Canadian Forestry Journal, July, 1919 317 



quarter of the Forest Service has apphed the nucleus of sylviculture managemnt. As to 

 the power of a Canadian Government to revoke a timber cutting license, this is not exer- 

 cised except for flagrant breach of regulations; and over much of the licensed area official 

 supervision of operators is yet so slight as to make the operator's conscience the main 

 crutch for statutory observances. 



Although in all civilized lands forest materials enter into the processes of production 

 to an amazing extent some nations, as the United Kingdom, manage to maintain com- 

 merce even with the handicap of importing seven-eights of all wood materials used. 

 Canada, however, maintains foreign trade in normal times on the strength of primary 

 products, and the products of the forests occupy a place in the export trade of Canada 

 second only to those of agriculture. In the fifty-one years since Confederation, the values 

 of various classes of exports have been as follows: Agricultural products, $2,010,298,01 I ; 

 animal products, $1,743,974,236; the forest, $1,418,568,514; the mine, $849,845,443; 

 the fisheries, $485,298,526; manufacturers, $898,623,720; miscellaneous, $20,857,806; 

 total exports, $7,427,466,256. Our agriculturists, producing cereals and live-stock, are 

 prolific wood consumers, employing about six times as much building wood per capita 

 as the European farmer. Our fishermen rely upon cheap wood supplies for their fishing 

 nets, their boxes, barrels, and buildings. The coal mines of Nova Scotia and Alberta 

 stand helpless without pit props. To meet the thousands of producers in the irrigated 

 sections of Alberta is to recognize one of the foremost services performed by the forests of 

 the eastern slopes of the Rockies, that of maintenance of stream flow. Not only, then, 

 is the forest in Canada to be identified as the supplier of the lumbering and paper-making 

 industries, but in its contributory relations to all other natural resources and forms of de- 

 velopment it is an absolutely essential balance wheel. 



The total area of forested lands in the Dominion is approximately four hundred 

 million acres. As to timber contents, British Columbia tops all the provinces with about 

 three hundred billion board feet, one-half the amount of timber growing in the whole 

 country. Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, Alberta, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan and 

 Manitoba rank in the order given. Canadian forest conditions to-day, however, represent 

 a strong modification of those existing even a century ago. At the time of the Napoleonic 

 wars, Canadian soil under plow crops formed a trifling contrast to the vast regions of 

 untouchd timber. Always we have had the barrens of Ungava and the far-reaching 

 profitless tracts sweeping north-westerly to the mouth of the Mackenzie River, where only 

 petty vegetation thrives. The treeless prairie, then as now, almost devoid of trees, covers 

 a triangular shaped wedge extending from eastern Manitoba to the Rocky Mountains, the 

 apex penetrating 260 miles north of the international boundary, on the North Saskatche- 

 wan River. 



(To be continued in August issue.) 



$14,000,000 FOR FOREST ROADS 



A safer insurance against devastating forest in the national forests came in 19 12 whon the 

 fires, a realization of the recreational advantages so-called 10 per cent fund was formed. It pro- 

 in endless miles of wooded scenery, and a fuller vide J that 10 per cent of all receipts from the 

 comprehension of commercial benefits accruing national forest funds be used in the construe- 

 through the linking up of national forests widi tion and maintenance of forest roads. It was 

 bordering highways are the impelling motives not necessary that the state or states in which 

 in the programme for the coming year for build- the roads to be constructed should co-operate 

 ing 1,643.3 miles of forest roads under the sup- financially in the venture. The only stipula- 

 ervision of the United States Forest Service. tion was that the money should be spent in the 



The first federal effort towards road building same district as that from which it was derived. 



