78 CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



much higher prices than white pine limits were twenty-five years ago. And I will 

 venture to say that in many cases there is more clear money in the exploitation of 

 a black spruce berth, where it is favourably situated, than there is in the exploitation 

 of an average white pine limit. 



THE PRINCIPAL CAUSES OF THIS EVOLUTION. 



That the neighbouring states of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Ver- 

 mont and New York want timber from the province of Quebec, is a fact beyond ser- 

 ious contestation. Masses of statistics, of a more or less reliable character, have been 

 published to prove the contrary. I will not worry in an attempt at refuting those 

 statistics, but I will mention a few facts which will show the consideration which 

 those statistics deserve. 



The official trade returns show that we export yearly to the United States 

 many millions worth of timber and lumber. If our neighbours have at home all the 

 wood they want, why do they come here to get so much of ours and pay the cost of 

 transportation, besides and above the intrinsic value of the wood ? 



The same remarks apply to pulpwood. The census of the United States shows 

 that in 1900 the American pulp and paper mills consumed 349,084 cords of Canadian 

 costing on the average $6.50 a cord, and 1,160,118 cords of American spruce, 

 costing on the average $4.81 a cord, or $1.69 less than the Canadian wood. This re- 

 presents a difference of $589,942. Why would the American manufacturers pay us 

 that difference, if really they can find at home all the pulpwood they want, of the 

 same quality and as 'conveniently situated? They also bought from us 20,133 cords 

 of poplar to manufacture it into pulp, besides the 236,820 cords they produced at 

 home. That was not sufficient, however, to meet all the requirements and the pulp 

 mills consumed 220,155 cords of inferior woods, as regards pulp making, such as 

 yellow birch, hemlock and kindred stuffs. If they have at home all the good wood 

 they require and growing in situations where it is available, why do they use those 

 poor woods, which can only yield products of the lowest grade? 



I would not like to be understood as pretending that the forests of the New Eng- 

 land states and New York are depleted or completely exhausted, which is not the 

 case; but I maintain that practical exhaustion is near at hand through a large por- 

 tion of those forests and that another portion, well timbered as it may be, is un- 

 available on account of the absence of waterways to take the products out of the 

 forest, or of its remoteness from railways and inaccessibility to railroad transpor- 

 tation. 



Nearly one-fourth of the best forests of northern Maine is in this predicament. 

 To bring that wood to the large mills of Rumford Falls, which control mostly all the 

 cut of that timber, they would have to float it down the St. John river, and thence 

 iise railways to carry it several hundred miles inland to the mills, which is profit- 

 ably impractical. As a matter of fact, some of the proprietors of these wood lands 

 sell the cut of this timber to the St. John's mills, to which it is of easy access by 

 water. This, nevertheless, materially lessens the possibilities of Maine, as a pulp- 

 wood producing state, and in this respect, it is the state which above all others is 

 endowed with the largest resources. In 1900, if the census is correct, the pulp mills 

 of Maine used 20,638 cords of spruce imported from the province of Quebec and for 

 which they paid an average price of $8.24 per cord. During the same year, they, 

 used 265,359 cords of domestic spruce, which they got for $4.99 a cord, delivered at 

 the mills, or $3.25 less than the Canadian spruce. Why would those mills pay $3.25 

 more per cord for Canadian spruce, if they have at home all the wood they want and 

 of the quality they require ? Of the 196,180 cords of spruce manufactured in the 

 Mills of New Hampshire, 87,139 cords, or 44:11 per cent, came from the province of 

 Quebec. The mills in Vermont consumed 56,958 cords of spruce, of which 25,442 

 were brought from our province. The mills of the state of New York, representing 



