Canadian Forestry Journal, December, 1919 



485 



IS ONTARIO PREPARED TO ACT? 



The Canadian Forestry Association has laid before Hon, E, C. Drury, Prime Minister 

 of Ontario, a plan for the reorganization of the provincial scheme of forest management. 

 It involves two major changes: 



The transfer of the entire woods administration to the control of the Provincial 

 Forester and a staff of experienced technical men. This would concentrate the manage- 

 ment of the forest resources in the hands of a single branch, technically qualified for such 

 important duties; 



It would provide for carrying on a public duty for which no provision to-day exists, 

 viz: the supervising of timber cutting and the ensuring of permanently productive forests 



Secondly, the appointment of a Forest Advisory Board, similar to the New Brunswick 

 Board, consisting of three Government members and two representatives of the wood- 

 using industries, to have full authority over the selection and appointment of all fire- 

 rangers, timber-sealers, and other employees, thus ridding the staff of patronage inter- 

 ference and securing discipline and efficiency. 



There is not at the present time one technical forester in any administrative relation 

 to the 15,000,000 acres of licensed timber berths of Ontario. | 



The suggested reforms in Ontario forest administration are not designed to upset j 

 ordinary commercial methods of logging, any more than they do in Quebec, New } 

 Brunswick and British Columbia, where all timber operations are under control of the | 



Provincial Forest Services. I 



1 



The lumber and paper industries in Ontario are of vast economic magnitude and the 

 utilization of spruce and balsam supplies for pulp and paper is only on the edge of a { 

 wonderful development. It behooves the Province, therefore, to insure the permanence 

 of the raw materials of the living forest by better fire protection and better methods of 

 logging. Permanence in the forest itself is the aim of good Forestry. The migratory 

 forest, the transient sawmill, the effervescent lumber town are incidents of a primitive 

 civilization and the absence of modern scientific method in handling timber areas. 



Ontario is master of its conservation policies. The main areas of the more valu- 

 able timber lands are owned by the Provincial Government. 



the provincial borders, owing largely to 

 the great demand created by forest depbtion 

 in the eastern United States. The latter, once 

 richly forested, are now so reduced by forest 

 fires and industrial exploitation that there is 

 not a ten years' supply of spruce for the exist- 

 ing mills and no possibility of new pulp enter- 

 prises getting under way. It is estimated that 

 the United States clears off 20,000 acres of 

 timber a day to meet its requirements and much 

 of this is not being left in a condition to pro- 



duce another crop in any reasonable length of 

 time. Ontario stands to gain by this ex- 

 haustion of basic supplies south of the border, 

 but the gain can be but temporary unless the 

 management of Ontario's forests is guided by 

 a constructive modern policy, looking toward 

 the systematic growing of successive timber 

 crops on non-agricultural lands. 



THE MARKET SHOWS IT. 



Again, the presence of 20 to 25 billion feet 

 ot white pi.'-e may appear a l.irge supply, ^et 



