CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 73 



be placed under license. At the comparatively low rate of- $75 per mile, the bonus 

 on the licensing of those available berths would bring to the provincial treasury 

 $18,225,000, which spread over the one hundred years represents another annual 

 revenue of $182,250. 



VALUE FOR FARMERS AND WOODMEN. 



Now let us see what the exploitation of that forest wealth is worth for our 

 farmers and woodmen. For a basis of calculation, we will take the average current 

 prices actually paid by lumbermen to cut the timber and haul it to the river banks, 

 ready for the drive, or to railway stations, leaving out the wages representing the cost 

 of the drive. With this data, we form the following table: 



White pine, 30,725,000 M. at $6 $ 184,350,000 



Eed pine, 7,500,000 M. at $5. . . , 37,500,000 



Spruce, 107,000,000 M. at $4 428,000,000 



Banksian pine, 10,000,000 M. at $3 30,000,000 



Hemlock, 200,000 M. at $4 800,000 



Hard woods, 1,110,000 M. at $5 5,550,000 



White birch, 10,175,000 M. at $4 40,700,000 



Poplar, 10,265,000 M. at $3 30,795,000 



Pulp wood, 745,493,077 cords at $2.50 1,863,732,692 



Eailroad ties, 730,000,000 pieces at lOc 73,000,000 



Poles, 17,500,000 pieces at 50c 8,750,000 



Shingle blocks, 700,000 M. at $4.50 3,150,000 



Square timber, 30,000,000 cubic feet at lOc 3,000,000 



$2,709,327,692 



Divide this by 100 and you have $27,093,276 to be earned yearly by farmers and 

 woodmen for 100 years. And then there are the wages to be earned on the drive, in 

 the mills, and the freight to be earned by railways, which would foot up to about 

 $15,000,000 a year. 



Some will perhaps object that a large portion of this forest wealth is unavailable 

 and consequently worthless, because the timber cannot be taken out of the forest by 

 water. 



This objection can apply only to the forests in the territories of Mistassini and 

 Abitibi, for the rest of our forest domain is traversed in all directions by numberless 

 -ivers on which timber is driven to the mills, to the seashore and seaports, and to 

 railways which carry it to the great centres of trade and commerce. In this respect 

 few are the countries enjoying as good accommodation, as great advantages and as 

 much facility as the province of Quebec for the removal of timber from the forest, 

 particularly with regard to soft woods. The exploitation of these forests on a lesser 

 or larger scale is merely a question of demand for t?eir products and of necessity this 

 demand should increase with time, population and the exhaustion of forests in other 

 countries. 



Now, for the exploitation of the forests of Abitibi and Mistassini is there not a 

 bright prospect in the North-west Territories? Ere many years the five or ten mil- 

 lions of farmers who will have settled in these territories will want large quantities 

 of timber and lumber for their buildings; the thousands of miles of new railroads 

 which shall be built to carry the millions of bushels of grain raised in those vast 

 territories will require scores of millions of ties and considerable quantities of timber 

 and lumber. Are not the forests of Abitibi and Mistassini in a favourable position 

 to compete for this trade? The timber and logs could be so easily driven on the Nott- 

 away and Eupert rivers to the port at the mouth of these two great rivers and thence 



