Canadian Forestry Journal, Ma^, 1919 



213 



tice. Keep the capital intact, so that its re- 

 turns will be as continuous as possible; in- 

 crease the earning capacity of the capital. 

 Nothing about that is hard for a business man 

 to understand! In fact, someone has defined 

 forestry practice as the application of business 

 principles in obtaining the continued productiv- 

 ity of woodlands. 



Cutting Coupons — and Cords. 



Suppose you had an acre of land covered 

 with trees of commercial value. Now, trees pos- 

 sess the miraculous power of rejuvenating them- 

 selves each year and the result is a layer of 

 new wood. Let us suppose that the new wood 

 laid down in a growing season on all the trees 

 of an acre totals a cord — a cord of wood per 

 acre. You could remove a cord of wood each 

 year and your capital stock would remain un- 

 impaired. You could consider that cord of 

 wood as earnings on capital invested or you 

 could imagine yourself cutting coupons instead 

 of cords. And the wonderful thing about it is 

 that you, your children, or your children's 

 children could go on doing this as long as the 

 sun shines and the ram falls, for wood is only 

 solidified sunshine and water plus a small per- 

 centage of mineral salts from the soil. I will 

 substitute for the words you and your children 

 the term, the state, the nation. I confess I can 

 never pass this point without dreaming of what 

 might be if men only demanded in ;^overn- 

 mental business the same standards that they 

 insist upon in their private business. 



The primary object of forestry practice, then, 

 is to maintain the capital stock in a productive 

 condition. I take this to be the foundation 

 upon which all legitimate business rests — the 

 security of the investment. As business men 

 you make this your initial demand upon the 

 state. Do you or have you made the same de- 

 mand in behalf of the forests in which you are 

 part-owners, which yield revenues to the public 

 treasury, and so indirectly reduce the cost of 

 carrying on your business, whatever it may be? 



Some Business Data. 



Perhaps you have not the data at hand. Let 

 me answer the question for you. One-third of 

 the geographical area of Canada doubtless is in- 

 capable of producing trees of sawlog size be- 

 cause of the inhospitable climate or soil con- 

 ditions. The actual sawlog producting areas 

 probably do not total 500,000 square miles, 

 and at least one-half of this has been burned. 

 .Any of you who have travelled in the north 

 country or who has even ridden on the trans- 



continental railways must be fairly well con- 

 vinced that our forest capital has not been 

 maintained unimpaired and therefore, accord- 

 ing to our definition, the primary object of for- 

 estry practice has not yet been attained. 



The capital values destroyed by fire are in- 

 comprehensibly large. The effect of this loss 

 of wealth upon industry is already apparent, 

 for it has forced lumber concerns to seek mater- 

 ials each year farther and farther from the mar- 

 ket, which means that the consumer has to pay 

 more and more each year for the products of 

 the forest. We are using in Toronto forest pro- 

 ducts whose raw material came from the other 

 side of the height of land in the Hudson Bay 

 drainage basin. Think of the transportation 

 charges on that material! I see in this room 

 wood material which came from the Southern 

 States. The wages expended in converting the 

 raw material into the finished product went to 

 the citizens of another country and yet those 

 wages might have gone to our own citizens; 

 we could have the raw materials better adapted 

 for the purpose within 200 miles of Toronto, 

 if we had taken the first step in foresty practice, 

 that is, had we maintained our forest capital 

 unimpaired. 



How the Consumer Pays. 



We as consumers are paying heavily to-day 

 for our neglect of this elementary business pre- 

 caution, yet the failing of timber supplies 

 through the devastation of forest fires is not the 

 most serious aspect of the problem. Mother 

 nature is a great restorer; if undisturbed, she 

 eventually heals all wounds, and in time she 

 might recover our fire scarred forest areas with 

 commercially valuable trees, but, unfortunately, 

 she is not allowed to carry out her plans. The 

 forests are burned not once, but repeatedly. I 

 know areas that have been burned thirteen 

 times in the past 50 years. The repeated forest 

 fire is a vicious and destructive thing, for it 

 kills the young trees which are to make the 

 future forest and it kills the mother trees (seed 

 trees) which might, if allowed to live, replace 

 the destroyed young. 



One-half of our commercial timber lands have 

 been burned. ^ ou see, even if there never were 

 another forest fire, one-half of our future sup- 

 ply of timber should come from these areas. 

 Every fire decreases that possibility by destroy- 

 ing the young commercial trees. You cannot 

 kill the children for several generations and 

 look forward to the continuance of the race; 

 you cannot kill the young pine and the young 



