One Hundred Thousand Miles Surveyed. 



The lecturer then went on to explain in detail the instruc- 

 tions given the officers in charge for prosecuting their work. 

 After dealing with this he said that since 1909 the dominion 

 forestry branch had placed in the field 34 reconnaissance par- 

 ties and these had covered an area of a little more than 100,000 

 square miles in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the rail- 

 way belt in British Columbia. This area was largely distrib- 

 uted in a belt north of the prairies. Another year would give, 

 he hoped, a solid belt of examined land from the western 

 boundary of Ontario to the Rocky Mountains. The cost of 

 these surveys averaged about 60 or 65 cents per square mile. 



The Loss From Fires. 



The information so far compiled showed that at least 80 per 

 cent of the area examined between Lake Winnipeg and the 

 Rocky Mountains had been burned over during the last 50 to 

 75 years. 



The white spruce, the tree best adapted to these regions, 

 was comparatively scarce because of having, after these fires, 

 been replaced, at least temporarily, by aspen. At the preesnt 

 time aspen which in Northern Europe was considered one of 

 the worst enemies of foresters and lumbermen, who the lead- 

 ing tree. It was hoped, however, that efficient fire protection 

 would help spruce to get into its own again. On sandy soils 

 the jack pine in the east and lodgepole pine in the west were 

 the species par excellence. 



Canada's Great Opportunity. 



From a careful study of all the data available Mr. Wallin 

 was of opinion that, with the exception of the muskegs and 

 high altitudes in the Rockies, the non-agricultural land in the 

 country examined, if properly protected, was nearly all capa- 

 able of producing excellent spruce and jackpine timber under 

 a comparatively short rotation. Foresters should do all they 

 could to see that logged-over and burned areas were restocked 

 with spruce or jack pine. If they could succeed in this there 

 was no reason why Canada should not have timber for export 



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