 

 of forestry realizes the truth and the benefits of its principles, 

 and has in his mind certain ideals which he would like to see 

 carried out on his own or the holdinj^s of the Government. He is 

 in favor of forestry education, both in the public schools and the 

 college, so long as its theories do not affect his own ^jocketbook. 

 When they do that he would rather see the forester addressing 

 Women's Clubs or the Boy Scouts instead of grown men with 

 logs to get out. If the forester and the lumberman shall ever, 

 metaphorically sijeaking, occupy the same bunk, it can only be 

 when the lumberman realizes thnt forestry methods, if adopted in 

 small measure in this province, will increase the cost of lumber- 

 ing. If they did not they would be of little advantage either in 

 theory or practice . 



Realizing this as the starting point, the private owner who is 

 lumbering on his own lands has the choice of adopting a policy 

 which will cost him something but will leave his woods as so 

 much forest capital, unimpaired for his children. The question of 

 adjustment between the lumberman and the Provincial Govern- 

 ment who owns the lands is another affair altogether, and the best 

 results can only be obtained by cooperation in adopting proper 

 limits and methods of cutting and means of protection. Rules for 

 cutting and disposal of brush and slash could be best made by a 

 Forestry Commission, such as they have in many of the States, 

 organized on a non-political bt.sis, with some or a majority of the 

 members being practical lumbermen with the good of th« pro- 

 vince and the future of the lumbering industry at heart. Such a 

 commission, through their chairman and executive oflBcer, the 

 Surveyor General, should have the power of making and enforcing 

 all regulations which they decided to he wise for cutting timber on 

 the Crown L nds. The plan of entrusting this task to one or two 

 men is unfair both to them, the Government and the forests they 

 are striving to preserve. If they make regulations which it is 

 unwise to carry out the lumhermen rebel and the regulation be- 

 comes a dead Jetter so far as its enforcement is concerned ; or 



