The Caiia Uaii IIoi liciiltinist. 



»9 



it not nil (If tluiii likely that in ten or 

 twenty years lie will be able to pay a 

 handsome price for just such trees as a 

 j)lanter would like to raise ? 



It is not necessary to my arf^ument to 

 go over all the intermediate profits of a 

 plantation of ash or other trees, but aO 

 the authorities who speak from actual 

 f,Mowth say that the thinnings of a lot 

 will pay all expenses — extra trees for trans- 

 planting, small trees for hoops and turn- 

 ings, and many items of profit to the 

 owner. I assume this is agreed to and 

 tliat the encouragement of scientific 

 forestry is desired by all, and that we are 

 all waiting for some one to begin. 



The decline and gradual removal north- 

 ward of the manufacture of lumber for 

 export are well known. The introduction 

 of coal for fuel in many townships is often 

 referred to, and calculations of the loss to 

 the importers have been attempted. 



The preservation of the lumber pro- 

 ducing forests is rather more of a pro- 

 blem than Canadian f()restr\- students are 

 prepared to attempt. 



The question of how much thinning 

 either general or in blocks, will keep the 

 forest still growing and still producing, is 

 one thatldtjnot hear debated in Canada. 

 A lumber man tells me that a grove of 

 pine trees will grow and do well for sixty 

 vears longer inclosed in a forest than if 

 left in an isolated block ; that the pine 

 trees on the margin of the forest left in 

 the burnt districts on Lake Huron are 

 gradually giving way, first near the burnt 

 strips and then further in up to half a 

 mile or more of what looks like a perfect- 

 Iv vigorous forest, the drying out, or 

 the wind, or some other effect of the open 

 space working an injury we cannot see. 



Many of the remaining wood lots o' 

 Ontario are now being searched for a few- 

 saleable trees, and a few groves of valuable 

 trees are still held by the owners. It is 

 n.>t necessary to introduce the study of 

 forestry while these can still be found. 

 Tiie very scientific American writer 

 above referred to gives a system of 

 forestrv some thing like this : 



-J . Scientific : 



I. Forest Biology. 



Consideration of growing crop. 



II. Timber Physics. 



C(jnsideration of the grown crop. 



III. S(jcial Physics and Chemistry, 



Conditions for growing. 

 Ji. Economic : 

 . I. Statistics. Areas and products. 



II. Technology. Lumbering. 



III. Forest Policy. 

 C. Practical : 



I. Origination. Artificial plantations. 



II. Management of Crop. 



III. Harvest. 



Are not the mterests of this country 

 directly involved to-day in every item of 

 this scheme? 



The Woods in Winter. 

 There are many who never take a 

 ramble in the woods in the winter sea- 

 son. They appear to think that because 

 the trees, save the pines, hemlocks, etc., 

 are bare, and because the birds have left 

 for a warmer climate, there is nothing to 

 be seen in the woods in winter. Those 

 who have learned properly to use their 

 eyes, will find that the woods possess 

 enough of interest at all seasons to make 

 a visit to them profitable at any season. 

 Lumbermen, who work at felling trees, 

 do so in the winter only, and can distin- 

 guish trees with great accuracy, and tell 

 one kind of tree from another as far off 

 as they can see them. They do this from 

 the peculiar way in which the tree 

 branches, and the color and markings of 

 the bark. We have found that these 

 same lumbermen, if shown the leaves and 

 Howers of the trees with which thev are 

 so familiar in winter, fail to recognize 

 them ; indeed many are surprised to 

 learn that forest trees have flowers. To 

 be able to recognize trees at all seasons, 

 and to name them accurately, whether 

 they have leaves or not, is a very useful 

 sort of knowledge, which every farmer 

 should acquire. The carpenter, the cab- 

 inet-maker, and all other workers in wood, 

 while they mav not be able to recognize 



