Canadian Forestry Journal, January, 1919 



17 



"WHEN YE HAE NAETHiNC ELSE TO DO, YE MAY BE AYE STICKING 

 IN A TREE. IT WILL BE CROWING WHEN YE'RE SLEEPING." 



Sir Walter Scoil. 



of timber which constitute our forests, giving us 

 a complete inventory of this source of wealth 

 with but a small fraction of the cost and time 

 which would have to be expended, using the 

 old methods, and with far greater accuracy. 



Community Forests. 



As is shown by Mr. Clapp of the U.S. Forest 

 Service in his most interesting bulletin "Forestry 

 and Community Development," Forests are al- 

 most absolutely necessary to the best develop- 

 ment of agricultural communities. The work on 

 a farm is seasonal, heavy in summer and light 

 in winter and the forest offers winter occupation. 

 Then too the farmer needs firewood, fencing and 

 lumber, all of which can be supplied by the 

 forest. The idea of settling soldiers on farms is 

 a good one — if the soldier wants to become a 

 farmer. Farming to-day, however, is a very 

 technical and highly specialized business and for 

 a man with no previous training or experience 

 to undertake it is rather risky. He is likely to 

 lose quite a little time and money in getting the 

 experience for himself and so become discour- 

 aged. In settling returned soldiers upon the land 

 they should not be given land haphazard but 



regular communities should be planned for and 

 laid out, which would give much better chances 

 for success. The land should be so laid out that 

 each farm would be near the community centre, 

 either by laying the farms out in units which 

 would lie in a circle around the community 

 centre or on the Quebec system of long narrow 

 farms which brings all the houses close together 

 on the roads and makes all the people neighbors. 

 Only the agricultural land should be cleared and 

 the forest lands l?ft in trees or planted up and 

 kept as a "community forest" which would be 

 managed for the common good and would sup- 

 ply the community with forest products. This 

 has been already tried out and been proved a 

 great success, some towns paying all the muni- 

 cipal exj^enses out of their revenues trom such 

 forests, doing away with local taxes. 



Soldiers are so accustomed to companionship 

 that when they first return they are likely to be 

 very lonely and when set down on isolated farms 

 become very homesick and soon give up the life. 



The life of the forest is a free, healthy life 

 and breeds a splendid type of men, as witness 

 the famous "Blue Devils." Chasseurs .Alpins, and 

 the German Jaeger Battalions. 



