CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 107 



points in the drainage area by the disturbances of the water stages, or the destruction 

 that may be wrought by floods as a direct result of the denudation of the hillsides. 

 The. same line of reasoning applies to climate. What possible interest has a capitalist 

 residing in Toronto or New York in maintaining a favourably humid atmosphere in 

 New Ontario or British Columbia? In this connection might also be mentioned the 

 value of the forest as a playground, as such it is admittedly unexcelled. In private 

 hands, however, it is all too common, that the area is fenced about and warning notices 

 by the score posted to warn the seeker after health and recreation that ' trespassers 

 will be prosecuted.' 



The time element in the maturing of a forest crop is an exceeding great barrier 

 to private forest management. There is no line of business in which men ordinarily 

 engage which requires the looking forward for more than a decade or at least two 

 decades. Wood growing, however, requires the constant planning in advance for 60, 

 80, 100, and even more than 100 years. So great indeed is this influence of the long 

 time element on the business of wood growing that the great law of supply and demand 

 is paralyzed. To illustrate: If the demand for wheat increases in relation to the 

 available supply, the price rises, the farmers sow a larger acreage and presently the 

 increased demand has resulted in an increased supply. The same is true of prac- 

 tically every commodity which may be reproduced or even mined, except wood. The 

 demand for wood has steadily risen during the last century. The prices notwithstand- 

 ing large natural supplies have steadily risen, and during the last decade as exhaus- 

 tion of supplies is seen in the distance have very rapidly risen. This rise in price 

 has not yet resulted in an increased production of wood nor will it judging from the 

 history of nations ever appreciably increa&e the production until the evils of a wood 

 famine have been long felt. On the contrary, although increased Semand means in- 

 creased prices, increased prices means increased harvesting. Increased harvesting 

 means in North America that larger areas be cut over and cut more closely. This on 

 account of the greater amount of debris leaves the forest in much worse condition 

 for the all but inevitable fire, and as a net result of the greater demand under private 

 ownership we have decreased production. 



The fire problem is essentially an educational problem. The stringent regulations 

 which are not only desirable but absolutely necessary for the safety of the forest must 

 be uniform on adjoining areas and must be at least moderately uniformly enforced. 

 Ideal regulations for the protection of the forest from fire strictly enforced here and 

 there by a few wise owners would lead to resentment and very probably reprisals on the 

 part of the careless, while the same regulations enforced uniformly throughout the 

 country by the government would be respected and presently lead to a much more in- 

 telligent appreciation on the part of the public of the importance of protecting the 

 forest from fire. The fact, too, that the influence of a fire on an area is by no means 

 confined to that area (as shown by the relation of forest and stream flow), but may be 

 of the utmost importance a hundred miles from the point when the fire actually oc- 

 curred gives the question of fire protection a distinctly public relation. 



Perhaps not the least of the reasons why the fee simple of forest lands should be 

 retained by the state is the fact that the profits of holding naturally grown timber lands 

 are very largely almost wholly due to the development of the country (a national 

 condition) and to the approaching exhaustion of the more valuable timber forests of 

 the "vor!d (an international condition) and are thus the property of the whole people, 

 and as such are more equitably employed in reducing taxation than in swelling the 

 private fortunes of speculators. The profits in holding lands for a rise in stumpage 

 have in recent years been very great. There are probably few present who do not know 

 of particular instances of forest lands having doubled, trebled and even quadrupled in 

 value during the last ten years. This increase in the value of stumpage is not alone 

 due to the increase in demand for wood products, but to the ending of the long period of 

 the giving away of timber lands which has been so recklessly practised alike by the vari- 

 ous states and by the United States national government, and the dawning of a day 

 when the great bulk of the available timber supplies in the United States are in the 



