48 



Canadian Forestry Journal 



once proceed with the establishment of a 

 Department of Forests; 



(20) That royalties upon Crown timber 

 should be paid into a forest sinking fund 

 in the manner described by your commis- 

 sioners; 



(21) That by suitable changes in the 

 customs tariff the utilization of low-grade 

 timber should be encouraged. 



Following the recommendations, some 

 thirty pages of the report are devoted to 

 an amplification of the recommendations, 

 explaining at length the circumstances 

 that have given rise to each recommenda- 

 tion and the reasons for the recommenda- 

 tion. 



The first forty pages of the report are 

 taken up with a general consideration of 

 the present state of the forests of the 

 province, especially with regard to their 

 tenure. 



The commissioners found, when they 

 came to get at facts regarding the forests 

 under consideration, that definite informa- 

 tion was almost entirely lacking, and that 

 they had to depend largely, if not entirely, 

 on guesses. An example of this is fur- 

 nished in the case of forest land still 

 in the hands of the Crown. No definite 

 information is at hand, and the commis- 

 sion found the opinions of experts, so- 

 called, to be most conflicting, and were 

 finally driven to form their estimate 'by 

 acting on the more or less popular belief 

 that about one-quarter of the timber un- 

 der provincial control remains unalienat- 

 ed. ' So they arrive at the conclusion 

 that the reserve timber lands amount to 

 3,750,000 acres, admittedly 'a pure con- 

 jecture. ' 



So in regard to the forest area of the 

 province, no definite information is avail- 

 able. 'For years,' the report runs, 'a le- 

 gend passed from writer to writer that 

 the province of British Columbia had one 

 hundred and eighty-two million acres of 

 forest land.' After quoting Dr. Fernow's 

 estimate of thirty to fifty million acres 

 of 'merchantable forest,' the commission- 

 ers proceed to apply the knife to all the 

 estimates and reach the conclusion that, 

 not including the area of the timber in 

 the Railway Belt, the province possesses 

 but fifteen million acres of 'merchantable 

 timber,' having a total stand of 192,000,- 

 000,000 feet, board measure, which amount 

 may be appreciably increased by 'restric- 

 tions placed upon the present liberty to 

 destroy and waste.' The Railway Belt is 

 credited with a stand of some 50,000,- 

 000,000 feet B.M. in addition to this. 



Attention is also given to 'Western 

 Forests and the Timber Supply,' noting 

 the stands in the western United States 

 and British Columbia, the demand from 

 Europe, the depletion of eastern North 

 America and the position of British Colum- 

 bia in relation to all these facts. The 

 available statistics in regard to B. C. tim- 



ber lands are given, included under the 

 heads of Timberlands in Private Owner- 

 ship, Leasehold Timber Lands, Licensed 

 Timber Lands, the Railway Belt, the For- 

 est Revenue of British Columbia (and of 

 Canada) and the Timber Cut of British 

 Columbia. Fire Patrol in the Western 

 States and in Ontario are considered and 

 the Cost of Official Cruising in Western 

 Forests. The Rise in Value of Western 

 Stumpage is discussed and a comparison 

 of stumpage prices in Western Canada and 

 in Ontario and Germany made. 



An appendix is provided containing, 

 among other things, the interim report of 

 the commission, articles in regard to the 

 forest policy of the Dominion Govern- 

 ment and of other provinces and the 

 United States, suggested legislation and 

 schedules, and other articles of interest. 



A number of diagrams are interspersed 

 through the report which present in a 

 graphic way many facts drawn from for- 

 est statistics. 



FORESTER'S VALUE TO LUMBERMEN. 



At a recent meeting of the Foresters' 

 Club of the University of Toronto, Mr. 

 D. J. Turner, of the Turner Lumber Co., 

 gave a talk on lumbering operations. Mr. 

 Turner was one of the first Canadian lum- 

 bermen to realize the importance of sci- 

 entific education as applied to his busi- 

 ness. For the past three summers he has 

 employed Toronto students on his limits, 

 making logging maps, estimating timber 

 and locating roads, dams, camps, etc. He 

 exhibited two maps made by students of 

 the forestry faculty which he said were 

 invaluable to him. He considered the 

 trained forester to be a necessity to any 

 enterprising lumber concern and believes 

 in giving the students a chance to train 

 themselves for scientific lumber production. 

 He said it would pay any company to 

 employ these men, even if they only made 

 accurate maps of limits. Mr. Turner gave 

 a brief but comprehensive -outline of the 

 work of a lumber company from its or- 

 ganization to the milling of the logs and 

 the sale of lumber, and later spent an hour 

 answering questions from the students and 

 the members of the facultv. 



LESS TIMBER CUT IN NEW YORK. 



The Forest, Fish and Game Commission 

 of New York State reports a decrease of 

 a billion (thousand million) feet in the 

 total production of timber in the State 

 last year. The amount of pulpwood cut 

 within the State shows an increase, how- 

 ever. The timber cut of the State has been 

 decreasing since 1907. 



