Fighting Fires and Thieves 205 



would be most profitable. This is especially true 

 of recent years. Formerly, when competition was 

 less sharp and the margin of profits wider, while on 

 the other hand the abundance of material made it 

 possible to log in those places only where the cost 

 of transportation was lowest, it was common to 

 cull only the largest and best trees. The rest were 

 left standing, to be taken twenty or thirty years 

 later, when the quantity of lumber harvested from 

 them was, of course, much greater. But nowadays 

 logging has been carried to localities that are com- 

 paratively inaccessible, and in order to overcome 

 the greater cost it is necessary to take the greatest 

 possible amount of material from each tract. So 

 trees are cut of all sizes, down to the mere pole of 

 seven inches in diameter. Moreover, the lumber- 

 man knows by experience that if he lets the young 

 tree grow, he runs the chance that it will he de- 

 stroyed by the fire long before he comes around a 

 second time to cut it. With the latter danger 

 lessened, he will much oftener prefer to leave the 

 sapling till it has increased and improved the char- 

 acter of its wood. It is not rarely proposed to 

 prohibit by law the cutting of pine trees less than 

 twelve inches in diameter or the sale of logs of 

 such size. A law of this kind, even if it were con- 

 stitutional and enforceable, would be unwise. For 

 as long as the young trees left on the slashings will 

 probably be destroyed by fire, it is better to make 

 use of them such as they are. In Ontario, where 

 lumbermen buy the privilege of logging on crown 



