422 



Canadian Forestry Journal, October, 1919 



REFORESTATION AS A POSTWAR POLICY 



An important item of post-war policy in 

 both France and Great Britain will unques- 

 tionably be an extensive programme of re- 

 forestation. Without the products of the plant- 

 ed forests of France, the prosecution of the war 

 would have been handicapped to an extremely 

 serious extent. It is hardly putting it too 

 strongly to say that, had it not been for the 

 French forests, the war could scarcely have 

 been won certainly not without an incom- 

 parably greater effort and much greater loss 

 of life than has proved necessary. The limited 

 timber supplies of the British Isles have also 

 proved so vital a factor in connection with the 

 home situation that plans are already being 

 laid for a very extensive programme of refor- 

 esting waste lands at state expense or by 

 state aid. 



The economic Importance to Canada of her 

 ,great forest areas is no less apparent. The 

 value of our primary forest products exported 

 from the country during the past year totalled 

 some $200,000,000. The pulp and paper in- 

 dustry exports products valued at some $85,- 

 000,000 annually. The importance of per- 

 petuating a resource that assists so largely in 

 redressing our unfavorable trade balance can 

 scarcely be over-emphasized. 



The first and most vitally necessary step to- 

 ward handling our forests as crops, rather than 

 mines, is, of course, the prevention of fires. 

 Great progress has been made in this direction 

 during recent years, though much still remains 

 to be accomplished. 



The next step should be the adoption and 

 strict enforcement of improved cutting regula- 

 tions in connection with all logging operations 

 on Crown lands. The situation in this respect 

 is least satisfactory in the province of Ontario 

 and on Dominion licensed timber lands in the 

 west. 



Another step, toward which extensive plans 

 should soon be made, is the reforestation of 

 the more accessible areas of non-agricultural 

 lands, on which the forest growth has been so 

 completely destroyed by successive fires that 

 regeneration of valuable species by natural 

 means can not take place for a very long per- 

 iod of time, if at all. Such a policy of refor- 

 estation on Crown lands must, as a rule, be 

 carried out by governmental agencies, on ac- 

 count of the long time-element involved before 

 returns can be secured. Both Ontario and 

 Quebec have provincial forest nurseries, from 

 which many million young trees have been sup- 

 plied to farmers and other private interests, in- 

 cluding pulp and paper companies and, to a 

 much smaller extent, to lumbermen. The for- 

 est revenue from Crown lands in both these pro- 

 vinces is so large that the annual expenditure 

 of a moderate proportion of it on reforesta- 

 tion of denuded Crown lands would appear 

 both feasible and logical. Experience indicates 

 clearly that such a project can be made at- 

 tractive from the view-pomt of a long-time in- 

 vestment. — Conservation. 



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