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CaiutiUaii I-'orestry JoiirnaL April, i()20. 



the fire fighters in the forest, and 

 the consumer of forest products will 

 pay the cost. 



Our Man-Made Deserts. 



At least one half, and probably 

 very much more, of our commercial 

 forest bearing area has l)een burned 

 in the past three-quarters of a cen- 

 tury, and consequently does not now 

 contain timber of saw log size. This 

 is a very deplorable fact. Nature, 

 "however, is a great restorer ; in time 

 she heals all wounds. So in time 

 she might recover those 1,000,000 

 square miles of burned country with 

 commercial trees. She often begins 

 the process, but man interferes by al- 

 lowing the young trees to be burned. 

 Nature tries again, but man the 

 second time kills the young trees she 

 has sown, and so on repeatedly. Man 

 has out-Pharaohed Pharaoh in his 

 treatment of the forest. He has killed 

 not only the first born, but the 

 second, third, fourth and successive 

 generations of young commercial 

 trees. I know areas in the Ontario 

 pnieries that have been burned thir- 

 teen times in the past fifty years. 

 There are thousands of square miles 

 of one time productive forest lands 

 in Canada which are being gradually 

 transformed into man-made deserts 

 from the standpoint of commercial 

 species through the agency of repeat- 

 ed fires. This state of afifairs is little 

 known or appreciated by the general 

 public. They think so long as non- 

 agricultural land is covered with trees 

 all is well, when as a matter of fact 

 the country is growing poorer all the 

 time if commercially valuable trees 

 are replaced by trees of inferior mar- 

 ket value, as always happens in the 

 case of repeated forest fires. The chief 

 object of a forester is to cover non- 

 agricultural lands — and to keep them 

 covered — with the largest quantity of 

 the highest priced trees possible. That 

 is only another way of saying that a 

 forester is a business man who is 

 trying to get the largest and longest 

 continued financial return possible 

 fro mthe capital his emplo5>-er has in- 

 vested in the land. 



Let us come back to the classifica- 

 tion of forest lands. We have found 

 that one half commercial forested area 

 does not at this time contain saw 

 logs because of destruction by forest 

 fires. By saw logs I mean trees 12 

 inches or over in diameter. How much 

 we can depend on the extensive burn- 

 ed areas for the future supply of com- 

 mercial trees unfortunately we don't 

 know at the present time. So far as 

 area goes, one half our future supply 

 should come from these burned-over 

 lands. So far as our knowledge does 

 go, however, the outlook is not very 

 encouraging for such reports as we 

 have indicate that about one-third to 

 one-half the burned over lands are not 

 reproducing the valuable species in 

 potentially commercial quantities. A 

 careful survey of conditions and study 

 of the rate of growth on the old burns 

 is imperatively demanded before we 

 can make any reasonable prophecy 

 as to the future supply of timber — 

 in eastern Canada especially. Such 

 work has already been initiated on a 

 small scale by the Dominion Forestry 

 Branch, the Commission of Conserva- 

 tion at Ottawa, and by your own Pro- 

 vincial Forest Branch. It is earnestly 

 hoped that funds may be supplied for 

 the immediate and continued exten- 

 sion of such investigations. 



Subtracting the 1,000,000 square 

 miles of burned forest lands from the 

 total forested area, we find there are 

 900,000 square miles of unburn ed for- 

 est in Canada. More than half this 

 great area, or about 500,000 square 

 miles, does not contain much saw 

 timber (trees larger than 12 inches in 

 diameter), but probably enormous 

 quantities of pulpwood. I refer to the 

 Ungava-Hudson Bay drainage region. 

 Large trees are found only along the 

 stream courses and on the flats 

 around lakes. On the upland areas 

 the trees run from six to eight inches 

 in diameter on the average, and they 

 are full grown, in fact over 100 years 

 old. 



Continviing our deductions, we find 

 that we possess only about 400,000 



