'•>S2 



Ulustratcd Canadian Forestry Magazine, December, i(j20 



our woods operations is men who will 

 think out new mechanical methods for 

 gettin^^ put the small amounts of timber 

 per acre which stand in our Eastern 

 forests so that we can cut down the ex- 

 pense of our logging operations. 



The Yield of the Future. 



Another thing which is of the utmost 

 importance is the question cjf the con- 

 tinued yield of our forest lands. In the 

 language of ,a forester, wo have got to 

 come to a basis of sustained yield. We 

 are not going to be able any longer to 

 mine the timber from our forests as we 

 have mined our coal and metals and oil. 

 The forest is not and never was intended 

 to be mined ; it is a growing crop and it 

 must be handled on entirely different 

 lines than our mining operations. 



In order to do this and do it practically, 

 'there have got to be some laws in logging 

 enforced so that the forest after logging 

 will be left in a condition where it can 

 continue to produce trees. The time has 

 gone by when we can go into the forest 

 and cut down trees here and there and 

 everywhere, burn up the forest by care- 

 lessness. We have got to leave the forest 

 in a condition to give us another crop and 

 not only another crop but a crop in the 

 very shortest possible time. 



A Temporary Rise in Cost. 



In order to do this, we have got to 

 adopt some selective system of cutting. 

 This, of course, will naturally raise the 

 cost of our timber, but only temporarily, 

 mind you. Once this system is establish- 

 ed, the cost of logging instead of rising 

 constantly as it does at the present time, 

 will more or less average itself out over 

 a series of years. To make this clear by 

 an example, take a new tract of territory 

 and follow out its history. Especially as 

 we have logged in Eastern Canada, going 

 into a new tract, a logging operation 

 would commence on a river or on a lake 

 and all of the timber wdiich could be got- 

 ten out easily and cheaply would be taken 

 out the first year at a very low cost. The 

 second year the operating would have to 

 go back a little further with rising costs. 

 The third, fourth and fifth years, it would 

 be necessary to go further back, with the 

 costs still rising. 



If the timber had been taken out back 



to the watershed the first year, the cost 

 of that year's operations would have been 

 great, but all the timber from the river 

 right back to the end of the oj)eration 

 would have been brought out at once. 

 The next year the same thing would liave 

 been done with costs a])proximatc'ly the 

 same, so that while the cost would liave 

 been higher the first year, over a series 

 of years the cost would have been uni- 

 form. 



TJie Jobber to f-lhune. 

 h^verybody knows that when you let a 

 contract to a jobber or contractor to go 

 into the woods, he is not going to care 

 about your interests at all ; he is going 

 to take out the timber which it is easy 

 for him to get out and which will net him 

 the biggest profit, and this system of 

 using contractors and jobbers has l)een 

 the runiation of more forest areas than 

 anything else I know of. It ,was an easy 

 way to get out the logs and a fairly cheap 

 way, but when you consider the results 

 in the long run, we are going to be a 

 great many years in paying for that sort 

 of logging operation. 



I >vould like to prophesy a little bit as 

 to the future of logging operations. From 

 what I can see of the trend of atTairs in 

 the West and some of the things which 

 are taking place in Scandinavia, and 

 when I think of what has been accom- 

 plished in the change of methods in our 

 paper mills and in our great industries, 

 I look forward to the time when our log- 

 ging operations will be carried on much 

 more by machinery than they are at the 

 present time. I think we are just on the 

 verge of having a mechanical saw which 

 can be carried around easily from tree to 

 tree and with which one or two men can 

 do the work of a dozen. I think that it 

 will only be a very short time until w'e 

 will have a machine very much like the 

 pneumatic or electric drill at the present 

 day with which the branches can be taken 

 otT the trees and can be swamped much 

 more economically than at the present 

 time. I think that American ingenuity 

 will very soon develop types of tractors 

 or mechanical haulers which will enable 

 us to get our timber out to much better 

 advantage and much cheaper than the 

 present method of skidding it out with 

 horses. 



