334 Canadian Forestry Journal. July. IQ20. 



The Training of a Forester 



By Dr. C. T>. Howe, 

 Acting Dean, Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto 



A.n Interesting Description of an Undergraduate Forester's 

 Training in Canadian Forest Schools 



■ The education of a forestry student 

 •centres upon and rc\olves about a liv- 

 ing tree, since the chief object of the 

 forestry profession is the production of 

 trees for utilization by the various 

 wood-using industries. So long as 

 nature unaided produces trees in 

 quality fit for the manufacturing arts, 

 in quantity as great as that used by 

 lumbermen and destroyed by disease, 

 fire and wind ; there is no economic 

 necessity for creating trained brain 

 power to be applied to the production 

 of trees in order to supply the manu- 

 facturing industries. Such need de- 

 velops slowly, and is dependent upon 

 many economic and industrial factors. 

 The realization of the need comes even 

 more slowdy, for public opinion is 

 lethargic, often insensible to the solu- 

 tion of problems whose effects lie be- 

 yond the present, and the making of 

 trees for pulp-wood spans one gene- 

 ration, and the production of good saw 

 logs spans two generations of men. 

 Of necessity foresters have been more 

 propagandists than foresters in the 

 strict interpretation of the word. After 

 thirty years of unremitting toil the 

 tide is beginning to turn in their favor. 

 The oft-repeated statements that over 

 one-half the commercially forested 

 area of Canada, about 1.000,000 square 

 miles, has been burned, and that forest 

 destruction by fire still continues prac- 

 tically unabated, except in wet seasons, 

 in some of the most valuable forest 

 regions in the country, are bearing 

 fruit, and the significance of such facts 

 in relation to the future prosperity of 

 Canada is beginning to penetrate the 

 public consciousness. In order to 

 maintain at reasonable cost continuous 

 supplies of w^ood for the industries, 

 forestry should begin with forests 

 which nature has made and not with 

 •deserts that man has made. It is both 



illogical and expensive to destroy and 

 build anew after many years what 

 might have been kept continuously 

 ])roductive under intelligent direction. 

 It must be admitted, however, that re- 

 cent events such as the soaring prices 

 of lumber and newsprint, the dis- 

 closures of callous indifference to the 

 just dues of the people on the part of 

 those charged with the administration 

 of the forests in certain portions of the 

 country, the possibility of strained in- 

 ternational relations over pulpwood ex- 

 ports, the scramble for supplies in far 

 remote regions of the country on the 

 part of certain great wood-using indus- 

 tries have focussed the attention of the 

 public upon the necessity of conserv- 

 ing our forest resources. In fact. 

 some of the conditions foretold by pro- 

 pagandists are already upon us, con- 

 ditions which we are in a measure un- 

 prepared to meet because we have not 

 developed a sufficient number of men 

 properly trained to solve some of the 

 most urgent problems, and a good por- 

 tion of these very problems are con- 

 cerned with the habits and pecidiarities 

 of our most valuable trees. 



The Tree as a Starting Point. 

 ^^"ith this introduction, I will come 

 back to my first statement. For the 

 actual practice of forestry, the tree or 

 rather an aggregation of trees, the 

 stand, is the nucleus about which all 

 knowledge revolves. In the first place 

 the forestry student is introduced to 

 trees as individuals. He studies their 

 characteristics as revealed by their 

 flowers, fruits, leaves and bark, and he 

 learns how to recognize them and call 

 them by name when he meets them in 

 the forest. A tree is a plant, and in 

 many ways the most successful plant 

 nature has ever produced. Thus in 

 order that the student may gain a pro- 

 per perspective he is given a course in 



