Must Move Forward 



Forestry in Canada has now ar- 

 rived at that dangerous stage when 

 all men speak well of it ; as one 

 leader recently remarked, 'If there 

 was only some expressed opposition 

 to forestry we could more readily 

 make real progress'. Ten years ago 

 Forest Conservation in its now gen- 

 erally accepted sense was practical- 

 ly unknown. Today everybody 

 knows of it and has an idea, in a 

 general way, that it is a good thing. 

 But the difficulty is that now there 

 is so much spoken, written and 

 printed about conservation that far 

 too many people believe that the 

 work is progressing satisfactorily 

 and that the volume of talk repre- 

 sents work done. In fact, public 

 opinion is by the very frequency of 

 the mention of conservation being 

 lulled into false security. People 

 believe that all governments, insti- 

 tutions and persons connected with 

 forestry are alive to the dangers of 

 deforestation, and have taken pro- 

 tective measures accordingly. As a 

 matter of fact, as everyone knows 

 who has looked beneath the surface, 

 we in Canada are just about ready 

 (or ought to be) to begin to do 

 something. 



People who read in the papers 

 these days a great deal about Con- 

 servation imagine that all is well 

 with Canada in this respect, and 

 that, since the watchmen are awake, 

 they can sleep comfortably in their 

 beds. 'On the contrary, if they will 

 take up the report of the Minister 

 or any other official in charge of 

 the public forests, they will see that 

 instead of there being cause for 

 complacency the situation is actual- 

 ly critical. From every one of these 

 -comes the same repot-t, that at pres- 

 ent he is concentrating what men 

 and means he has on the problem of 

 fire protection, but, in spite of this, 

 fires are constantly destroying' the 



best timber areas. Even where the 

 officials have for years been able to 

 keep out fire, the cutting of the best 

 species of trees is giving opportun- 

 ity for the growth of inferior trees, 

 so that the whole character of the 

 forests is undergoing a steady 

 change for the worse, and the result 

 will be that from a timber-produc- 

 ing standpoint they will in a fe»v 

 years have little or no value at all. 



'This is not intended to be an alarm- 

 ist article, but simply to emphasize 

 the point that, whereas the average 

 good citizen believes that Canada is 

 doing all that is required to protect 

 and even increase her timber re- 

 sources, the plain fact of the matter 

 is that in this regard we are doing 

 nothing at all. As stated before, the 

 responsible authorities tell you they 

 can only endeavor to protect what 

 remains of the virgin forests from 

 tire, and that for this they have vei-y 

 inadequate means. In regard to the 

 re-stocking with valuable timber of 

 lands unsuited for agriculture, how- 

 ever, there is nractically nothing b ^- 

 ing done from Nova Scotia to Brit- 

 ish Columbia. There are millions of 

 acres of lands belonging to the state 

 which are fit for no other purpose 

 than to grow trees. They bear no 

 timber trees today and in fifty 

 years, if present methods continue, 

 they still will be lacking in mer- 

 chantable timber. The great Mir- 

 amichi fire took place in 1825; today 

 after eighty-six years that once mai;:- 

 nificent pinery has scarcely a timbi'r 

 tree on it, while pine has practical- 

 ly disappeared, not only from that 

 district, but from the rest of Nev.; 

 Brunswick and from large sections 

 of Quebec. Now. if the otiun- mil- 

 lions of acres of cut-over and burnt- 

 over lands in Canada are not to be 

 in the same useless condition at the 

 end of another eighty-six years, 

 tlion we must 'take warning arid see 



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