408 



Canadian Forestry Journal, October, 1919 



BIG COMPANIES TRY OUT FORESTRY METHODS 



Establish Experimental Plots to Test Local 

 Value of Many Logging Schemes 



Propagarda for the better treatment of our 

 woodlands has always carried a prominent and 

 noteworthy characteristic in the sympathy and 

 co-operation of the lumbermen. The meetmg 

 of foresters and lumbermen in frank and open 

 discussion of their problems invariably excites 

 comment of admiration and envy from the 

 visiting foresters from other countries. A strik- 

 ing characteristic has been friendly co-opera- 

 tion- in discussion. Foresters and lumbermen 

 have met and talked and made resolutions on 

 the advisability of doing certain things for the 

 benefit of the forest. They have separated to 

 meet again next year to talk and make more 

 resolutions. They have been doing this for 

 thirty years and they have accomplished much 

 in an educational way. But in reality the for- 

 ests can be improved only by action in the for- 

 est, not in the office chair, not in the hotel 

 corridor, not even at the banquet table. How- 

 ever, the more progressive foresters and lum- 

 bermen have realized this and so it has come 

 to pass that theories are to be put into practice. 

 Indeed, the only way to determine whether or 

 not a theory will work is to try it — a self- 

 evident fact lost sight of by other men than 

 those interested in the welfare of the forests. 



The Bathurst Lumber Company in co-opera- 

 tion with the New Brunswick Forest Service is 

 carrying on experimental cuttings on 500 acres 

 of undersized spruce on the Nipisguit river. A 

 portion of the area is being cut under the strip 

 system. Strips from one chain wide to three 

 chains wide are cut clean, with strips two chains 

 wide between, uncut or lightly culled. A por- 

 tion is being cut clean in more or less circular 

 patches of various sizes, comprising one-quarter 

 acre to two acres in extent. Other portions are 

 being thinned by cutting to 10, 8 and 6 inch 

 diameter limits respectively. The slash on one- 

 half the area of each cutting system is to be 

 burned and on the other half unburned. The 

 Provincial Forest Service furnishes a forest 

 engineer who, in co-operation with Mr. Lordon, 

 of the Bathurst Lumber Company, will carry out 

 the plans of the cutting. 



The Laurentide Company in co-operation with 

 the Quebec Forest Service will undertake sim- 

 ilar experimental cutting in a stand of 300 

 acres, mostly culled for pine only, on Cache 

 lake, whose waters reach the St. Maurice river 

 at Rapid Blanc. The area contains a peat bog, 

 a merchantable black spruce swamp, balsam 

 and spruce ridges, a merchantable stand arising 

 from an old burn, and mature spruce and bal- 

 sam in various degrees of mixture with hard- 

 woods, so that most of the types in which 

 logging operations are being conducted in 

 Quebec are represented on this comparatively 

 small area. The Logging Department and the 

 Forestry Division of the Laurentide Company 

 and the Provincial Forest Service will co-oper- 

 ate in carrying out details of the cutting. 



On both areas a careful record will be made 

 of the cost of slash burning. 



The Commission of Conservation at Ottawa 

 has the task of measuring and recording the 

 results on each of these experimental areas. 

 Sample acres will be laid off and the volume of 

 wood fibre and rate of growth under the pres- 

 ent and past conditions will be ascertained and 

 will be used as the standard to mea.uire the 

 results of the various methods of cutting in 

 terms of future growth. The investigations will 

 include the effect of cutting to various diameter 

 limits upon windfall, diameter increment, vol- 

 ume accretion, the growth of the young trees 

 already established in the stands, and the re- 

 production of the commercial species after the 

 cutting. The areas upon which the slash is 

 burned and those upon which it is unburned 

 will be used for a comparative study of the 

 effects of these two conditions upon reproduc- 

 tion and, in co-operation with the Dominion 

 Entomological Branch, upon the prevalence of 

 insect diseases. These areas (burned and un- 

 burned) will also be studied in a comparative 

 way by an expert from the standpoint of breed- 

 ing ground for the various heart-rot diseases 

 of spruce and balsam. 



This work will be carried on during the log- 

 ging operations and will doubtless occupy a 



