50 CANADIAX FORESTRY \ssttri.\TION. 



:\fr. JONES. That was west of the Cascades. 



The CHAIRMAN. And if the lumber was shipped from the province the dues were 

 rebated one-half. 



Mr. JoxES.-^Not enforced. Those were the regulations with regard to lease-hold, 

 but the big majority is held under what is called a special license. Out there there 

 is no objection to pay the rental. 



The CHAIRMAN. Of course this question of a high ground rent is a very vexed 

 one. Whether it shall be high rent and low dues, or high dues and low rent. 



In the province of Ontario we have our ground rent fixed, by recent sales at five 

 dollars a mile. We sold one limit at any rate for which we got $31,500 bonus per 

 mile, and "then the licensee was subject to a royalty on the cut of timber. I apprehend 

 that they would have rather paid a very high ground rent, and have fifty cent dues ; 

 than been subject to that bonus or royalty on the cut. 



Mr. KNECHTEL. I would like to say a word in regard to the matter of cutting 

 timber to a diameter limit. There is a commonly accepted notion that if you go into 

 the forest and cut all the conifer timber down to say ten or twelve inches diameter, 

 you can go back after a certain period and make a similar second cut, getting as 

 much timber as at the first. Then again after a time you can make a third cut and 

 get as much timber as before, and so you can go on in that way for ever. 



I believe that to be a fallacious notion, and 1 believe it for this reason. The 

 seeding of the conifer trees is not going on sufficiently rapidly to keep up a forest 

 lumbered thus periodically. 



In our forests in New York, and in the forests iu .New Brunswick I am fami- 

 liar with Canada to a certain extent, being a Canadian, there is a mixture of 

 timber, hardwoods and conifers. The hardwoods have several advantages over the 

 conifers. They seed more often, and they will germinate and grow anywhere in the 

 forest, but the conifers need good mineral soil. The hardwoods do not need such 

 good soil conditions, and they are more resistant to fire, but their greatest advantage 

 lies in their ability to sprout from the root. If you cut down a spruce, or a pine, or 

 a balsam or a hemlock, to replace it another must grow from the seed, while if you cui 

 down a maple or birch, or chestnut, or almost any other hard wood, many may spring 

 from the root. 



Four years ago I made a study for the United States Bureau of Forestry in re- 

 gard to the seeding of the commercial species of trees, in the Adirondacks. This 

 study was made in the primitive forest, in township 5 in the Adirondacks. 



I had two boys with me to assist me, and we went into the woods and selected 

 quarter acre patches here and there. When we came to a place where I wanted to 

 make a study, I had one of the boys stand in the forest and the other ran out a tape 

 line fifty-nine feet. Then we blazed the trees around at a distance of fifty-nine feefc 

 from the boy who was standing in the woods. This gave a quarter of an acre circle. 



Then we marked off in this quarter acre eight squares, fifteen feet on the side, and 

 set stakes at the corners. The boys then pulled up all the little trees that were on 



